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Voddie Baucham - The Importance Of Biblically Disciplining Children · Voddie Baucham Sermons

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Speaker 1: Amen, you have your bibles, open them to Ephesians chapter six,
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Speaker 1: verses one through four. Did I turn? There we go
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Speaker 1: Theesians chapter six, verses one through four. And here we're
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Speaker 1: looking at this picture of discipline and the way that
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Speaker 1: we raise our children and discipline our children. Fesians chapter six,
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Speaker 1: verses one through four, very familiar passage scripture. We read, children,
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Speaker 1: obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.
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Speaker 1: Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment,
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Speaker 1: with a promise that it may go well with you
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Speaker 1: and that you may live long in the land. Fathers,
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Speaker 1: do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them
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Speaker 1: up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. And here,
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Speaker 1: as we look at this passage of scripture, what I
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Speaker 1: want to lift from this text is three phases I
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Speaker 1: see in this discipleship and discipline process with our children.
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Speaker 1: Three phases I believe that are outlined clearly here in
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Speaker 1: this passage. And they are these. The first phase is
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Speaker 1: the discipline in training phase. The second phase, well I
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Speaker 1: like to call the catechism phase, and the third phase
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Speaker 1: the discipleship phase. Now, again, these are not hard and
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Speaker 1: fast phases. Here, they don't necessarily begin and end at
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Speaker 1: particular times, nor do they open and close consecutively. These
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Speaker 1: are things that we're doing all the time with our children.
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Speaker 1: But for example, the discipline and training phase is incredibly important,
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Speaker 1: crucial in those first few years which il's life, especially
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Speaker 1: those first few years of which I life. Are we
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Speaker 1: done with discipline and training after those first two or
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Speaker 1: three years, No, we're not, But it's most crucial and
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Speaker 1: matters more than all else during those first three years
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Speaker 1: the catechism phase. That catechism phase generally begins when children
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Speaker 1: become verbal. That changes from child to child, changes between
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Speaker 1: these different from boys to girls, but it's generally when
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Speaker 1: children become verbal, and that discipleship phase is the one
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Speaker 1: that begins later on in their lives. Becomes a little
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Speaker 1: more clear cut, but I'll get to that momentarily. As
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Speaker 1: we talk about this, the idea of the discipline of
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Speaker 1: our children and the training of our children with you
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Speaker 1: often get confusion and sometimes you actually get objections within
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Speaker 1: reform circles because it is as though some who perhaps
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Speaker 1: don't un understand the doctrines of Grace as thoroughly, some
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Speaker 1: perhaps who haven't been around reformed doctrine very long, start
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Speaker 1: to lean on and understand the sovereignty of God. And
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Speaker 1: it's just it's blessed, this idea of the sovereignty of God.
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Speaker 1: But as you well know, there are some people who
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Speaker 1: embrace the idea of the sovereignty of God and then
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Speaker 1: stop engaging in evangelism, or if they don't stop engaging
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Speaker 1: in evangelism, they feel funny about it, as though somehow
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Speaker 1: witnessing with passion is evidence that they don't really believe
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Speaker 1: in the sovereignty of God. Some will apply that same
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Speaker 1: thing to the way that we discipline and disciple our children,
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Speaker 1: and as though we believe in the sovereignty of God.
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Speaker 1: But it sounds like you're saying here that if we
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Speaker 1: just do this, everything will turn out all right with
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Speaker 1: our kids. I'm not saying that at all. This is
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Speaker 1: not formulaic and there are no guarantees. Those are to
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Speaker 1: this from Loriene Bettner as he talks about this kind
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Speaker 1: of objection. This objection, however, like the one, the fact
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Speaker 1: that this system discourages all motives to exertion is completely
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Speaker 1: answered by the great principle which we hold and teach,
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Speaker 1: namely that the means as well as the ends are foreordained.
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Speaker 1: God's decree that the earth should be fruitful did not
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Speaker 1: exclude but included the sunlight, the showers, the tillage of
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Speaker 1: the husbandman, etc. If God has forordained demand to have
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Speaker 1: a crop of corn, he has also foreordained him to
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Speaker 1: plow and plant and cultivate, and to do all other
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Speaker 1: necessary things to secure the crops, just as the purpose
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Speaker 1: to build includes the ewing of stone, the squaring of timbers,
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Speaker 1: and the preparation of all materials which enter into the structure,
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Speaker 1: and as a declaration of war includes arms, ammunition, ships,
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Speaker 1: and all other necessary equipment. Again, because we prepare and
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Speaker 1: do those things that are necessary, does it mean that
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Speaker 1: we don't trust in the sovereignty of God. This is
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Speaker 1: the farmer who trust in the sovereignty of God. Stop planting, weeding, fertilizing. No,
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Speaker 1: he does all those things because the God who we
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Speaker 1: serve has for ordained the ends as well as the means.
