Too many times in history Christians have misunderstood what the Bible says about submitting to government authorities to the point of being inactive in the moments leading up to tyranny upon the people. Government unchecked seems to navigate towards tyranny unless there are checks and balances to preserve it as Lincoln famously stated in his Gettysburg address “… that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

In this episode, the Tolpins share examples of civil disobedience in the Bible and modern ones as well. They teach what to do if your church closes and how to be prepared to run or participate in a Home Church.

In This Episode We Cover:

1. Biblical Examples of Civil Disobedience
2. Modern Examples of Civil Disobedience
3. What To Do if Your Church Closes
4. How To Do Home Church
5. Resources That Teach Your Kids History

Weekly Tip and Date Night One Sheet SUBSCRIBE HERE

Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show with parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom, and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically.

Based on the raw truth found in the Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting.

Welcome to the podcast, we said a little prayer before this one, didn’t we, because this is take to take to it’s going to be even better.

Lord willing, you guys, we shot this this morning, and it was it went so well. Yeah, it was awesome. And then we found out what I found out a couple hours ago. I don’t know how long you knew.

Yeah, but there was a crackling in our audio so we couldn’t give that to you so late at night, sir. And again, 10:00 pm.

Yeah, here we go. So this is a good one, though, and it’s furthering the discussion from last week’s when a civil disobedience biblical.

And this one is the church meeting and civil disobedience, which is about more than just church, whether we’re able to go to church or not and so forth. But such an important discussion right now. And if you’re wondering why are they talking about this at Christmas time, if you’re listening right now, I know historically people will be listening to this all parts of the year. But, yeah, it’s because we did a Christmas episode a few weeks ago. You can go check that out. And, you know, we felt called to talk about this. We get lots of questions about this. And we wanted to make sure we’re giving you timely information that is most satisfying to you.

That’s right. So we’ll also we will be sharing a passage of scripture that actually has to do with the Christmas testimony, historical aspect of Jesus coming into the world because some people were actually disobedient to the king.

Yeah. And at the end of his life, as promised, we’re going to give you the practical if you need to know how to participate, find or start a home church, we’re going to give you a practical, simplified what to do on that. And that’ll be at the end. We all often give really good stuff at the end. So stay engaged all the way through and we’ll give it to you.

So I think some people might be listening to this one for the first time, listening to the podcast. Yeah. And so because I was thinking about that, I thought it would be good to just share with them that we were about to hit our two year anniversary of the podcast.

I think it’s this week and it is this week. We we launched our first episode, Christmas Week two thousand eighteen.

So one episode at the end of eighteen. Yeah. So, so funny.

So funny. And so, you know the numbers better than I do, but we are getting really close to hitting the smiles.

Literally.

This episode will put it over a million downloads likely.

So you might see us celebrate a little bit on social media.

So we’re very close, just about over a million just a day or so away from a million downloads. And that is so exciting. We might even be there right now. I haven’t actually looked at it real, real close, but we’re so close to that. And what an incredible experience God is doing this. He told us through this, he’s blessed it. And you are part of the one million legacy’s moving one million legacies movement.

Now, one million downloads doesn’t mean one million families. Right. But actually, it could mean one more than one million legacies because of all the kids that are impacted by all the parents that are listening, because this is a generational ministry. That’s the vision at least. So you guys are a part of that. That’s very exciting. I was actually telling our kids this on our way home because we were finishing. Yeah, some Christmas shopping.

And Andrew goes, Mom, how come I’m just now hearing this one million? That’s huge. Why do we celebrate it?

Because it’s been a family effort. Yeah. The big kids have helped with babysitting the Younger’s when we’ve when we’ve shot podcasts during the day. Right now, most of them are asleep.

And it’s about way more than the podcast if you’ve been around for ages, parenting dot com. We have a parent mentor program. Actually, a library, of course, is now books and more to come. We’re going to send an email out and a really detailed and good update out to everybody. So if you’re not on our email list yet, I would do it to get that, but also just to stay in contact with us. You never know which social platforms will be on and how things change and all of the different things. I know some of you build on Facebook and Instagram, for example. You know, we noticed that actually because of some of the new rules going out, we’re going to stay on Facebook and Instagram for the time being. But we are switching to rumble soon for video and parler and parler. And we’ll be looking at other things, too. So it’s an interesting times and we’ve got to adapt to change doing so. That’s right. Anyway, so let’s dive into this. Why don’t you go through the agenda.

Awesome. So we are going to be talking about biblical examples of civil disobedience. So in last week’s podcast, we didn’t really go into detail of what we covered. And if you didn’t listen to that, this is really a part two to last week’s. Episode, and they’re both on similar topics, but when we finish that one hour episode, Isaac and I both were like, we need to talk about actual examples that are in scripture where there was biblical civil disobedience. Right. And so we are going to cover quite a few scriptures today. This one’s a meaty podcast.

Yeah. And then we’re going to go over modern examples after the biblical ones and then we’re going to talk about church and you’re going to end it with and I’m going to end it with some resources that you can use for teaching your kids and many of you.

I know how intentional are following those are amazing people, like minded, courageous parents, actually. And so I. I know that many of you guys, for example, have had some of your kids that are ages eight to 12 read Why Wigwam biography. Right, of Missionaries of Heroes of History. And so anyway, we’re going to be sharing some other resources that we have used, which are actually testimonies of people who have been, in a sense, disobedient to some of the governments that they were under.

Yeah, they’re good examples. So we have to equip confident Christian kids for an uncertain world. It’s growing and uncertainty all the time, not in fear, but the anticipation of being an impact for the gospel in the world. And sometimes that involves standing for truth and sometimes that involves standing for truth and protecting certain rights so that it doesn’t lead to tyranny that hurts future generation, future generations.

And, you know, it’s interesting because we’ve used the word disobedience multiple times where parenting ministry and we teach parents how to teach their kids to be more obedient. That’s one of the things one of the things that God has laid on our hearts. And here we are talking about biblical reasons why. So before we dive into our agenda, we thought that it would be really good for us to be clear with you guys what we are not condoning, what we do not condone regarding civil disobedience and what we are condoning. So what we don’t condone is any form of violence, disrespectful meanness, anything that would be the opposite of what God calls us to actually as children of God. What we do condone is obedience to God and not bowing to any other gods, not submitting in a way that is actually an act of disobedience to God’s word. We also condone resistance to sin. We condone that. We condone we say, hey, yes, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. We also are for resistin, been participating in the devil schemes, for example, and doing all of this in such a way that is still loving and still able to share the gospel or be a light for justice and hope.

