Children: Disclipline with Love

Transcript

GR/GRM 797
10/09/1988
Children: Discipline with Love
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

We’re talking about the family, and we’ve been considering children in the family, and what God has to say about children and our responsibility as parents to the children; what God says the responsibility of children is in our homes. We’ve noted that the key issue in this whole area is our functioning in godliness as God’s people. When I am a godly father, my wife is a godly mother, our children are godly children, then we will function as the family that God intends us to be. The problem is that we lack consistency in the area of godliness, and to the degree that we lack that consistency, we see conflict, confusion, and disintegration taking place in our homes. We looked in Deuteronomy, and there we’re exhorted as the people of God to love our God with the totality of our being. I can’t stress enough the importance of this for us as parents. If I am not totally and completely in love with Jesus Christ to the extent that that dominates and controls my life and all that I do, then I will not be modeling for my children the kind of life and the kind of commitment that they will have to have if they are to be godly children. The pressure is on us as parents today, and it ought to be. The major problem we have with our young people is us as parents. We do not handle our pressures in a godly way. I do not respond to the difficulties and unsettling situations that come into my life according to a Biblical pattern, and that creates confusion in my home. So for us as parents, modeling godliness is the number one priority. If I am not willing to do that as a father, then my prayers for my children are empty, hollow, and hypocritical. I don’t care enough for them to model for them godliness in character. I am telling them, “You ought to do what I am unwilling to do.” The number one priority of your life ought to be different then the number one priority of my life. Me as Christian parents, those who have come to trust Jesus Christ, are the only people who have hope for families that are everything God created them to be. But we also have perhaps the greatest potential for disarray, disappointment, and frustration in our homes as well because of that very potential. We are exhorted and encouraged in the Scripture to train up our children in the way that they should go. When they are old, they will not depart from it. That is an assurance from God. That is a general truth from Proverbs 22. That does not ignore the fact that children have their own sin nature and do rebel, but the assurance and expectation of Scripture is if there is consistency in my life as a godly parent in the developing of my children, then I can trust God to keep them on the track as they get older.

As we talk about children, their basic responsibility is very simple: obedience to their parents. God has established an order in the home. The order is Christ, the man, the woman, the children. That’s God’s order for the home. Again, we as parents model godliness in the way that we submit, in the way that I as a father submit to Jesus Christ and invest my life in obedience and service for Him. A woman, a wife, a mother, not models godliness by her submissiveness to her husband by investing her life and being the helper suitable for him in every way. And thus our children can look to their parents and see what godly submissiveness and obedience really is like, and it’s really evidenced under difficulty, in pressure, when things are unsettled. No one has a problem with obedience when everything is the way that I want it because then I can’t tell whether I’m obedient or I’m in control. But when things are not the way I want it, when the pressure comes into my life, then my obedience is being tested. And that’s when I as a parent am modeling it for my children under pressure. Children are to be obedient to their parents. This is what pleases God. This is what is right before God. Colossians 3 and Ephesians 6 stress those two facts. But obedience is a difficulty for children. You can always tell where pressure points are going to be. When God says this is right, this pleases Me, then the flesh, my sin nature, will want to do exactly the opposite. God says this is His will and immediately I want to do this. He says children be obedient. The natural reaction of the sinful nature is disobedience. Disobedience is a mark of the ungodly. God is created order in His universe, in His creation, and as a result of sin, there is rebellion and disorder, and disobedience to parents is one of those areas. Look in Romans chapter 1. The conclusion of our last study we looked at a number of passages in the Old and New Testament that stressed the responsibility of children to be obedient to their parents. Now we look at something of the disobedience that is there. And in Romans chapter 1, the first part of the chapter talks about the revelation that God has given of Himself. Verse 16. Paul says, “. . . [I’m] not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God . . . [unto] . . . salvation . . . [for] . . . everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” But man rebels against the revelation that God has given. So “the wrath of God is revealed” in verse 18 “from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” This is what is wrong in our world today. Men are attempting to suppress the truth. They are disobedient to the revelation that God has given. That brings all kind of chaos an degeneration into the world. And the rest of the chapter deals with the ugliness of man in his rebellion against God. God gives them over to the degrading passions that take control of them and destroy them, and yet man seems powerless to do anything about it. All the way down to verse 30 where he says they are “Slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.” Note disobedient to parents placed within that framework, within the framework of a people who has turned their back on God and the revelation that He has given. That society and that people