The Balanced Patriarch - Learning Both Good & Evil

Transcription

[intro music]

Michael Pearl:  He teaches his children to choose the good and reject the evil. My daddy did that. I did that with my children. Now, I didn't try to protect my kids and shield them from the evil in the world. I exposed them in measure as they were able to stand it. When my boys were just approaching puberty for instance, I would talk to them about sexual drive and how crazy it will make you when it happens. I would say to them, "Another year, you're going to lose your mind."

[laughter]

Michael:  What are you talking about? Another year, you're going to go through puberty and when you do, you're going to be like that old hound dog over there. [laughter]

Michael:  And they had seen it. They knew what I was talking about. I said, "When you go through puberty you're going to have really difficult," and I would talk to them like that. Now I didn't sit down and have a religious conversation. We were just working along. Or maybe we were driving along, and some good‑looking girl, and they'd go [silent gesture] , give a little look down the road there. I'd said, "Mm‑hmm, it's happening to you, isn't it?" [laughter]

Michael:  Happening? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? [laughter]

Michael:  I was just looking at the telephone pole. [laughter]

Michael:  Yeah. I talk to my kids and I explain things to them. And when we would see a drunk downtown puking on himself, we'd stop and say, Look here. Here's what happened to this guy. He took one drink with his buddies, just to have a little fun. Then he got to drinking a six pack of beer and first thing, you know here he is. I explained to them how it happened. Drug addicts, we would expose them to drug addicts and let them see the end result of what happens to drug addicts. You say how do you expose them? Sometimes they would be in my house where I'm witnessing to them. Or we would go out onto the street where they were and we would talk to them. They would go out with me.

We had a ministry set up on the side of the road, a coffee house, it was open every night. Where we would invite guys in and we were between a bar and a saloon and across the street from another beer joint. We would stand out on the street and invite these people in. For years we did that every evening.

My kids were with me and they saw 100s of guys get saved. They heard them testify of how they're once drunks. They saw them as drunks and saw them get saved. Saw their lives changed. I never had to worry about my kids getting sucked off into some of that stuff. They knew the consequences of sin. I exposed them to good and evil. We talked about divorce. We talked about homosexuality.

They saw some queers. They knew that queers weren't gay. They knew they were miserable.

[laughter]

Michael:  They had seen us witness to all manners of people. [background noise] They'd seen queers getting saved and stop being queer. They became normal. They became as God created a man to be. They saw queers get saved. Lesbians get saved and get married and have children and live Godly lives. So they knew that the power of God could change lives. I didn't protect my children. I exposed them in measure so that it resulted in inoculation. They were inoculated. The divine patriarch teaches the children to choose the good. And reject the evil. If you protect from making that choice, and then they escape the net when they're 18, 19 years old. Watch them they'll fly right into descent. He provides carefully controlled exposure to temptation. We talked about that. He passes along his wisdom and culture. Here a little, there a little, and they walk in the way. Now, there's this sense that...

I don't know if I can teach it you. It's innate. When my children came, I had this desire that they'd be the best, that they'd be ready to assume control of their life as early as possible. For one thing, we were threatened when we started home‑schooling 30 years ago. There was no such thing as home‑schooling. No support groups, no curriculum, nothing.

We thought that we had invented the idea. We found that there were others already doing it, but we didn't know that at the time. And the state came out on three different occasions and threatened to take our children away from us. They called us down to the courthouse, we had to go down and stand before the judge. We had feared that they were going to take our children out of our home. I realized that I might now have but eight years to try and lure my kids. Or 10 years.

Then they'd be gone from my home. Or I might die. And leave them without a father. I thought, "I'm going to make my kids understand God, the truth, the Bible. How society's constructed, good and evil. I'm going to make them understand that by the time they're six, seven or eight years old, they're going to be ready to stand firm. If they're taken and put into a boy's home, they're going to become godly witnesses. They're going to stand while others fall."

So, I just had this passion this desire to impart as much of my life, my culture, my worldview to my kids as early as possible.

[music fades]