But hey, guys, we totally believe in protecting our family and we believe in, you know, arming ourselves and if needed and all of those things. And if you don’t, that’s OK. We can disagree, but we do believe in protecting our families.

That’s right. We believe in those things. But we also don’t know. Yeah, and protecting people, protecting those who can’t defend themselves. Yeah. We are not condoning in any way, shape or form what we see from the left side, right. Where there’s looting and there’s no harmfulness happening to people. You can protest in a peaceful way. You’ve seen it done well. And just recognize, though, that there is a chance that the the corrupt media will probably portray you as not being the peaceful protester that you are.

So let’s dive into this biblical examples of disobedience. It starts in Exodus.

Ok, so this is one I’m going to start with because this is my favorite go for it. As you guys know, I have been able to be a doula for a while, over a decade. And this is the story of some midwives. This is a huge ministry.

So we’re going to talk about Exodus Chapter one. I’m not going to read all of it, but I encourage you guys to write that down and go read it yourselves. I’m skip down to verse six. This is the portion where it’s kind of always the same.

So Joseph has died, his brothers have died and all of his generation.

But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased, abundantly multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them.

This is what the Bible says. And then you sit down almost to verse 10, but it’s the end of verse nine. And the new king of Egypt is speaking here. He didn’t know Joseph. Remember that? And he says, look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we come. Let us steal shrewdly with them lest they multiply.

And it happen in the event of war that they would also join our enemies and fight against. And so go up out of the land, therefore they sent out taskmasters, and this just describes for the next few verses what he did to afflict them. He was very much a ruler.

That was it was a grueling how they had to work when we celebrate the Passover and sometimes we’ll do like a messianic Passover, you guys can learn about that in a different podcast. And we’ll make like a traditional harissa dish, which is to resemble the brick and the mortar.

And that’s what it’s actually talking about here. And this scripture. And it says they made their lives better with hard bondage and mortar and brick and in all manner of service in the field. And all their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.

Ok, so this is the important part.

Verse 15 says then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives of whom one was named Shipborough and and the other named Puya. And he said, when you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women and you see them on their birth stools, if it is a son. You shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, you shall let them live. But the midwives feared God. Notice how they did not fear the pharaoh, the king of Egypt, they feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, why have you done this thing and saved the male children alive? And the midwife said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women for their livelihood, give birth before the midwives come to them. Therefore, God dealt well with the midwives because of what they did. God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied and grew very mighty.

And so it was because midwives feared God that he provided households for them. And then it continues on. It’s very interesting because in Chapter two of Exodus starts talking about Moses, Moses might not have been born in the first place if the midwives had not disobeyed the king of Egypt.

So sometimes we have to have civil disobedience. Sometimes what we’re being asked to do by our government where the law of the land is against what God is calling us to do. And we have to be careful to pay attention to these things. Yeah, it’s really, really important. Can be very, very easy just to go along. And unfortunately, sometimes if you go along, there’s a cost to that.

Yeah. So the second example that we wanted to share with you guys, this one has to do with Christmas. Yeah, that’s great. OK, so we’re going to flip with you to Matthew Chapter two, OK, this is where the wise men are coming from the east right now after Jesus is born in Bethlehem and Judea in the days of Herod the King. You can go on and read the whole story, skip down to verse eight. This is where he sent them. So King Herod sent the wise men to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for the young child.

And when you found him, bring back word to me that I may come and worship him also. Yeah. And we know that he wasn’t going to worship Jesus. Instead, it was his plot of how can I find him so I can kill him because he was worried about the prophecy. Right. And then it continues on. And then here it is, verse 12, then being divinely warned in a dream.

That they should not return to Herrod, they departed for their own country another way so important to be close to God right now, so important to be in your word and praying so you can hear from God. Sometimes we get so clouded when their own selfishness, worry, doubt, fear of things in the world, concern about things, anxiety all clouds us from faith. And when we’re growing strong in faith, we can hear from God.

They heard from God, thank goodness. So they knew to disobey the king.

Mm hmm. Yeah, they did. And I think that it’s also important that we see, like, you know, God is the ultimate sovereign one who is saving Jesus in this situation, just like he was saving the babies back with the midwives.

What’s interesting about both of these stories is that following that is when there was a decree of Herod to kill any child under the age of two through all of the Bethlehem districts in his attempt to find Jesus and kill him. But again, God intervenes by way of an angel.

To Joseph, it says in verse 13, if you just continue says now when they departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream saying, Arise, take the young child and his mother, flee to Egypt and stay there until I bring you word, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed.

He fled and they weren’t supposed to. This was a time when everybody was being counted. This is a time when the authorities said you need to stay in your city that you know, and covered some places like stay in your state, stay in your place.

Right.

It is similar in that regard. There was governmental control and they were trying to count people.

Right. And so a census and Joseph disobeyed.

He fled after the baby was born. And so sometimes God calls us to do countercultural things. Yeah, we’ve talked about this in many regards. I just find it interesting that the the father of the earthly father of Jesus chosen Joseph. Right. Heard an angel. God commanded him to leave with Jesus to save his life. And you guys, we’ve we even hear of modern day stories of missionaries in remote places where they wake up just before, you know, gunmen come into the village and they hide and they get out in time. Right. This kind of stuff still does happen today where God reveals himself to people all over the world. We hear about these stories of the persecuted church all the time today.

You guys are probably thinking, well, how do you deal with Romans 13? We talked briefly about it in the previous episode. We’re talking more about it here in a second. But, you know, this goes against how a lot of people read Romans 13. Right. But the Bible is not hypocritical. It doesn’t go it doesn’t contradict itself. And so we’ll talk about that.

Yeah. We’re going to dive more into actually the Greek meanings in a second, which is really important for understanding the true meaning of what God meant. OK, so our next example is actually in Daniel. Now, I just want to say, if you parents are needing to teach your kids some exciting stories, you know, that they’ve probably heard in Sunday school the story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den.

You know, they’ve probably heard the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Bendigo. But do they know the actual biblical, the real story, the real account opened and understanding that it took courage, it took bravery and that they actually had to stand up to.

I love this thought dive into it.

So this is Chapter six, but again, you could read all of Daniel and just your kids be on the edge of their seats. It’s so great.