turns out children who are disobedient to parents. Individuals who have rejected and resisted the revelation that God has given manifest these characteristics. So a mark of an ungodly young person is disobedient to parents. It ought not to surprise us that we live in a society where the family is disintegrating, where children have it as an outstanding characteristic rebellion and disobedience to authority, disobedience to parental authority, and we experience that in our Christian homes as well. An many of our young people raised in Christian homes struggle with the issue of disobedience to parents. Why? Even Christian young people have a sin naturel, and the sin nature always manifests itself in rebellion against God. A rebellion’s manifested in music. Parents manifest in our children. Disobedient to parents, a mark of ungodliness. In our previous study we looked at 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 2 where the last time days difficult times will come. Men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents. It’s a mark of the ungodly. Our young people ought to this to heart and consider it carefully. Rebellion, disobedience to parents isn’t a matter of well, “This is our day. Our parents don’t understand. Our parents aren’t with it. My parents are unrealistic.” When you cut through all of that froth, that is simply empty excuses. God says at the heart of it is a heart that is in rebellion against God, and when I am rebellion in rebellion against God, I manifest that by my rebellion against what God says. For young people it is to be obedient to parents. Now this, this obedient flows out of sinful hearts. Jeremiah, [clears his throat] excuse me, Jeremiah chapter 17 in verse 9 says the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things. We talk about our rebellion against God. We’re talking about a heart problem, the inner person. It’s not the circumstances around us. It’s not the society in which we live. It’s not the circumstances of the day. It’s not the peer pressure. It’s not the breakdown of moral standards. They all compound the situation, but the basic problem is an individual problem. If it were not for the fact that I had a heart that is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things, I would not rebel and sin against God regardless of what was going on around me so that is not an excuse. The fact that young people today are doing all kinds of sinful and destructive things really has nothing to do with the fact that Christian young people often do sinful and destructive things. That becomes a personal issue of their heart and its relationship with God. Look in Mark chapter 7. Mark chapter 7 verse 21, “For from within,” Jesus is speaking, “for from within, out of the heart of men, proceed . . . evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting . . . wickedness, . . . deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, . . . foolishness. All these evil things proceed form within [the man] and defile the man.” We’ve a real problem that we have as people is heart problem. Galatians chapter 5. Galatians and the fifth chapter. Verse 19 describes in a different way fallen sinful humanity, what is in my heart. Verse 19 of Galatians 5, “. . . the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions.” Are these things that characterize our homes often? Outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envyings, drunkenness, things like these, and here’s a strong warning: “Those who practice such things . . . [shall] not inherit the kingdom of God.”

But I understand. A person whose life is characterized by sin is not a child of God, is not on its way to glory. The problem many of our young people have is they do not belong to Jesus Christ. The problem many of our young people have who are raised in Christian families in Christian churches have is they do not belong personally to Jesus Christ. And so without a transformed heart, they cannot live transformed lives. James chapter 4 says very clearly it’s from within us that the wars and the battles and the conflicts come, not from the outside but from the inside. Now that’s important if we’re going to understand and appreciate what God says about the family and our children. I fear that we as parents do not take seriously enough the issue of sin in our lives and in the lives of our children. Eternity is at stake! We sing songs and talk about the glory that awaits us, that we anticipate, in God’s presence, but we don’t seriously consider enough that it may be some of our children won’t be there. That’s a serious matter. What greater concern should rest upon a parent than the eternal salvation of their children? But we go on with our lives mixed up in the world, halfhearted commitment to Jesus Christ. I wonder why we raise a generation that don’t want to bother going to church when they get older. I say, “What has gone wrong?” We have modeled indifference about that which really matters for eternity, and I can’t go back and undo it. You know my children are growing day by day, and I’m wasting the time, not redeeming it, wasting it. Thinking after I get what I want, after I accomplish this, when I get through that, then I’m going to get serious for Jesus Christ, and it does not work. We do it God’s way, or we suffer the consequences. We’re going to talk about rebellion with children. We have to deal with the rebellion that’s in the heart, my heart as a parent and my willingness to submit my life to Jesus Christ and trust in Him as my savior. Then the goal and purpose of my life is to bring my children into a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ as well. That comes from what I share with them, the opportunity to expose them to the truth, and what I model in my home because then when there’s a transformed heart, there can be a transformed life. But when there is a transformed life, even among believers, there is not always consistency in the life, and that will be true of our children as well. Rebellion is not over when a young person comes to trust Christ. When there is rebellion, the disobedience must be dealt with.

