To find out about Dave Reaver's other compelling and timely videos that are making an impact
across the country, see the special preview following this presentation.
My parents are great.
My mom helps me with everything.
My dad lives in Alabama, so I don't talk to him much.
My dad's not ever hardly home, or, you know, it's just my mom.
Well, he just sits in his chair and watches TV.
The average child in America spends four to five hours per day before the TV, yet is lucky
to get five minutes per day of a father's time.
Daddy, turn your heart to your children today.
I don't care if they offer you a ten times your regular pay raise and send you off to
ten bucks too.
When you know your little daughter's being smooth-talked by some boy at school and she
thinks she's giving him her love when she's giving away her virginity, then sir, I would
lose my job, pick up beer cans the rest of my life and trade them in and feed my family
before I put my daughter on the altar of sacrifice for my personal success.
Lose your job, but don't lose your children.
A moving, tragic story told to an Oregon camp meeting.
This father believed he'd raised up his family in a good home, only to see his son's life
fall apart through drugs.
My wife, family, and I was robbed of a precious jewel, six foot two, 185 pound, my handsome
son took third in state into pole vault.
His team went nine and oh, his junior year.
It's fantastic, tied in, well-liked a leader.
You see, my boy attended camp here for 18 years.
My boy was 18.
Some of you probably knew him.
My son started taking drugs around eighth grade.
Then came coke into his life and then began to miss school, football practice, games off
the team.
It was the last game of the year, a game where they would introduce the senior football players
to the home crowd.
A year that I looked forward to, a year my family looked forward to.
My boy wasn't there.
I was jealous.
Then I became angry.
Words came to me, I'd been robbed.
That Sunday I was greeted with the news that Markie's best friend died in a car accident,
headed for a party.
Mark straightened up.
Mark stayed right at the house for two and a half months, never went anywhere.
Stayed right with us.
His friends, his dope buddies, they would even ever stop by and say hi.
But when he finally was almost well, he went out.
Guess who showed up?
The last people he saw was those friends.
Mark shot himself in the morning.
His mother found him.
Because of stories like this one, tragedies happening all too often in broken homes across
the country, Dave feels the urgency to bring the message of Malachi 4 to hurting families.
As I tour this country, I'm finding more and more the audience is a graying audience.
And I'm asking the question, where are all the children gone?
Where are the teenagers?
Now lest you think this is going to be a church bashing message, you're wrong.
Because I'm not blaming the church man.
And I think after the last few years, we've had all the bashing we can take as evangelists
and pastors.
So I'm not going to bash on us.
I'm not stupid.
I like me.
So if I were to say to you today that the great problem we're facing in America was
in the church or in the pulpit, I would be lying.
This isn't what the problem lies.
And today I'm going to talk to you about where I believe the problem lies and it's not going
to be easy.
Not long ago, I was in the great state of Michigan and having just before arriving at
that state to do the schools in Muskegon.
I'd been in a school and I'm going to leave where out of the picture for now.
And a young lady stood up in front of 2,500 of her classmates and asked me this question
by first making a statement.
She said, Mr. Reaver, at night my father comes in my room and he tries to sexually molest
me.
I have to run out of my house and scream at him, no daddy, don't do such a thing.
And then this was her question.
Mr. Reaver, how can I get rid of my father?
Clue number one, who I'm going to talk about this morning.
The most common statement to me by girls in public schools, and this will sicken you.
When that assembly's over, they line up to me and they say, Mr. Reaver, I wish you were
my daddy.
I wish you were my daddy.
That little girl that stood playing that instrument a while ago is my 17-year-old daughter.
That young man up there playing that bass guitar a moment ago, that's my 19-year-old
son.
If either one of those kids ever said to another man on earth, I wish you were my daddy, I
think I would die on the spot of a broken heart.
And yet I hear it every day.
I go into a public school and this year alone I spoke to 300,000 kids in public schools
by myself and with my associate, another 200,000 plus, and this year we will speak to over
half a million students in public schools.
They love us and don't know how to get rid of us.
Rejoice to know that there's still a message of morality in your public schools.
In fact, there's a lot of things I can say in the schools people won't let me say in
churches.
Oof.
That little girl said, how do I get rid of my daddy?
So I told that story to the school in Muskegon.
I finished the assembly, kids were lining up all the way to the back of the gym wanting
to just hug, just wanting somebody to say I love you.