So this is the story of Daniel Linson. But we’re not even going to get to the very end because you get to read that on your own. Verse three, it says, Daniel was distinguished himself above the other governors in Satraps because of his excellent spirit.

And the king gave thought to settling him over the whole realm. OK. Mm hmm. Then I’m just going to summarize. OK, so in verse four and five, guess what happens? Ultimately, other governors and satraps become a little jealous. So they want to try to find some fault with Daniel. But he’s so faithful because he was faithful, says in Chapter four, nor was there any error or fault found in him. Then these men said, we shall not find any charge against Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.

So they start I envision them probably if they don’t already know the law of his God because not their God, they study it in the scheme.

They are schemers here. That’s what the devil does, right? Evil people around him. And he’s listening. So these governors and satraps thronged before the king and said to him, Hey, King Dariusz, live forever. Right? OK, so they’re playing into his pride here. All the governors of the kingdom and administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisers have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree that whoever petitions any God or man for 30 days except EWO King shall be cast into the Den of Lions.

Oh, that’s a puffing up of the king there right now.

A king established the decree and sign the writing so that it cannot be changed according to the law of the Métis and Persians, which does not alter. Therefore King Daria’s or Dariusz signed the written decree. And then here you are. Have a little star next to verse 10.

Now, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home and in his upper room with his windows open toward Jerusalem, my favorite part down on his knees three times that day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom sincerely to open those windows so everybody could hear him.

He’s like, no, I’m going to I am going to disobey. I’m going to continue praying, as I always do every day to to my God and my God, only not going to pray to anything else. Bam.

And you guys, this is such an amazing story. I’m not going to continue reading it all.

But he has words with this king because the kings like, oh, man. Well, Daniel, why did you do this? Right. You were my favorite governor. Governor, there may be actually a time for governors, congressmen, representatives today to stand up and go, no, I’m going to stand for truth and people, we need to do it.

There’s some starting to do it. We need more and more doing it.

We need more boldness of people going. I will not bow to lies. I will stand for truth. And we need to do this. And Daniel is a perfect example of this. OK, so he did not pray to King Darius. Instead he went and he prayed out his window where people could hear him, OK? And then of course, you know what happens to Daniel in the lion’s den and then what ends up happening in the end? You guys should go and read that with your kids, but God is glorified and God is glorified. Another awesome story that we or I don’t like the word story.

Why is it that we go back to my upbringing from childhood, a historical event? That’s right.

Historical testimony, an event that happened in Daniel three is a story of Shadrach Meshach in Bendigo. OK, another very famous story. OK, we’re going to read chapter three, verse fourteen. We’re Nebuchadnezzar. This is the King, OK? He speaks to them and says he is. Wait, let me just make sure I’m not giving anything here. In verse fourteen, he spoke to them saying, is it true, Shadrack, Michigan in a Bendigo that you do not serve my gods or worship the gold image which I have set up? So obviously he had created this gold image that he had set up. He had declared that people needed to worship it.

They needed just an opportunity, a moment of truth. Am I going to stand for truth or am I going to lie and save my skin?

Ok, then if you continue on, you guys have to read this whole chapter. We just don’t have enough time to really dig into it. But I got to share this with you. Verse fifteen, but if you do not worship, you shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. And who is the God who will deliver you from my hands? Verse 16 Shadrack Michigan. Abednego answered to the king and said, Oh, Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.

See how nonconfrontational this is? We are not condoning needing to yell and get all upset. That’s not it. No, they do this in a very loving. The way they say, you know what, we have no need to answer you in this matter, if that’s the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us from your hand, OK? But if not, let it be known to you OKing that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up. So this is the thing so clear you can still choose to obey God, disobey authority that’s trying to get you to disobey God’s word. And you can do it in a respectful way because they did it in a respectful way right here. Yeah, they showed respect to the king, but they also said, but we will not bow to your gods. We will only worship our God. And we believe our God has the power to do it. But if he chooses not to, he will still be glorified. Look how they’re not testing the Lord. My God, they’re having faith in him. But they’re also saying. But even if he doesn’t, we will not bow to you and your God. And then what happens, you guys, that the fire, this furnace, he ends up telling the workers to make the fire seven times hotter than it normally is. And what’s crazy about this is that the guys that are outside of the fiery furnace end up dying because it’s so hot. Well, Shadrack, Michigan abednego are inside it. They’re walking around and there’s a fourth figure in there with them, which reminds me of a really beautiful song that’s out right now in Popular.

There’s another one in the fire right now. And this is this could be Jesus, right? This is Jesus in the fire with them and he saves them so awesome. And God is glorified.

How can the Lord be glorified in times of when tyranny is happening, when authority figures get prideful and they try to get people to go to to magnify their name? Yeah. Instead of the true God. Yeah. How is God glorified? He’s not going to be glorified if we just go along with what the authorities are telling us to do those cases. And so we have to choose. And the thing that is so important, they really hope you guys go and listen to the last podcast, because usually there was something that you were wishing that you would have really emphasized at the end, the last podcast. And that was that aspect of being proactive.

Oh, yeah, we have to be proactive because there’s all these little events that are happening. We have to ask for wisdom, see things clearly because Christians need to stand up in the small things sometimes because they’re leading to greater tyranny. They’re leading to greater problems down the road. Too many Christians are allowing things to happen. And this has happened throughout history. I mean, there was the case will go into modern examples, but one of them is the Holocaust.

Unfortunately, there’s too many people standing by when small things were happening that led to a huge problem, massive extermination, really horrible situation when it becomes, you know, kind of too late to take action. So we need to be taking action before the tyranny and be seeing the things and not just be the slowly cooked frog that’s doing that.

And, you know, Isaac, you’re going to share some some scripture from the New Testament here in a second. But I just want to encourage you guys, because there are signs today. Well, Isaac is talking about where you have to see the signs proactively and make decisions ahead of time. There are signs today there are people that believe that there are too many people on the in the world today and they would love to see the population diminished. Oh, yeah. Heal the earth. And if you don’t think that that’s true, it’s everywhere. The great reset. Well, and it’s not even just that. It’s literally been the agenda of environmentalists for how long? And not that we shouldn’t take care of the Earth. We should, but to have this belief that humanity is destroying the earth and they’re worshipping the created instead of the creator. Right. And making their political beliefs, their personal convictions are all based upon that, actually.