I’m going to look with you at what God says about the matter of discipline for our children. Scripture is clear. There is not a lot of material about it because the material that is given is so clear and so to the point, the only issue is are we as parents willing to be biblical? And if I do not do what is biblical in the area of discipline with my children, then I am modeling for my children rebellion against God, and when I model rebellion against God, you can expect rebellion in your home against your authority as well. Let’s go to the book of Proverbs chapter 13. Proverbs and the thirteenth chapter. I encourage you to be reading the book of Proverbs. I’m following a pattern for myself again that I’ve used on other times. If you read one proverb a day and five psalms a day, you will cover the whole book of Proverbs in a month and the whole book of Psalms in a month. And you may want to try that for some variety in your own personal time with the Lord each day. Read one proverb and five psalms, and you will move through the book of Proverbs and the book of Psalms in a month. It is good for us as parents to be saturated with the book of Proverbs. It has much to say about the conducting of our lives. In Proverbs chapter 13 and verse 24, and I’m taking these simply in the order they are through the book of Proverbs rather than any logical order, but when we’re done they’ll fit together I think. “He who . . . [spares] his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.” That verse is rather clear and simple. If I have a home where love rules, where I as a father am controlled by God’s love for my children, that will be a home where discipline is exercised. There is no such thing as loving my children to much to discipline them. There is only an issue of not loving them enough to discipline them. “He who . . . [spares] his rod hates his son.” The rod, you might call it the switch, the paddle, the probably common term today. He who spares the paddle hates his son. We’re talking about what we might call corporal punishment, physical punishment, and we’re not talking about child abuse. There is much said about abuse today. In fact I just happen to have an article. I clipped it out of this morning’s paper. It says, “50 percent of U.S. homes are said to be violent. Chances are very good indeed that you have a violent home or are close to someone who does. It can be estimated,” now listen to this, “it can be estimated with certainty. Estimated with certainty.” What’s certain is I don’t know why you estimate, “’but if you estimate it with certainty that at least half the homes in America are violent,’ says researcher, he gives the name, ‘We can say that easily. We can say that easily because half of all households in the country have children under eighteen, and pretty much every parent hits their kids.’” This is out in a book, Intimate Violence. “Violence is inappropriate no matter what it is. If a household has infrequent episodes of grabbing, shoving, or spanking even once a year, that still is a violent home.” Now you see what happens. The issue of child abuse or spouse abuse is a very serious matter and not one to be made light of, but the issue becomes blurred because under the umbrella of abuse, they now include all kinds of thing. Shoving, spanking, that classifies as abuse. So it’s very difficult. Some people when I speak about this will go away and say, “Gil is insensitive to the very serious matter of abuse in our homes.” And the problem is it’s difficult to talk about it because it has all become mixed together. Abuse in our homes is a disaster: spouse abuse where men abuse their wives where children are really, physically abused. I’m talking in homes where love reigns where parents function in a love relationship with one another and a love relationship with their children. There is no abuse in those homes because abuse is contrary to love, but spanking is not child abuse. So to put it under that umbrella simply is to confuse matters. They go on to say in this article, “Both public policy and individual strategy have to be directed at making it so people can’t use violence in family situations.” Otherwise what he’s saying is we have to come to a situation where it would be unlawful to spank children like they have in some other countries. Other things in the article are they encourage women to work outside the home because research indicates that paid employment enhances mental health. Well that should take care of any mental problems men think they have; they’ve been working for money for years. And it’s related to having less violence in the home. It is best to have less violence in the home. I guess I wouldn’t spank my kids if there was nobody there to watch them; that’s true. Well that’s that article.