And every school I go into, at least a dozen times I guess, I tell those kids I love them.
And if you think I do this because it's how I make money, you're wrong.
You're dead wrong.
I've never been paid to speak in a public school yet.
I'm not about to take their money.
I take their money, you take money from Uncle Sam and he'll tell you what you can say, where
you can say it and what not to say.
And this freedom of speech that still bears the scars of its price on my face, it costs
too much to sell for 30 pieces of state silver.
So I'm keeping it clean, brother.
Plus the fact if I tell the kids I love them and they walk out seeing me getting paid,
they're going to think I was paid to love them.
And if I was paid to love them, I'd be a prostitute and I don't even have a short skirt, wouldn't
look good in one anyway.
I told that story in the school, the kids lined up, one little girl sitting on the front
row waiting till everybody was gone, a little blonde headed 17 year old girl named Sasha.
And the story of the girl who wanted to get rid of her father was still in her heart.
She stepped up to me, pulled my arm to the side, she said, Mr. Weaver, please, what did
you tell that girl?
I knew with her statement, I was facing another case of the same thing, molestation in the
home.
Today it's believed a minimum of 25% and up to 40% of the female population of America
has been sexually abused by a family member.
And I'm talking to people in this room right now who know exactly what I'm saying.
Some of you still carry the hatred and the burning desire for revenge in your heart for
what's been done to you and the person that did it's already dead and gone.
That's the kind of scar it leaves.
That's the kind of rape and plunder that can be brought through such a thing.
Whenever she asked me that question, I said, do you have a problem at home?
She said, yes, sir.
I said to myself, with the next question, I'm involved.
Because if she answers the next question, yes, by law, I cannot ignore what the child
tells me.
I must report it.
I said, are you being sexually abused by your father?
She said, yes.
She said, I was three years old when my dad left.
He was gone 10 years and came back, told my mother on these conditions he would come back
that I would not be virgin at 13.
She said, my mother consented.
And I have slept with my father four years.
She said, I'm going out now.
I thank God for the things this church sent to the Soviet Union.
I thank God for every home missions or foreign missions project that was ever done.
And since I'm not taking an offering, I'm going to say it anyway.
Continue to give to the kids in the Soviet Union.
But for God's sake, don't turn your back on the kids in the United States.
Remember them.
They're dying today.
They're living in hell on earth today.
And for them, it is hell.
There is no end that they can see.
The fastest growing cause of death next to drinking and driving, the number one cause
of death among teenagers is suicide.
Because more and more, they have less and less to live for.
These are the kids I face every day, Monday through Friday in the schools of our nation.
Well, I'm very happy to tell you a miracle took place.
I called the youth pastor over, I said, Dan, is there anybody you know of?
I've got to have two counselors.
I want Christian counselors.
I want them state approved.
I've got to have help and I need it now.
He looked at me and his eyes got big.
He said, you know, I can't believe what happened.
He said, this morning before school started, I got a phone call and there's a couple in
our church that work for the state of Michigan.
They're counselors.
They go to our church.
He said, they're godly people.
And they said, we want to see they rerun action in a public school.
Can you get us in the school?
He said, I'll try.
I said, I called and the state let them, the school let them come.
He said, they're standing in the foyer right now.
The rest of the story, that little girl has never spent another night with her daddy.
She has spent the night in the family of godly people in the home of godly people.
And that little girl gave her heart to Jesus that night, the day we were crusade.
She's not missed a Sunday service at central assembly with Danny and not a single day has
she lived in that horror and fear of her father.
But the sad part of that story is when the youth pastor and the pastor and his wife and
the counselors took the little girl back to tell her parents what the state was doing
in the church cooperating with them.
They were regular church goers and they went to their pastor of a brand we won't describe
and he said to Danny, my friend, the youth pastor, well, you take her when you get her
fixed up, straightened out, then you bring her back to me and we'll take it from there.
That little girl found two more girls just like her in her school.
One of them being sexually abused by her father, the other by the high school coach and both
of them are sitting where they belong today behind bars and they can throw away the key
for all I give a rip.
God save the children.
Our greatest natural resource, if you can call it that, is our kids.
It's not oil, it's not technology, it's not computer chips or computers, it's children.
And what we're doing to our children in America is obscene.
It is grotesque.
And I want to tell you now, the point of this message is called daddy.