Yeah. If you look at the even in movies depicted a lot of the movies, the the the evil person is often along those lines of believing there’s too many people and you like Santo’s like Infinity or so.

Just watch a film any way if you want to get a sense for what’s happening behind the scenes in the world right now.

That’s my opinion, but I believe it. OK, so x five twenty nine. But Peter and other apostles answered and said we ought to a big God rather than men. So it’s so important you can read what’s around that. But I just love that because we no matter what we God and if somebody’s an organization, a government, anything is asking us to do something that is disobedient to what God says in his word, then we are not to do it.

And this is an important passage of scripture. Did you tell him where we were? And. Yeah, OK, you guys, this passage of scripture, this is when Peter and Paul are being told not to preach the gospel. Yeah, they are. Preaching Jesus, that he died on the cross and that he resurrected from the dead, and then you have Caiaphas and a bunch of these high priests coming in and threatening them with prison, saying you can’t preach this, worried that it’s going to spread because thousands of people are getting saved and coming to the one true God. Yeah. And they’re threatened by this, right?

Well, and Paul wrote Romans and Romans 13 is the submit to government authorities. And here you see Paul saying we need to disobey if it’s causing us to disobey again.

What’s interesting is as you read more and acts, you see him well in this particular situation, an angel ends up breaking them free because they do get in prison. Right.

And an angel breaks them free, literally takes the shackles off his arms and breaks some free. And why was he imprisoned for preaching the gospel when he was told he shouldn’t? You can’t. He they arrested him and Angel came and released him an angel that God gave know authority to do that. So also, Paul escaped a city governor. You can read this and he you in the wicker basket and lowered himself into a window. It’s hard to picture how that worked out, but he basically evaded being arrested by city government or two.

And a recent Instagram post I wrote is, if we fail to make the right decision out of fear of what we will lose, then we’ve already lost.

I wrote that because I feel strong conviction that too many Christians are fearing what they’re going to lose. If they do the hard decision, that’s the right decision. If they say the right thing, that might cost them something. If they make the right decision about taking their family to church or finding a home church or finding a different church instead of streaming, they might lose something. They might lose some think they’re going to lose relationships or a job, a job or things like that.

So but you’ve already lost because you’re acting not in faith. You’re acting in fear. And if it’s the right thing to do, whatever it is, you need to do it. This is the time. This we’re made for it. Right? This is to glorify God. I mean, what have we? Because he comes through and helps us.

And we’ve shared so many times, like I even think of the podcast we did when we shared some of our greatest life trials and parenting through life trials and sharing those experiences. And that’s when your kids really get to see what it what your Christian faith means to you, what you’re made of, what is truly there. And right now, the world is being tested by fire. And are you going to stand firm in your strong conviction that you’re not going to bow to any other God?

Yeah. Or because your kids are watching? This is so important right now.

It is. I I wasn’t going to share this, but I just share this with our kids. Reminded them of this when our business at a big business failure with forty three employees. And and there was this one creditor that where we had a half a million dollars in debt following us and there just one creditor there it was about one hundred and thirty thousand of it. And I consulted with a bankruptcy attorney not because we wanted to do that, but because it appeared there was no other option. Everybody was pressing me to at least meet with them. And but I we felt like God would take us through it and totally solve the problem and pay everybody back and and all that. And that’s and that’s what we worked hard to.

That’s what ended up happening. But I was very proactive, working with creditors. Spreadsheet spent 15 hours a week, probably a year and a half to two years on it, and God took care of it. But this one creditor never called in. The bankruptcy attorney had originally told me, these guys are the worst. There’s nothing I can do to help you, nothing you can do to help you. They just will destroy your life and come after everything until all of it’s paid. And I never heard from them for a while. And it’s been like six months and so bothered you. And it bothered me. And because I made a commitment to be honorable and to work things out with everybody and I remember calling them, but I needed that six months to to work with everybody else would be too much of had to work with them too. And I called them. They’re like, this is the weirdest thing. You your account is just not attached to anybody. It’s just like floating like it disappeared. And I’m like, well I need we need to work it out because I owe you the money and you find it. Can you find it? And then they call me back and they found it and they attached it to somebody to work on with me. And they were super nice because I was so proactive. And I said, you know, there’s no way I can pay that, but I want to pay you something. And we settled at like eight percent of the total and unheard of with this company.

But I do believe that there was a part of that was because they were blown away, that that was the company that was blown away. They’re like, wait a minute. So we didn’t contact you first. You don’t have a case? No, you don’t have someone you’re working with. And Isaac was like, no, I’m contacting you because my business is going under.

Oh, yeah, these are guys. And they were just like, you’re contacting us.

This is like six months down the road. Yeah. So anyways, God totally did that the right timing and prompted me, the Holy Spirit prompt to me and worked it out. We just. Fear you have to trust God, and when we do, he wants to be glorified. So if he knows you’re going to give him the credit and it’s in his will, he’s going to come do it.

That’s right. Amen to that.

I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date night one. She is a beautiful document you can download that Will has some key questions on it for your date night. Just get in alignment about what’s most important for your family. No matter what time of year, it’s always important to recalibrate. You can get that by going to parenting dotcom and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything, a courageous parenting dotcom. And I also just want to share real quick about the Parenting Mentor program. So many families are being transformed by going through this. It’s the six week self-paced program with live engagement from us and even direct interaction. So if you want to join us, here’s a little bit more about it and you can find out more at courageous parenting.

Dotcom, Steve and I realized that we were getting too comfortable with the world’s vision of how to raise our children. But Angie and Isaac have done in creating this is literally phenomenal.

This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just some really great practical applications. This class has just really rocked my world.

It has given me a vision for not just the different things that we might focus on as parents who are trying to raise our kids physically, like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things at the heart.

We now have a game plan to how we want to raise our children. We have so many answers to the questions that have been in our mind.

And it’s not just these hypothetical situations or it’s not just this. Here’s what I think you should do. It’s let me show you where in scripture this is.

Do your legacy a favor and yourself a favor and just do it.

One of the best things that we’ve done this year. One of the best investments we’ve made this year. And I could not recommend it more.

We’re no longer fearing dark days ahead, but we’re so excited to raise the lights, to be leaders for the next generation. So you guys have to go and read Acts Chapter four and five because those two really go together. The verse Isaac was sharing is verse twenty nine and thirty, which is the one that was really specific about obeying God.