Now as you can see we have a problem here. “He who . . . [spares] his rod hates his son, . . . he who loves him disciplines him diligently.” There is to be a consistency and a diligence in my discipline in my home because I love my child, and I use the rod, the paddle. In our home we used the ping pong paddle. They were cheap, durable, and effective. We always got the heavy duty kind with the thicker handle. Applied properly in the right place, they serve their purpose. We’re not talking about were someone in anger reaches out and swats the kid across the face. That’s not biblical discipline. That’s not a manifestation of love; that’s an expression of my lack of control as a parent. We’re talking about here having myself under control and out of love for my child responding to their rebellion in this situation by a spanking. Now in spite of that verse, we have people at Indian Hills engaged in a debate of whether it is really right to spank a child. They say, “Well the Bible’s not talking here about literal rods, literal spankings. You know it’s like a metaphor for a discipline, but we don’t have to get physical.” Now keep in mind the Creator can tell us what is best for the creation He made. Go to the next verse. Chapter 19 verse 18. It is a verse that makes an impression upon me as a father. Chapter 19 verse 18. “Discipline your son while there is hope, And do not desire his death.” What parent really desires the death of their child? You know what God says, “Discipline him while there’s hope!” We have some parents who let it go beyond hope. Then they’ve got a seventeen year old and say I can’t do anything with him. I don’t know what to do! Well if you only became a believer when your children were in their upper teens. You can’t go back; that’s true. You can only from this point on ask God for the grace to be biblical in your relationship with them and commit them to the Lord. We have problems here in our own local body if I can keep using that example. We got people with little kids that are four and five and six years old, and they can’t control them! “I don’t know what I’m going to do with that kid!” And the real problem, and we’re going to see this more clearly, is fathers. You see the Bible puts the responsibility for discipline in the home on the father, and we have men who have abdicated the responsibility because they do not love their families. They do not love their children. We have children in this church that are not disciplined by their fathers, and that simply says we’ve got fathers in this church who don’t love their children. It’s too much bother. Who wants to come home after a hard day and here this about the kids, and they have to give a spanking? “I just don’t want to hear it. Don’t tell me about it. You handle it.” God holds me accountable. Discipline your son while there is hope; don’t desire his death. That means you start when they’re young and you are consistent. Fair, loving, and consistent in the discipline in your home, and it’s an evidence of love because you do it when you want to, and you do it when don’t want to. You do it when you feel like it; you do it when you don’t feel like it. You probably never feel like it when it comes to discipline. Chapter 22 verse 15. Verse 6 is the verse we’ve already looked at. “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Down to verse 15. “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.” See the problem with our sinful depraved hearts. “Foolishness is bound up.” The proverb: foolishness is the unwillingness to do what God says; it is the lack of wisdom. And a foolish son is a disgrace to his father and his mother Proverbs tells us. “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.” What does it take? “The rod of discipline . . . [to] remove it far from him.” What a tragedy that we’re raising children today without driving foolishness from them. We’re letting them grow up controlled by their foolishness. We wonder, the verse told us do not desire his death. You leave a child to himself, and he self-destructs over time. And we see. We get seventeen, eighteen, nineteen year olds self-destructing. Why? “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child;” the rod will drive it far from him.