And mister, if you can't take it, get up and walk out now, you gutless wimp.
You wouldn't even go to the bathroom now, will you?
You're gonna sit right there and take it like a man.
So let's get something straight mister.
When we're through trying to blame the government, blame Bush, blame the war, blame the church,
blame anybody, but don't accept responsibility for yourself, I'm gonna tell you now, the
last words of the Old Testament nail it and they nail it clearly.
Listen to this from Malachi chapter 4 verse 5 and 6.
He will send the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord,
and we're living in that day.
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children.
That means that the father's heart has not been where it should be.
And now, just before it's too late, just in the nick of time, the heart of the father
must be turned to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers lest I come
and smite the earth with a curse.
Let me tell you something, I hate threats, but you want my attention, you challenge me.
You challenge me and I'll go the last mile, I'll go miles past the last mile.
I'll overrun the objective in my eagerness to accept the challenge because I believe
in challenges, I hate threats.
Well, what's happening here then?
You can take it any way you want to.
Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse, can be taken as a threat, a promise, or a
challenge.
If it's a threat, it may be too late.
If it's a promise, then as a challenge, we must avoid that promise from ever coming to
pass.
Take it as a challenge, that's what I'm doing right now, and I want every daddy in this
room to listen to me carefully.
You have your options, sir, priest or provider.
But I have bad news for you.
If you think you're a good provider and you're a lousy priest, you're only kidding yourself
because there's no such thing as a good provider that is not also a good priest.
But I've never met a priest that wasn't a good provider.
Because you see, to be a good priest, you will always provide for your family.
That is an automatic.
I've never seen a priest in the family that was not a good provider, but I've seen a lot
of people thought they were good providers and were sorry priests.
Matter of fact, if you give them IZOD shirts and Air Jordan shoes every day of their life,
brand new to go to school, and you don't give them the love of God in the home, you're a
lousy provider.
My mom and dad never did have that kind of money.
I didn't know what Air Jordans were and Nikes and that other stuff, man.
Hang the shirt with alligator on it.
I'm just glad to have a shirt.
I wore shoes from Kmart.
They were called Kmart tracks.
Hey, it didn't bother me.
I can still keep up with the fattest boy in our school.
But I know one thing, sir.
I never came home a day of my life to a home where the locks have been changed and the
furniture sold and mom and dad weren't there.
I never came home to a mother who was irate because she didn't like the way the stomach
turned as your friday's of our wives brides dope or dynasty ended that afternoon.
I never was abused.
I was never slapped.
I was never hit with a fist.
Now, he had a belt in the bathroom, though.
It said I need the every hour on it.
I came home to a daddy who loved me and he corrected me and he disciplined me and he
always held me and told me he loved me.
There are some of you fathers in this room that have never said in the exact words, I'm
going to repeat this to your children.
I love you because after all, you think they should know that, huh?
My friend, if you don't tell them, they don't know what to believe.
Tell your kids you love them.
Daddy, turn your heart to your children today.
I don't care if they offer you a ten times your regular pay raise and send you off to
ten buck two when you know your little daughter's being smooth talked by some boy at school
and she thinks she's giving him her love when she's giving away her virginity, then sir,
I would lose my job, pick up beer cans the rest of my life and trade them in and feed
my family before I put my daughter on the altar of sacrifice for my personal success.
Lose your job, but don't lose your children.
Make your boy efficient, take him hunting.
I'd rather go hunting with a kid today than go hunting for him tomorrow.
So I'm pretty good priest, but Dave, I pray in the family.
When's the last time your kids heard you pray?
And over the food doesn't count.
God is great, God is good, and is thanking for our food.
Amen.
Oh, your spiritual depth overwhelmeth me.
Come on, man.
Be a man, be a priest.
When's the last time your children heard you in the middle of the night calling their name
before the throne?
When's the last time your kids heard you pray, daddy?
When's the last time?
Man, I'm being serious.
I'm picking these kids up, pieces of them scattered all over America because they never
hear daddy pray.
Ladies, please hear me this morning.
I'm not ignoring you.
You're the last thing to be, nor believe me, sweet lady.
You've carried the ball, you've been the priestess, you've done what you shouldn't have to do.
This is the job God gave the man and the family, and because he sloughed off, you had to pick
up the pieces.
Thank you, ladies, for being the godly women you've been, but you understand me today.