Yeah. Now let’s go into Romans thirteen and then we’re going to talk a little bit about it. So important, a lot of times this is the verse that I believe causes passivity in Christians.

Paul wrote it. And here we have stories of Paul disobeying authorities, continuing to preach the gospel, evading the governor, angels, breaking him out of prison. And by the way, when he’s in prison, he’s definitely a light, as some of the soldiers say.

It’s pretty awesome. So he was, you know, using every circumstance in every circumstance, showing his joy in hard circumstances.

And he says right here and this is accurate, let every soul be subject to the governing authorities and some translations. It’s Simit for there is no authority except for from God. And the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God and those who resist will bring judgement on themselves. And it goes on to talk about it.

So the one thing that really hits me hard is actually at the end of what you’re doing now. I know we’re going to go into talking about submission part, but the part that says it’ll bring judgement on yourselves. This is the thing. Yeah, there is going to be consequences for disobeying authority. So as a believer, if you are called by God’s word to disobey something like they say, don’t preach the gospel anymore or don’t meet as a church anymore. I mean, this is we’re talking about months on end, you guys. It was March when the quarantine started. It is December now, right? Yeah. And if we think that it’s not going to continue, we have got to be living a lot. Like the reality is, is even if covid was a twenty twenty thing, guess what? There’s going to be a new flu in 2021 and 2022 because there’s a new flu every year. Yeah. And so I, I just I think that we have to become aware that, you know, at first we we talked about this at first our home church went on Zoome for a period of time during this first six weeks. Right. You know that we talk about it in the podcast, but then you start to discern what is truth, what is not, what is going on, when is tyranny starting to step in?

And once it’s clear you’ve got to take action and obey God, not the government.

And you might experience consequences. But just like Shadrach Meshach in Bendigo, just like Daniel, just like Paul, they all submitted to the consequences, but God delivered them.

And I agree with like Dan Crenshaw and Rand Paul and some of the congressmen and so forth, that businesses should be open, like we should not be shutting down businesses. And I actually believe that businesses should define. Their government and state open. This is a tyranny that should be resisted. Why? Because where’s all this going? The election stuff, everything is going towards socialism. And how good is socialism for the church? How good is socialism for freedom of speech?

And being able to talk about do is look at any country that’s ever become a socialist or communist. Right. Because a lot of times they go hand in hand. Have any of those countries ever come out of it? Yeah. Ever stay open.

Open your businesses. Stay open. So important. And so right here, let’s break this down a little bit. So in Romans 13, the word simit, right. Your subject in the Greek is Hippo Tozzo and Hippo Tozzo is different than the word obey. So sometimes people think this is you need to obey the governing authorities. Being subject or submit is a little is quite different actually, than obey the word obey, which is let me see here.

It’s a hippo. Cool, cool. Thank you, honey. Hippo cool is much stronger, way stronger and is to literally conform to what somebody is telling you to do. And so that’s why children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right.

Which is Ephesians six one you can look.

So that’s, that is a different word. And Paul could have chose to use the word obey here, but he did not on purpose because subject or submit is much softer. It is to come under. It is to listen. It is a range in order. And why is that so important? Because in God put this in place in government is good. Why? Because God is a God of order, not chaos. And he knew unless there was government in place that chaos would ensue. And so it’s so important to realize that. But he’s what Paul is not saying is do obey whatever government tells you to do. Absolutely not. He himself did not know.

And even when you when you look at a subject and submit. So we really want you guys to have the tools to be able to do these kinds of research yourselves. One of the reasons why this is such an important thing is because so many people out there are saying, why are you disobeying the government? Right. Like, if you don’t wear a mask or if you are going to church, you’re disobeying, but really you’re not disobeying. You’re not submitting. Right. Or you might be subject to them, but you’re not actually called to obey them in that regard, biblically speaking. And so when people start using that word obey instead of submit or subject, we are going hold on a second, that people are interchangeably using these words. And this is the thing. Yes. You said Paul is the author of Romans, but we all like Bible believing Christians believe that God’s word is holy divine. They he wrote it. He chose which word to go where. And he has done there. There are there are other passages of scripture where God chooses to use the word obey and obeyed him is actually one of them. Right. And another place where this gets messed up is in marriage.

Also, wives submit to your husbands. Right.

And so which is the same word as subject.

And thank goodness God didn’t say wives obey your husbands.

That’s more of what you see that in the patriarchal that is horrible, right?

You know, it is much different like in our marriage. And she definitely submits to me. But I try hard to be worthy of submission. I try hard to lead. Well, not perfect. I make mistakes. She gets frustrated sometimes. I get frustrated sometimes. But we work things out.

And the end of the day in and I think she it’s easier for her to submit because I discuss things with her where I look at us as a team, which God looks at at the same way, and we discuss things. I don’t hide anything. We talk in detail about things, any big decisions we’re talking at length about.

And then a lot of times it’s hard to make that final call and she’ll she’ll say, hey, I trust what you decide to do, which is interesting, because in a democracy, isn’t it like, for example, voting and having an election process? That’s honest. You let the people speak. Yeah. That’s letting the people speak by having a vote. And then the people that are put in office speak for the people. And they have committee meetings where people can actually go and they can express their thoughts to their congressmen, their legislators, their committee leaders. Right. We have a voice. The problem is that so many people have become passive and not being involved, not actually exercising their voice, not communicating, not sent by email or phone call, going to a committee meeting, a community meeting or whatever. But the reality is even government is actually in America set up because it was founded by our forefathers who were trying to create a constitution that was based on principles found in the Bible, like religious freedom, freedom of speech, things that would not that would protect individual liberties. Right. And so when you have government crossing those boundaries that were put there for the protection of the people, so there’d be accountability for the government as well as for the people write laws or for for people for protection. Yeah, usually. Right. But the reality is that when government goes unchecked, there is no accountability. And one of the things that’s so important about hospitality and we didn’t even bring this up in the last podcast, you guys, I just have to share this briefly for a second.

Are our daughters doing writing a paper on all kinds of different topics? And she was sharing with me some of what she had been studying for one of her final papers at Liberty. And she she said, Mom, you know, you realize when people don’t have hospitality, when they don’t get together with other people, when they don’t gather together and communicate, there’s no accountability for the government they have. And so if the government stops people from meeting, there’s actually a bigger reason behind why they don’t want you meeting is so that there isn’t accountability. Let me give you an example. If you hear something on media and let’s say maybe you don’t you’re not walking in the spirit that day, your discernment is kind of low. You kind of you believe whatever you hear, OK, you’re going to have dinner with your brother or your neighbor and they go, but hold on a second. I saw that in that protest that was actually very peaceful. Yeah, right. When the media portrayed it as vicious and outrageous, then all of a sudden what happens? They are the truth is revealed through a testimony of someone and the government and the media are held accountable. That needs to continue to happen. Otherwise, anarchy happens.