The rod. We’re talking about physical punishment. We’re not, ya, we’ll talk maybe it another time about other forms of discipline. I’m not saying that the only form of discipline is physical spanking. The form of discipline that the Bible specifically requires in my home is spanking. That has always been at the heart of our discipline. Now with that we have used other forms of discipline: withholding privileges, grounding, so on like that. But you note: God could have said, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; grounding him will remove it far from him.” You know they could have done that in biblical times. They could’ve made him go out and stand at this part of the yard or said, “you can’t leave the desert to play with your friends. You know you stay in our yard.” There were those options to parents, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with them. We’ve used them in our home, but I have to come back to what the Bible says is at the foundation and root of our discipline. I realize every child is different. We have to be sensitive to that, but “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child;” the rod will drive it far from him. Physical discipline is a necessity. We never like it. I never want to do it. If I ever found myself finding pleasure in giving one of my children a spanking, then I had to go off and examine myself. I wasn’t doing it for love for them any longer. Something was wrong. And because I find it unpleasant, I always wondered could I skip it this time? Ya I had to come to grips. “Gil, why would you skip it?” “Because I don’t want to do it” “Is it because they don’t need it?” “No, they need it.” “Then why wouldn’t you do it?” “I don’t want to do it.” “I say, ‘Well then there’s no love here is there. There’s selfishness’” because you know they need it and it’s best for them so if you love them, you do what is best for the other person. It’s selfishness that turns it on myself. “I’ve had a hard day; I don’t have time to hassle with the kids tonight. I don’t have time.” What is another way of saying this? “I don’t love them. I’ve got other priorities in my life.” Let’s be honest. The Bible’s true. If you don’t discipline your son, you hate him; you don’t love him. At least let’s be honest before God. This idea that I love my children, I don’t know what’s wrong—when’s the last time you disciplined them? “I don’t know. I don’t know if I ever have.” That’s not biblical love. It is not biblical love. Chapter 23 verse 13. We need to remind ourselves of this because sometimes the response, the weeping and the wailing, makes you wonder. “Do not hold back discipline from the child, Although you . . . [beat] him with the rod, he will not die. You shall . . . [beat] him with the rod And . . . [deliver] his soul from Sheol.” Dealing with serious issues here. We’re talking about hard spankings. Do you see the rod keep coming back in? The switch, the paddle. You do it why? To deliver his soul from death. He won’t die. Now sometimes the crying—I take it this means that these are hard spankings. I mean, you know, love taps don’t count. Ought to feel this. It ought to hurt. Better be aware that something happened. It’s to be unpleasant, and I take it there may be some wailing and crying, screaming. I remember through the screams, “You don’t love me!” Well I have to explain, “Yes, I do love you. That’s why we have to do this.” They won’t die. I have two children. I never had anymore. I’m not hiding any deaths. They have survived the spankings. Again, we’re not talking about child abuse here, indiscriminant beating of children. That is repulsive. That is a manifestation of a person under control of their fallen, sinful nature and are in rebellion against God. But as a parent, I must be under control. I must sit down and explain to them why the spanking is necessary, why we have to do it. “Now turn over.” All our spankings are applied at the proper place, called the seat, and it depended. Sometimes it would be three; sometimes it would be four. They would add. If the offense was repeated, then we added the next time the spanking was given. You got four for this yesterday; you did it again today. We’re up to five. I remember being asked by one of my children, I won’t embarrass them by telling you which one, “How many will you go to?” We were on the sixth or seventh day by then. I said, “I don’t know. That depends on you.” “Will you really give me ten or twelve?” “If you keep up, we’ll go to ten or twelve.” You know it ended. You know behind the scenes I was saying to Marilyn saying, “You know, I don’t know whether I’m going to break before that child breaks. You know I’m going to get arrested here!” You know you always hear, “I’m going to tell them child abuse!” [Gil laughs] “That’s a good one.” You do it in love. Don’t do it to hurt them in the wrong sense, but it must hurt! There must be pain, and we found the ping pong paddle for us, applied with minimum covering, did it. Usually we tell them to go down, put your pajama bottoms on, and nothing else because again, you put three pairs of underwear and two pairs of pants on, things have gotten mellow. So you have a pattern, and it clears it up for everyone. Everyone knows these are the parameters. These are the guidelines. These are the consequences, and my parents do it because they love me. So don’t hold back discipline from the child. If you beat them with the rod, they’ll not die, but we hear all kind of day, “You’ll mar his personality. You’ll twist him. You’ll make him a violent person. You’ll do all this,” and all I found myself saying, “God, I’ve got to come back to Your Word. If you’re not right in this area, what area can I trust You in? So I have to do what You’ve said, and Lord, You have to then take care of the consequences,” rather than saying, “Well God, I had to alter Your plan because someone wrote a book and said it’s not good to spank children.” Of course! Those people don’t understand anything about the sin nature. That person who wrote that book, do they understand that we are fallen, sinful beings? That foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child? No! They’re talking about that good, little sweet tot. They don’t understand sin. Of course! They don’t understand anything.