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Speaker 1: Do I believe that God is sovereign in salvation, absolutely,
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Speaker 1: But I believe that He uses the foolishness of preaching
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Speaker 1: to call out those who are his And so I preach.
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Speaker 1: Thank God for the doctrine of election in the words
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Speaker 1: of Spurgeon, Let's go elect some more. Amen. Not that
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Speaker 1: you're going to add to the number that God elects.
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Speaker 1: But the idea there is that we are passionate about
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Speaker 1: those whom God has called to be his own, hearing
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Speaker 1: the gospel, which is the means by which He calls
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Speaker 1: them to himself. So we claim the gospel, and they
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Speaker 1: are those who argue. You know, it's interesting you believe
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Speaker 1: in the sovereignty of God's things. Seems like it would
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Speaker 1: sort of eliminate your motivation to evangelism. Quite the contrary,
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Speaker 1: It guarantees my success, am en. It guarantees my success
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Speaker 1: and motivates me all the more. God uses the foolishness
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Speaker 1: of preaching the same. When it comes to our children.
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Speaker 1: This is not about guaranteed outcomes, but this is about
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Speaker 1: us obeying God and trusting him to bring forth fruit
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Speaker 1: as he's promised he would. So in his first phase,
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Speaker 1: the discipline and training phase, what are we saying to
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Speaker 1: our children. We are saying, child, give me your attention.
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Speaker 1: That's it. Those first few years of life. Nothing is
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Speaker 1: more important to say to our children than give me
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Speaker 1: your attention. Human babies are different than the other babies
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Speaker 1: in the animal kingdom. Babies in the animal Kingdom come
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Speaker 1: into this world, they PLoP down on the ground, and
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Speaker 1: within minutes they're up walking around. Human baby's not so much.
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Speaker 1: Can't make it on their own. They are utterly dependent.
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Speaker 1: God has designed them that way because of that. When
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Speaker 1: a human baby comes home, we spend we pay much
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Speaker 1: more attention to that baby than that baby does to us.
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Speaker 1: But at some point that must change, and we must
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Speaker 1: communicate to that child as lovingly as we possibly can.
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Speaker 1: You're gonna make it now. Your survival has been secured,
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Speaker 1: and from this point on you must pay a lot
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Speaker 1: more attention to us than we do to you, because
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Speaker 1: now that's what your survival depends on. Heymen, if we
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Speaker 1: don't do that, we raise egocentric, narcissistic, spoiled beasts, and
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Speaker 1: that is not what we're after here. Listen to this.
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Speaker 1: And the Lord came and stood, calling, as at other
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Speaker 1: time Samuel Samuel, and Samuel said, speak for your hears.
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Speaker 1: And the Lord said to Samuel, behold, I am about
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Speaker 1: to do a thing in Israel at which the two
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Speaker 1: ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. On that
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Speaker 1: day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have
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Speaker 1: spoken concerning his house from beginning to end, and I
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Speaker 1: declare to him that I am about to punish his
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Speaker 1: house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his
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Speaker 1: sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore,
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Speaker 1: I swear to the House of Eli that the iniquity
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Speaker 1: of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice
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Speaker 1: or offering for ever. That's just one of those passages
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Speaker 1: in it. That's just one that you just read and
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Speaker 1: it just pours over you. Listen to this. John Wesley
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Speaker 1: commenting on this, he contented himself with a cold proof
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Speaker 1: and did not punish and effectually restrain them. They who
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Speaker 1: can and do not restrain others from sin make themselves
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Speaker 1: pre takers of the guilt. Those in authority will have
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Speaker 1: a great deal to answer for if the sword they
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Speaker 1: bear be not a terror to evildoers. Alexander MacLaren, commenting
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Speaker 1: on the same passage, We may learn from Eli how
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Speaker 1: cruel par and laxity is, and how fatal mischief may
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Speaker 1: be done by neglect of the plain duty of restraining children.
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Speaker 1: He who tolerates evil, which it is his province to
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Speaker 1: suppress is an accomplice, and the blood of the doers
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Speaker 1: is read on his hands. Matthew Henry, commenting on the
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Speaker 1: same passage, those who do not restrain the sins of
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Speaker 1: others when it is in their power to do it,
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Speaker 1: make themselves partakers of the guilt and will be charged
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Speaker 1: as joining in it. Now we hear that, and when
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Speaker 1: we hear that about parents, and I just read those.