So now those corrupt media right now, there’s a lacking of people meeting, meeting, gathering, creating fear of each other. And so now it’s easier for the government to get more control in these kinds of things. I recently was reading the part of the Gettysburg Address and I wanted to read Lincoln’s words here, that we are highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom. And that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. What is government of the people, by the people and for the people. It’s not trying to take it’s not trying to overly control. It’s trying to create as much freedom for the people as possible because the government trusts people that they can make the best decisions for themselves and help one another. And instead of people becoming enslaved to the government. So there’s a real challenge right now. So let’s just take in the United States and know people listen all over the world. But the United States does impact the whole world. Whether people appreciate that or not. It has done some evil things, too. I totally know that. But it is a beacon of good in a lot of ways. And right now there’s a seeming to be a lot of evidence of election fraud. If you’re looking at mainstream news, you’re not going to see that.

But it appears to be very, very true. And let’s say it comes out that. There’s this widespread election fraud in the United States. What are people going to do? What to do something? What do we do? We surely should be praying about it, but why is this important? Even if let’s say let’s say there’s election fraud and Trump gets in and this next year Antifa goes berserk and it causes chaos and all kinds of problems this next year. Is it worth it? Well, yeah, it’s not about who’s in office at this point. What it matters now and why Democrats and Republicans and people around the world should all care about this is because there is no longer integrity in the United States election election system that is proven. And what happens then is people don’t believe in their vote and they stop voting and it moves towards dictatorship or socialism or both. And so that is what you’re seeing. If there’s a breakdown in the election system, it’s a breakdown in the very republic. So this is a really big deal. And I can’t believe I’m not hearing from people that I know are Democrats. I don’t see them on social media being concerned about this. I don’t see any concern. I’m trying to post every single day to share the news like they don’t care if they win by cheating.

And that just breaks my heart. If if it was the other way around, I would be outraged if it was the other way around. It’s not about your guy. It’s about truth. It’s about the fairness and versus cheating. We don’t do things this way as Americans. Right. And so it’s just so disheartening right now what is actually happening and that more people are not speaking out and actually standing up and going, you know what, I might not have been for that guy, but there is too much evidence.

Another thing in the news today, more than 70 cadets at U.S. Military Academy accused of cheating on the online math exam. Have you ever seen a headline about our military cadets ever like that? Ever. I’ve never seen that. There’s usually honor and integrity. Well, of course that’s happening. Why? Because at the highest level, any whatever it takes to win and get your way, that is what’s being model. This is atrocious behavior that’s permeating our culture.

So before we move on, I think that it’s really important that people know the tools. This is so simple and give you one resource. There’s one resource you remember from this is blue letter Bible, Doug, because this really brought clarity for Isaac and I. We were so encouraged as we are preparing for this podcast, you guys, if you go to Romans, chapter 13, verse one new King James version, King James version, whatever, and you click on that verse, every word will be distributed evenly. If you click on the word subject, it will come up and I will say Strongs G five if fifty to ninety three. OK, and you click on that, it’s going to give you the definition, which is the word hepatocyte. He went over that. It means a range under two subject. OK then if you write all this down then you change the verse and you go to something like we used Ephesians six one children obey your parents in the Lord. You click on the word obey, it’ll it’ll show you hypocrite. OK, Strongs G fifty to nineteen. It means to obey, to hearken to a command, to conform to it. It tells you specifically what it means. Two totally different words. Let’s not use them interchangeably because the American language is weak compared to Greek. I’m just going to say it.

Yeah. The Greek language had a much richer, deeper meaning for both of those words, which is why they’re not used interchangeably in scripture. And so we need to be careful not to be putting a word in a different place. So before we move on to modern examples, I’m going to rattle off some verses that we thought would be encouraging for you guys to look up together. Esther, chapter one, verse fifteen. This is where Queen Vasti decides, no, I’m not going to strip before the king. So he banishes her, potentially kills her again. Esther for sixteen, where Esther again, civil disobedience approaches the king uninvited. You can read that Certificate’s first Samuel fourteen Surles soldiers disobey him and don’t kill Jonathan. OK, Jeremiah. Twenty seven where Jeremiah he is disobedient and he wears a yoke in public. Then of course we have Jesus who heals people on the Sabbath, which is against the law of the day. He also overturns tables on the steps of the temple. OK, this is our God. Don’t mistake God’s church. OK, so there’s just a few and there’s a lot. You guys, it’s an exciting study. When you start reading through Scripture and you talk to your kids, they may even have other examples from reading the Bible themselves you guys need to be talking about.

We got to reject the passivity and stand for truth and lead unapologetically. Let’s go into modern examples so really quick. And we’re going to spend the next 15 minutes, most of it, on what to do if your church closes and details about doing home church. But a modern examples are obviously the Holocaust. Martin Luther King Jr., you know. Segregation superimportant.

And imagine if he, I don’t know, tried marching alone.

Yeah, these are examples of work. These are examples of one before these things, like Christians being passive. And then during these things, Christians standing up, like in the Holocaust, there was Jews and Christians that were helping people.

Right. And so, you know, I but this is the thing when I think of the Holocaust, I think of another biblical example, which is Rahab when she was hiding. Mm hmm.

Keep the civil war, obviously, you know, we have to act, remember, we have to act before these crazy things happen, we have to see what’s happening and not just allow even small things to happen. We need to band together and pray and take whatever necessary action.

So before you jump in to talking about the church, the last modern example that where we’re going to talk to you guys briefly about is a conviction and all of you guys should should relate to this. If you have sat in a church in the last 20 years, you’ve likely heard a pastor talk about the persecuted church somewhere in the world. There’s something called the ten forty window window to the World World Vision. Why wham! Tons of different ministries, voice of the Martyrs. They share stories from people who are missionaries who go to countries where it is illegal to be a Christian with the purpose of defying that government for the purpose of sharing the gospel and the great commission, because God commands us to go to all the Earth and share the Gospel. Now, my question would be, has your kids ever seen you pray for this persecuted church? And this was a question that I was thinking about. I was just this really hit me hard because we’ve used a lot of resources. I will share them with you at the end. But you guys, I guarantee you, you’ve not sat in the service praying for the persecuted church and prayed, God, I just pray that you would help my brothers and sisters in Christ to stop disobeying the government.