Proverbs 29 verse 15. “The rod and reproof give wisdom, But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.” Mother’s mentioned here; the father’s mentioned in other proverbs. The disgrace it brings to the father with a foolish child. Rod and reproof. Now again, you know the paddle is brought into it again with the reproof. The rod and reproof give wisdom. No that is a help to bring the child into submissiveness to God. “A child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.” We’ve got ample examples of that; the shame brought by rebellious children, and children growing up undisciplined. You know it amazes me. It’s shocking. We have a daughter who babysits. It is interesting to get the evaluation of the home. “I wouldn’t babysit there again.” “Why?” “Those kids won’t do anything they’re told. When you tell their parents, they don’t do anything about it so there’s no hope. So I won’t go back.” You can tell in a home where discipline does take place. All that has to be said is, “Well I think I’ll have to tell your daddy when he gets home.” “Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” That’s good for that child. There are parameters. He doesn’t have to go off the walls, and too young to make these decisions, but we just let him do what he wants. “Well maybe he’ll wind down. Just let him destroy the place. He’ll run out of energy.” “The rod and reproof give wisdom, . . . a child who gets his own way brings shame . . .” Not doing anything for the child. He’ll grow up without restraint without learning, self-discipline. That’s a tragedy for that child. That’s not a manifestation of love in that home. Look down in verse 17. “Correct your son, and he will give you comfort; He will delight your soul.” Those children will be happy with themselves, and they’ll be at the light to their parents. It’s just that simple. What’s wrong? Why have parents said, “I can’t stand the kids. I got to get out of the house. I can’t spend all day with those kids.” We think they’re going to get better? And finally you get to the point you turn them over someplace, somebody else. Let them go out in the world now. Great. They’ll find out. And we give up. Why? We have a lack of love.

Now discipline in our home has to be carried out in the atmosphere of love. I want to stress that again. My children have to know it’s for their good. I can’t discipline my children when I’m out of control. We as parents let them work us until we can’t stand it any longer. Don’t do that. They do it. “I told you don’t do that! I’m not going to tell you again don’t do that!” Finally, we’re enraged. Then we think we ought to walk over and give them a slot. Well for what? Why wasn’t it good enough to tell them, “don’t do that”? The problem is they learn. Don’t do that doesn’t mean don’t do that. “DON’T DO THAT ANY MORE!” That’s what means don’t do that. The kids learn that. You say don’t do that doesn’t mean anything. You’re not serious yet. We say, “I really wish you wouldn’t do that.” That’s not serious yet either. They know then when we finally scream about it, and so we think screaming is really what work in our house. That’s not the case. That’s simply the pattern that we’ve developed. If it say, “Don’t do that,” and they knew the next time they did it they were going back to their bedroom, put on their pajamas, and turn over, they would learn that “don’t do that” in a nice controlled manner means “don’t do that.” So we’re raising those children. They learn it. You’ll say, “Why the exceptional kid here?” Well it probably has something to do with the parent. I realize there are problems in children. My children had some of Marilyn’s blood in them. It’s not easy, but you know if I come back to the Word and find I just have to be consistent. The Bible says my children must be obedient. If I don’t require that obedience, I am disobedient to God! Now I’m modeling disobedience! I don’t require of them what God says I must require of them. Now I’m modeling disobedience, and I expect them to be obedient, and things just go from bad to worse to pretty soon I say, “I can’t do anything with them.” Better start early and establish the pattern. Consistency. I ought to say here too it’s important for the parents to be together on this. The wife has to support the husband in the discipline. The child can’t work one against the other, and if my wife feels that maybe the discipline was too strict, she can talk to me about it after words alone. No good in the midst of the situation because then the child, “Aha. Now I’ve got a . . . .” No, we have to be together, and when my children disobey their mother, and I came home, whether I thought it deserved it or not, they had disobeyed her, and she had told them to wait in their room till I got home; they were getting a spanking, they got a spanking. Period. They say, “Dad, I don’t think it’s right. I think mom was unfair here.” The only issue at stake right now is that you disobeyed your mother, and you’re getting a spanking. I couldn’t be talked out of it because soon they would learn they didn’t have to do what their mother said because all they had to do wait till Dad gets home, and then work it out with him. “You know Dad and I, we understand each other. Mom, she’s always unreasonable.” Well they have to find out they have two unreasonable parents, and there is no future in waiting for Dad to get home. That’s for the good of the kids. That doesn’t mean we never made a mistake. That we never disciplined too sternly when it should not have been that stern. That we didn’t fail to discipline when we should’ve disciplined. That’s all there. There are no perfect parents. I realize that, but I cannot let that paralyze me. So there needs to be two parents that are together. That’s why their relationship is the key in the home. When discipline is carried out, they must do it together. And I’m a talk about whether this was the best way to handle that situation or not. I talk about that with my wife alone not with the children present, and that helps them. They don’t have to sort through now, “Is this the kind of situation where I can get Dad on my side or Mom on my side.” Their life is so much more simple. There is security in knowing this is the way it will be. Mom said I’m going to get a spanking for this when Dad gets home. I’ll get a spanking for it. I don’t have to sit here and worry about whether I will, I just have to get myself ready. It’s not as difficult as we make it today. The difficulty today is just not doing what God says we ought to do. Now part of this is we have to raise our own children in our own home, and we’ve talked a little bit about that.