It's time for the man to carry the responsibility of spiritual leadership, and I think his turn
has come.
Now, do it, sir.
Do it for the name of God, for the sake of your family.
Do it.
Be a priest in your home.
Pray for your children in her seat for them, and if it doesn't work that you pray at night
and they can't hear you, then you get over and pray by the air conditioner vent, and
you pray about the sins they thought you didn't know of.
Keeps them awake all night, too.
Turn your heart to your children.
I'll tell you today, sir, I'm tired of seeing our children turn to the rock and roll gods
of this generation looking for heroes, with their posters all over their wall.
They bow down before those gods at their rock concerts, worshiping little boys up there
wearing tight britches, singing real high.
It's the britches, I'm telling you, they'd make anybody sing high.
Our kids ought to have better role models than rock and roll bums up there doing drugs
and then saying, never do drugs, while the line whips.
Your kids see through it, and they know all in the world that rock star's doing is trying
to appease irate parents, so they say, don't do drugs, and they go right on doing them
themselves, setting an example for your children.
I think daddy ought to be hero in the family.
I think grandpa ought to be hero in the family.
All this nonsense of turning to these silly little teenage neutered midget turtles.
I thank God my kids had more to look up to than neutered turtles living in some sewer.
There's got to be more for our children.
Give them a daddy to look up to, and when they say, who's your hero?
They say, daddy's my hero.
How do you be a hero?
You keep your word, and you learn to say no, even when they say, oh, dad, but inside they're
saying, thank you, papa.
You gave me a reason to say no when I didn't have the courage to do it on my own.
You're a man of your word, even when it involves correction.
You keep your word.
When you make a promise, you live by it.
The integrity of a dad's word is a setting standard in the lives of the children of America
today, and my friend, there are no standards for most of them.
A daddy who's a hero.
I'll tell you another way to be a great hero, daddy.
It's real simple.
You want to turn the heart of your kid?
That's how you do it, papa.
Treat that kid's mother with love and respect.
You call her honey, not heifer.
You tell her you love her right in front of the kids every day, three, four, five times
a day.
Those babies here, you say, honey, I love you, and you send the woman flowers.
Don't sit there and look at me like that, mister.
Unfold your arms.
You get the woman some flowers.
I don't have any money.
Who cares?
Go to the cemetery and rip them off.
Get some flowers.
Nobody says she ought to know where they came from, amen?
Then when your kids come home from school and they look over and they see the flowers,
they say, ooh, mom, where'd the flowers come from?
Oh, sir.
The look on her face when she says, your daddy sent me those flowers.
Oh, you will be a hero, papa.
Those kids will walk out saying, whoa, daddy's cool.
And sir, don't be so busy.
You can't open the door for her.
Slow down.
You're going to make it just fine.
You walk around and you open the door and you let her in.
And then you shut the door.
That's what you do, sir.
I know some of you don't need to hear this.
You do fine.
But thanks for taking it on the chin while I'll get the rest of them who do need to hear
it.
I want to say something to you this morning.
It's time we hang the coat on her shoulder, sir.
It's time we open the door and let her go through first.
It's time we pull that chair back and let her sit down.
What are you talking about, man?
This ain't so...
This ain't gospel.
Oh, yes, it is.
You treat your wife like Jesus treats the church.
He gives her gifts.
He opens the door and he says, I love you, honey.
And I think we need to do more of it.
Come on, man.
Clap your hands.
Don't sit there and look at me.
Amen?
Are we still friends?
It's getting awful nervous in here.
Some of you guys haven't grinned.
You have sat there the whole time.
You're staring at me.
Get over it.
Grow up, sir.
Learn that God is a God of consideration.
He thinks and He prepares the way.
And He opens doors and He loves us and He shows us His goodness.
Don't be so busy.
You don't have time for a little kindness along the way.
I love you, sir.
God knows I may not be the best in chivalry, but I had the best teacher a man could ever
want.
My daddy treated my mama with respect.
He'd walk in, breakfast time, bend down and kiss the back of her neck right in front of
all of us.
And he'd say, Lois, darling, I love you.
Oh, it was moving.
Us kids, we thought it was funny.
We'd say...
Daddy kiss your mama.
Na, na, na, na, na, na.
Wasn't that long ago when he stepped into the room, had on his three piece suit.