I pray they’d stop beating in their house churches, and I pray that they would really obey their communist tyrannical governments.

No, no, no.

None of us have ever prayed that way for anybody in the persecuted church. In fact, we’ve prayed for perseverance, for courage, for bravery, for protection, for the gospel to expand, for more house churches, to start popping up everywhere. We’ve sent money to support missionaries we like.

That is what the Christian Church of America of has been doing for decades. And we’ve been teaching this to our kids. Yet are we living what we pray for our brothers and sisters to do? Because the reality is, is right now so many people have not been going to church for nine months. Yeah. For eight months. Not OK or not practicing hospitality, which is another command. We talked about getting together with friends, not evangelizing, not actually being a participant in the body of Christ, not you in the great commission. This you guys, we have to awaken. We we have to open our eyes and see the great cost of what is happening not just in our nation, but all over the world.

And and we need to ask ourselves the hard question, are my prayers for the people in the persecuted church hypocritical to the way that I’m actually teaching my children by how I’m living?

Yeah. Or am I the same person?

So we got to dive into the church here. This is super practical. First of all, go to your church. If they’re open, if they’re not and they’re only screaming, don’t go to that church, go to a different church that’s actually meeting. You can also listen to your church’s stream on a different day or something like that. But when when you go to church, go take your family and go to a church where there’s actually people. I would not go to a church that requires your kids to wear masks during the entire service or something like that. I wouldn’t allow my wife, who’s pregnant, to wear a mask that will hurt her and our unborn child. So definitely don’t do that. Find a church, no masks where you can participate. We can be there. We can worship together. If you can’t find that, if you can’t find a Bible believing church where you are, which is true in many cases, unfortunately, then you need to pray and seek a home church, a group, a gathering of people.

If you can’t find a home church, you’ll need to start a home church. And it might start with just you leading your family. And I’m going to give you some details on that. And then maybe after a while you invite another family and pretty soon God’s going to do whatever he wants. It’s his church, not yours. Right. And so you’ve got to be committed to that. And so the first and second, Timothy, are great chapters.

My first advice to you is to read those over and over again, study what is being said there about the church. Remember, in the early days, the church was in homes. You know, that’s where the church was.

So Sutent, it is in persecuted countries right now. Today.

Yeah. And you might find that you light after doing this. You like home church even better. In fact, there’s a lot of things we love about on church. We were part of a regular church, non-denominational churches, for the most part for the first six years of our marriage. Then we had a few years of a. Home church, and I think two of those years was the church we planted or year and a half and and that grew and is going strong, we moved. So we’re not part of that anymore, that church. But now we’re going to a church with three thousand people and we don’t know what we’re going to do yet, but we’re enjoying it. And so, so but let’s say you need to start a church. So so read those scriptures and then get some music sheets, just a few so you can worship together, get communion bread and juice. That’s it. You know, you’re ready to go now. The house just, you know, get the house ready, talk amongst each other. What you want to announce is like where the bathrooms are and maybe some rules about, you know, kids not being upstairs with doors closed, things like that. But other than that, any safety things just to have those prepared ahead of time. And then here’s the structure. And this isn’t legalistic by any stretch of the imagination, but this is just how we’ve done how we’ve done it and seen it work really well, very fruitful, which is and this is super cool. First thirty to forty five minutes, whoever’s hosting the church, because it doesn’t always need to stay in the same house, they usually kind of make it start the meeting, that kind of thing. They’re not running it, but they’re kind of keeping it moving. And so let’s say that’s you in the beginning and you pray in the beginning and in the first 30 to 45 minutes is prayer time, testimony, time, praise reports what God’s doing, healing. We will pray over somebody and then anoint them or worship while worshipping together. So awesome. Singing Well, what if nobody has instruments like the big church?

Well, we’ve actually been a part of a home church where there were no instruments.

No problem. You just sing. And you know what? That’s not my strength. But you still let it out. I still let it out.

And I just make sure I’m near somebody louder like my wife because she’s so beautiful and she sings.

So it’s awesome.

We all have different strengths, but so thirty to forty five minutes of that. And you know what, during that time you have to be OK with silence in some of your wird in a high relational way where five seconds of silence seems like five minutes and you try and fill it. But you know what, you’re good at filling it. Why not let the gifts be spread out and let somebody else speak? And some people takes 30 seconds of silence before they ask for the prayer request. How beautiful is that? Get used to some silent moments. You will think it’s awkward. Other people think it’s safe.

You know what? It’s not awkward when you come with the perspective of wanting to hear from one another in their hearts.

Hey, man, people.

And you sit and maybe you don’t have anything to share at that moment and you’re curious what’s on other people’s hearts. And there is some silence. I found those to be the best times to just be praying for the Holy Spirit, to give the parts, to help people to recall scripture that really meant something to them that week. If they were to share that. Yeah. Or exhort one another with that.

And it just was such a special time. Isaac said that this time usually ranges thirty to forty five minutes. This is the cool part is led by the Holy Spirit.

Yeah. And men and women are praying, which is awesome. And you might read scripture differently in that that’s where we landed. And then there’s time for teaching and you might do this in different ways. We saw so much fruit from opening it up for men to prepare and give sermons and the people with the gift, the and sometimes people are learning to see if they have the gift. Right, which is cool. And we love that. And two or three men, you know, bring a sermon, sometimes one and they give a sermon. And you know what? Nobody coordinates it ahead of time.

That’s how we’re got. Although because the messages always complement one another in such a really beautiful way and because the Holy Spirit is driving it. Yeah. And sometimes one of us will give a sermon and that’s good. And sometimes one or two. Sometimes three.

And a lot of there’s not three full sermons. Usually one of us brings something really meeting and then someone else brings something and they might adjust it a little bit for time and someone else just pipes in because it’s something they prepared. So it’s just really a beautiful thing and rock solid teaching. By the way, what if you don’t know if your teacher what if you are trying to clear that up picture? We believe in going through the scripture, not topical, but literally teaching what’s in the scripture. Yeah. Share stories when you can and yeah. Apply it, make it relevant.