Another article that shows how contrary to the world this goes, and then we’re going to have to break and pick up again in our next study. This comes out of the local paper here this past year from a professor in human development in the family at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. He offered the following comments about popular and not so popular maxims dealing with marriage, childrearing, family relationships, and teaching. I’ve just clipped out one. It says, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” He says, “it comes from the Bible—Proverbs 16:11 in earlier forms circa 1000.” That probably means 1000 B.C; it’s more closer to when Proverbs would given. Well spare the rod, spoil the child; it’s not a quote, but we’ll give him credit. But know what he says, “That one really upsets me. That one’s dangerous,” he said. “Fortunately very few people believe that anymore.” Now he’s right. Just look at our society. You know you think, you see how blind the unbeliever is? “If teachers and childcare workers can refrain from physical punishment, so can parents,” he said. “Resorting to the rod neither prevents a spoiled child nor instills any useful message about relationships. It suggests that it is all right for bigger people to hit smaller ones, and that problems can be solved with violence.” Now we’ve just read through what the Bible says about the issue. Here’s a man who thinks he takes the substance from the book of Proverbs; he’s satisfied to say most people don’t believe this anymore. There’s no truth to it. It’s very clear. This man thinks he knows more than God knows, and we wonder what’s wrong with young people today. We wonder why we live in a disintegrating society with rebellion all around us, why young people can’t control themselves, why alcohol and drugs and sex and everything else gets a hold of them and destroys their lives. Well here’s a man who says, “Resorting to the rod neither prevents a spoiled child nor instills any useful message about relationships.” And you know what I have to decide? I have to decide whether he’s right or God’s right. The tragedy today among believers is we have more and more parents who profess to be believers in Jesus Christ who are deciding this man is right, and God is wrong, and we are reaping the results in our young people today. There is no other way than God’s way. We fail to obey; we reap the consequences, and God holds me accountable as a parent.

I want to look at some specific issues in our coming study. We’ll stop here. Ask ourselves, “How are we doing before God? What does our home look like? What’s your family like? Is it really a biblical family? Would you be embarrassed if there was a hidden camera recording a lot of what goes on in your kitchen, your interaction with your children, between husband and wife? Are we really manifesting love in our homes?” We have to be willing to make the changes that are necessary to be biblical in every way. We don’t have to back up. “Do I have a heart that is submissive to the living God?” If I come to allow Him to change my heart if I put my rebellion and stubborn resistance to Him if I come to trust Jesus Christ as the one who died for my sin, have I brought my children to a saving knowledge of Him? And out of that relationship I can make it the goal of my life to live in submission to Him in obedience to His Word. That will provide the atmosphere to raise children who are submissive to him and obedient to their parents.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Father for Your great love for us. The great sacrifice that made it possible for us to become part of Your family. Thank You for Your love, Your discipline. Thank You for our homes; the homes that are represented here. Lord cause us to consider very carefully first our relationship with you and then our obedience within that relationship. Make us as parents, particularly us as men, willing to submit ourselves, our wills, to You. Lord give us the kind of love for our families, our wives, our children that only You can produce. Oh make us willing to stop being selfish, but to do what is best and right for them that they might be raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.