He walked up to her casket, bent down, brushed the hair from her ear, kissed her cheek and
he said, Lois, darling, I love you.
I saw a man keep his vows unto death.
That's why he's still my hero.
And I call him daddy.
I call him papa.
I'm a 44 year old man and I'm emotional about my dad because all these years he's been a
man of his word.
Last night a man stood at this platform, my friend Lee Williams, whose wife and two daughters
were on that bus that ignorant drunk hit when he was so stoned he took off down the wrong
side of the interstate and he killed 27 kids in 27 seconds.
On that bus was this man's wife and two babies.
When I saw him the other day after several months had gone by I said, Lee, how you doing
man?
He said, Oh, pretty good brother Dave.
He said, I miss him still.
May the 14th 1988 was still like yesterday to him.
He said, I just came from the cemetery.
He said, I don't go there every day.
He said, I can't do that to myself, but he said, and a promise to keep.
He said, she turned 16 last week and I promised her 16 roses.
So I went and put them on her grave because you know, brother Dave, daddy's got to keep
his word.
He said, I noticed the one right beside her where my other daughter laid.
The color on the phone is kind of faded in the weather now, but I promised her a phone
on her 14th birthday.
He said, you know, a man's got to keep his vows to his children.
He said, Oh brother Dave, the kids are dead.
You don't keep vows.
He was keeping vows to himself.
Sir, to turn your heart to your children, you've got a few promises to keep to yourself.
Something you said you would do, you've never done.
Well, it's time to go back and do it.
In the name of God, for the sake of the kids, give me hero.
Amen.
Now, and what every kid living at home to stand up, you thought I forgot you.
Come on, on your feet.
Not only does that verse say that the father should turn their heart to the children, but
children turn your hearts to your father.
Now I'm going to get you.
Well, I turn my heart to my father, turn your nose too, don't you?
How can you turn your heart to your father?
Tell your daddy you love him.
Daddy, I love you.
Well, I hate my old man.
Well, tell him you love him anyway.
He'll probably die of a cardiac arrest.
You get another old man.
You tell your daddy you love him.
Do you hear me?
You keep your promises to your parents.
Secondly, do your homework.
Thirdly, clean up your nasty room.
There's stuff growing in there under the bed.
Those socks are not supposed to wiggle by themselves.
Clean up your nasty room.
That's not biological warfare.
That's biological debris that has no name yet.
Kid, your mom's been lost in there three days and she's hungry.
Clean up your room.
Honor your father and your mother.
You say, what's that got to do with God?
Cleanliness is next to godliness.
And I'm going to tell you something else, kid.
Before God, you have an obligation and a responsibility.
If you call yourself a Christian, if you don't, then you're double jeopardy.
If you call yourself a Christian, you should behave as a child of God.
And a child of God accepts responsibility and cleans up after himself.
Are you listening to me?
Say yes.
That's pathetic.
Say yes.
Now raise your hand up.
Get that hand up there.
balcony, get that hand up.
I'm looking up there.
You think I can't, I'm...
Hold it up.
A little higher.
Now you say with me, I solemnly vow, I will clean up my nasty room.
I will obey my mother and father.
I'll do my homework.
I'll be the child of God who accepts responsibility and I will serve you Lord Jesus.
Get your hand up, boy.
I'm coming down there.
Yes, you, get that hand up.
Get your hand.
So help me God.
Amen.
Sit down.
I scared him to death.
I love you, kid.
What I'm saying to you this morning comes from the deepest resource of my heart.
In closing, I want to read something for you, given to me by the governor of Alaska.
I spoke for a prayer breakfast there recently and he handed this to me and changed my life.
This is today in America.
Today in America, 2,753 little teenage girls will get pregnant.
Today in America, 1,099 teenage girls are going to have abortions.
Today in America, 367 teenage girls will miscarry their babies because their bodies are not
developed enough to carry a child.
Today in America, 1,287 teenage girls will give birth.
Today in America, 666 babies will be born to little girls who didn't even have proper
prenatal care and today in America, 72 babies will die before they're 30 days old.
Today in America, 110 babies will die before they're a year old.
Today in America, nine children will die from gunshot wounds and today in America, they
wear flight jackets to elementary school in New York City.
Today in America, five teenagers committed suicide.
Today in America, 609 teenage fellows and girls contracted gonorrhea or syphilis and
today in America, 25% of the population of this nation is infected with herpes too.