And all these things bring in other scriptures, you know, strictly expository preaching. Absolutely.

Yeah. And it’s neat when you when the guys are sharing that sort of thing. I know that. It’s just it’s a special time where even the the young kids, they tend to learn more about what’s on the people’s hearts they actually have relationship with.

And so it’s a good example to all of the kids on what it looks like to be an adult Christian so that they can envision themselves being that when they get older and then somebody sees.

Is someone different, you know, does communion and it’s very simple, they can if you’ve never done before, just read what the Bible says about communion is read the scripture about it and pray and pray and do it.

And sometimes you can do a little more and that’s fine. Just keep it simple and then announcements and then we do potluck and some prayer then. But we have a we eat together and we hang out together. How beautiful is that? And so one thing that’s important is that whatever the preaching is, is biblical and is sound. And how do you make sure. Well, I don’t believe people need to get seminary degrees and these things people weren’t doing that when the church was spreading like crazy.

Think of who the 12 disciples were. Yeah, some of them were fishermen. I mean, they all have different backgrounds because God can use all people.

So don’t doubt yourself. Be encouraged by the Bible, teach the Bible. You’ll learn as you’re doing. And you know what? Have a midweek time where the men get together and reflect on what happened on Sunday and ask questions. And if there’s any disagreement about doctrine, you can talk about it. What you don’t ever want is disunity, cultivating because you’re not open and talking about it. And those are such fruitful times where we dig. We’ll dig into the word together and talk about a subject. And it’s amazing how the spirit, when we have humble hearts, brings us all in unity together as we talk about it.

So and I know the women will get together, too, and it’s just such a fruitful thing. So, hey, maybe you’re supposed to start a home church. I just gave you the simple you’re like Isaac. There’s not enough detail. No, that’s plenty more knowledge. Doesn’t necessarily lead to implementation. Usually excuses. It gives you a excuse. I’m telling you right now, you could prepare to run your first home church with just your family. And you could do that a few weeks. And pretty soon another family is joining you because they’re starving for it.

And you’re perhaps the answer for that. Or maybe you’re learning how to participate in one in search one and pray for one. Super important. We’re going to finish this off with some really cool resources.

And I’m just going to talk about, OK, so you guys, we had mentioned the importance of recognizing what we’re teaching our kids and what we’re modeling for them and our prayer life when we go to church and we hear about the persecuted church and recognizing that there is persecution beginning to happen in even in America, but it’s happening in other countries. I know of Canada right now that is not meeting as a church in many provinces. In some provinces, it is meeting. People are not able to celebrate Christmas with their family members in the same kind of way. They have a quarantine going on beginning in some places. December.

Twenty third again, I know that Oregon, for example, is in there. There are restricted guidelines through March, right?

Yeah, but the Supreme Court just came through and kind of forced Oregon to allow churches to meet, which is pretty cool.

That’s awesome. So you guys. But that didn’t happen on its own, right? That only happened because people disobedience, people were being disobedient, but they were also speaking up. Yeah, it’s it’s not just civil disobedience.

Ok, and so I want to share with you guys just a few. I know that this has been a long podcast, but I want to encourage you guys to look up the whilom biographies that I briefly mentioned. We have hundreds of these things. You guys, you’ve probably seen them as Christians, Christian heroes then and now, OK? They have them on all different people. You can get one on Amy Carmichael, Gladis, all Wollard, Jim Elliott, Hudson, Taylor, all of these different missionaries who they put their life on the line for the gospel. OK, and then there’s books like Praying Through the One Hundred Gateway Cities of the Ten Forty Window. This is one of the Reserve’s first resources that I got before we had the biographies. And I loved it because it’s a smaller book. So it was easy for us to take when we were traveling as well. And it has every country in here, along with a map. Prayer points talks about the population of the city.

Another resource that’s very similar to this one is the window to the world or Operation World, which is an even bigger book. They just came out with a new one, and this one has a lot of illustrations in it, which is great for kids. They can actually see the people that they’re praying for from different countries, talks about their culture, the religion, the persecuted church, what to pray for you guys.

These are modern day stories of persecuted peoples that we need to be praying for. But I will warn you, all of these people are being disobedient to their governments in meeting as a Christian people. They are. And so when you are reading this with your kids, that’s what you’re teaching them. Another devotional stories for children here. I heard good news today. This literally has a couple like one page that you read to your kids.

Here’s the good news in China. It’s a story of Hudson Taylor. It’s a one page story about eighteen thirty two. This was another tool I used with my kids. And then there’s voice of the martyrs. They have torch lighter DVDs, which are animated biographies of missionaries and stories of heroes of the faith. But I would recommend that if your kids haven’t. Watch those that parents watch them first, because a lot of those persecuted missionaries became martyrs, and so some of the other animated, they can be kind of scary for kids, some of them, some not scary, obviously. And then, you know, voice of ours also has these books. I share this with you in the St. Patrick’s Day episode podcast that we did see. Patrick was actually kidnapped and he was made a slave. And guess what he did?

He ran away and he became a missionary. He went back to that land as a missionary. And God used him to spread the gospel to all kinds of people. And so I just I see aspects of civil disobedience for the purpose of the gospel, for the purpose of obeying God and participating in the great commission. And we just have to be aware that we went over the four main reasons why it’s biblical to be disobedient to authorities in the very first episode. And so if you haven’t listened to that, you need to go back and listen to episode one of this or the first part of this series, I guess. And then, you know, I would encourage you guys to to listen with your spouse, listen with your kids, have good conversations about all the things we were just talking about, dig into the word together, read the stories that we were able to dig into super deep, like the stories of Esther. You guys, I know that a lot of you are scared about the futures of your children. I’m a mom of many. I’m pregnant with my ninth. And I think about what this world is going to be like in 20 years for this baby. I get it. I think about my great future grandkids. And I would be lying if I didn’t say that. At times I struggle with fear, but then I preach to myself the truth, which is that God created them for this generation for a purpose. And right now, my purpose as their mom is to equip them to be confident, courageous kids ready for the uncertain world that they are going to be inheriting from us. So join with us. Thank you for being a part of the One Million Legacies movement, and we’ll see you next time. Merry Christmas. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode.

For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom Dotcom for free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program, ICIC and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week we release a video with a downloadable parenting package to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible self-paced program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group, Live Webcast and the courageous parenting text message line. And I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone.

If you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program, secure your spot now at CourageousParenting.com