Today in America, 988 kids will be abused by mommy or daddy.
Today in America, 3,288 kids will run away from home.
Today in America, 49,322 children are sitting in juvenile correctional facilities and today
in America, 2,269 children will be born to illegitimate parents because there's no such
thing as an illegitimate child.
Today in America, 2,989 kids will watch mommy and daddy get divorced and tomorrow in America,
it starts all over again.
How dare we call ourselves Christians and turn our back on our own children?
Now is the challenge.
Daddy, turn your heart to your children.
Turn your heart to God.
Don't be so proud and so arrogant.
You're too big for correction.
You're too big for that emotional tug in your spirit.
You're trying to ignore right now.
For God's sake, daddy, turn your heart to the kids.
I want every father with children living at home to stand to your feet.
I want you to come stand with me right now across the front of this church.
Come quickly, sir.
If you would, even if you're comfortable and the younger men can stand on these steps,
if you would, come on up, fill up onto the steps.
I want you up as close as possible.
Look at this mass of good looking guys.
Isn't this a wonderful sight to see?
Come on, dad.
Make your way down as close as you can.
Go on in as close as you can.
For one thing, gentlemen, I wanted to be very straightforward about what I've said.
I want you to know I'm willing to say it this close to you.
I know that many of you are great pillars in the body of Christ.
You're a great pillar in the church.
No way do I insinuate that all of you are a bunch of losers when it comes to being the
priest in your house.
But I am going to say for those that need to hear this this morning, we would endure
a lot.
That some of you who need to make some drastic changes would have the encouragement and the
challenge to do so.
Because I want to be right up front with you.
When you die, and every one of us will, save only the rapture.
When you die and you stand before God on Judgment Day, the only thing you're going to have with
you that you called yours on this earth will be your wife or your child, your boy or your
girl, but you're not taking your job with you.
You're not going to take that gold watch of 40 years of faithful service to Burlington
Railroad.
The thing won't tick there anyhow.
You know what you're taking?
You're taking your family.
That's it.
I've never seen a hearse with a U-Haul on it.
So what you take is your family.
And brother, you could have all the gold watches that were ever made in the universe and you'd
trade them in a New York second for that daughter that won't make it because you were too busy
earning watches.
Oh, Mr. I love you.
I want God to do a miracle in your life today.
Follow me in this simple prayer.
Repeat it only if you mean it.
Don't lie.
Let it come from your heart.
This is the act of a priest.
When I say act, I mean the responsibility, the duty, the performance, but not the put
on.
Follow me in this prayer.
Speak it out like the man you are.
I want God to hear it.
I want the devil to hear it too.
Come on.
Lord Jesus, thank you.
Thank you for your love, your patience, your life, your death, and your resurrection.
You are my high priest.
You intercede for me.
You shed your very blood for me because you loved me.
Oh God, I love my family.
I thank you for my children.
I thank you for my wife.
God help me to be the priest I ought to be.
Help me to be a man of my word.
Give me your godly characteristics.
Jesus help me today to stand for what's right in the face of my own community if necessary.
Give me the strength of the Holy Spirit to be the witness a dad ought to be.
God, for those things I know I'm wrong in.
You know those things, oh God.
I know those things, oh God.
Please forgive me.
I cleanse myself before you, God, of all filthiness of the flesh, of all filthiness of the Spirit,
and I commit myself to you.
Make me a holy priest, a godly priest, a priest filled with integrity.
In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray.
Cleanse every sin from my temple, and now I as a priest hold before you my family, and
I intercede for them.
Dear God, keep them.
Preserve their soul.
Save my family.
Cleanse our family, and let us all stand in the circle unbroken around the throne of God.
Jesus, I will not let go of them.
Satan, you're a liar.
You've lied to me for years, but Jesus has set me free, and the blood of Jesus cleanses
my family, keeps my family.
Satan, you have no part in our family.
You are finished.
Your history, Jesus is Lord of my family, and we will stand before him together in peace,
in love, in eternity.
In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray.
From your faithful priest, O Lord.
Amen.
Let's just give the Lord a hand.
Hallelujah.
You've been a viewer.
Now be a participant.
You've seen other men as they have come forward, and some with tears, make a commitment to
the priesthood of the family, a priest of the house.
What are you willing to do personally?
Let me take a moment.
Just please listen and understand that I'm not trying to come to you judgmentally.
I'm trying to jar people, to make them think.
One of the greatest healings I have after I've been on the road and I'm tired and I'm
exhausted and I've been away from my family is to spend time with my son.
Matt and I, and just to give you an idea, my son's standing behind the camera that's
making the picture you're looking at right now.
Matt and I are best friends.
We love to fish together.
We love to hunt together.
He's my boy.
And nothing I know of restores me emotionally more than doing things with my wife and my
daughter and my son.
For us to go fishing and to hit the sand bass, my word, there's nothing in the world that
does more for me.
And we talk about it for a week.
He came in the other day with three of the largest fish I've ever seen, a catfish and
two gigantic bass.
And I was looking at those fish and my heart swelled with pride for my son.
I love the kid.
Now listen to me.
I spend time with him.
It's healing for me.
If you think you're going to lose something after having spent time with your kids, you're
crazy.
It's the best thing you'll ever do.
Spend time with your family.
How do you do it?
You've got to schedule it.
Don't leave it to chance.
Don't say, well, we'll do it next Saturday, you know, if we can have time.
No.
You go to your calendar and you mark it down and then every time anybody says, look, Saturday
we'd like you to say, I'm sorry, I'm booked on Saturday.
I can't do it Saturday.
Any other time but not Saturday.
That's the only way it's going to work.
And another little footnote to all this.
Perhaps, please, you have done so well, so long.
Make the last big sacrifice.
Give hubby room to change.
Don't force this video down his throat.
Don't remind him of all the things.
If he needs reminding, he can rewind it.
But what we need right now is to give a little time and a little space.
Just let things happen the way God wants them to happen now.
And husband, father, dad, will you pray a prayer with me together, you and me?
Please, if this is not a convenient time, you can turn the tape off right now and turn
it back on when it's just you and me together, okay?
But please, pray this prayer with me.
Because sir, there's nothing in the world that I have a greater desire for than to see
families restored and kids have time with dad and dad with the children.
This is as important to you as it is to your kid.
So to be a priest, you need to make this prayer yours, just like those did on the video.
So pray this with me.
Come on, and if you don't mind, pray it out loud.
Repeat it with your mouth, under Christ.
All I'm going to do is help you.
This is only a leading of you toward prayer, as Christ did.
He taught his disciples how to pray, and he's still doing that.
Follow me.
Say, Lord Jesus, I want to be a priest, but I know I must be worthy.
And in and of myself, I am not worthy.
But by your blood, I am made worthy.
Your sacrifice for me has made me worthy.
Now Jesus, I accept you as my Savior and Lord and cleanser of the temple.
Cleanse my temple and make me a shepherd and a priest to my family.
In Jesus' name, amen.
God bless you guys.
And raise your hands to the King you sing unto, and sing it with all your heart.
Come on, guys.
Let's give the Lord a choir he won't forget.
Hands raised.
Come on now.
Come on.
Thank the Lord for God in him.
For priest of the family.
Dave has taken this powerful message across the country.
Everywhere he goes, men respond in repentance and strong commitment to allow the Lord to
change their lives.
In Oregon, something tremendously moving happened at the end of the altar call.
If there's a wall between you and your dad, I want you to go to him right now.
Go.
No.
Don't be afraid.
Find your dad and go to him.
Cut, put.
Go ahead.
Keep looking, sugar.
He'll be down here at the other end, possibly.
There are many of you kids here.
Your parents are not here.
I'm not through yet.
I'm accounting, I'm allowing for that.
I'm waiting because some of you are still thinking it over.
And you know that this night is too important.
I'm inviting you to come under daddy
and let Jesus heal you.
How many of you kids right now standing there
looking at me would be willing to say,
brother Dave, my dad is not here.
But there's a terrible, terrible wall between us.
I want you to go find a dad standing up here
and ask him to pray with you.
Maybe he's your youth pastor.
Maybe he's your senior pastor.
Maybe he's a total stranger and the Lord's gonna lead you
to a sympathetic and loving dad
who'll be a vicarious father for you.
Amen.
Dear God.
Hallelujah.
Praise you.
Thank you.
You know what the Bible teaches us?
That tears are a sweet smelling savor in the nostrils of God.
Heaven must smell awful good right now.
It must smell good.
Lullaby
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