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Speaker 1: I wanted to read those. I wanted you to hear
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Speaker 1: those comments, because here's our natural tendency in this day
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Speaker 1: and age and in this culture. Our natural tendency in
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Speaker 1: this day and age and in this culture is well,
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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, come on, their kids, and they
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Speaker 1: have their own minds and they're gonna do their own things,
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Speaker 1: and certainly we're not accountable for that. Certainly will not.
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Speaker 1: Here's what's interesting. If I take those same comments and
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Speaker 1: apply them to a police officer, have no problem with it.
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Speaker 1: For example, there's a woman outside and someone is taking
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Speaker 1: her purse, ripping her purse from her arm as she
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Speaker 1: screams for help. We all rush to the window to
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Speaker 1: see a man punching and kicking this woman as he
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Speaker 1: finally rips the purse from her arm, and then we
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Speaker 1: look up and realize that there is a police officer
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Speaker 1: not fifty feet away who watched the whole thing. Our
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Speaker 1: immediate response is, you had the gun, you had the badge,
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Speaker 1: you had the charge, and you did nothing. You're wrong.
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Speaker 1: That's what God's saying to Eli. You had the charge
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Speaker 1: and you did nothing. Does this mean that we can
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Speaker 1: halt the sin of our children. Absolutely not, No more
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Speaker 1: than a police officer can change the intent of the
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Speaker 1: heart of a burglar. However, he does his job and
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Speaker 1: restrains what he sees when he has occasion to do it.
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Speaker 1: That's the call of a parent to restrain what we
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Speaker 1: see when we have occasion to do it. The police
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Speaker 1: officer is absolutely wrong if he just sort of wipes
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Speaker 1: his hands and looks and says, huh, crooks, We're just
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Speaker 1: as guilty when we wipe our hands and say toddlers teenagers.
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Speaker 1: Listen to this from Jonathan Edwards, and remember Edwards is
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Speaker 1: writing this in the mid seventeen hundreds, the early to
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Speaker 1: mid seventeen hundreds. Just keep that in mind. If you
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Speaker 1: say you cannot restrain your children, this is no excuse
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Speaker 1: for it is a sign that you have brought up
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Speaker 1: your children without government, that your children regard not your authority.
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Speaker 1: When parents lose their government over their children, their reproofs
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Speaker 1: and counsels signified. But little How many parents are there
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Speaker 1: who are exceedingly faulty on this account? How few are
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Speaker 1: there who are thorough in maintaining order and government in
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Speaker 1: their families? How is family government in a great measure vanished?
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Speaker 1: And how many are as likely to bring a curse
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Speaker 1: upon their families as eli? This is one principal ground
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Speaker 1: of the corruptions which prevail in the land. This is
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Speaker 1: the fountain of so much debauchery and of such corrupt
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Speaker 1: practices among young people. You thought it just got bad
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Speaker 1: since the fifties. Government is in a great measure extinct
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Speaker 1: by neglect, and this particular. Parents bring the guilt of
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Speaker 1: their children's sins upon their own souls, and the blood
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Speaker 1: of their children will be required at their hands. Again,
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Speaker 1: is it my fault that my child did this? No?
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Speaker 1: But do not God's words to Ezekie, you ring in
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Speaker 1: your ears his warning. If I say to the sinner
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Speaker 1: and you don't say to the sinner, you're guilty not
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Speaker 1: for what they did, but for standing idly by and
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Speaker 1: not proclaiming what thus saith the Lord. That's the problem
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Speaker 1: here with Eli. God is not saying your sons would
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Speaker 1: not have been sinful had you you've done something. God
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Speaker 1: is saying your sons are guilty, and oh, by the
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Speaker 1: way God deals with them. Amen, But you're guilty because
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Speaker 1: just like they are not walking in obedience to me,
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Speaker 1: you did not walk in obedience to me in the
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Speaker 1: way that you responded to the sinfulness of your children.
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Speaker 1: It is not enough to simply say, oh, well, that's
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Speaker 1: the way they are. So what do we do here.
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Speaker 1: Here's what we're going for in that first phase. It's
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Speaker 1: really simple Verses one through three. Children obey your parents
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Speaker 1: and the Lord. So in that first phase, we want
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Speaker 1: children to learn to do what they're told. It's really simple.
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Speaker 1: If I tell my child to do something and they
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Speaker 1: don't do what I told them, they did not obey.
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Speaker 1: If they did not obey, that's altogether disobedience. Secondly, I
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Speaker 1: want my children to learn to do what they're told
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Speaker 1: when they're told. If I tell much how to do
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Speaker 1: something and my child doesn't do what I tell much
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Speaker 1: how to do when I told Much how to do it,
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Speaker 1: but instead waits until they feel like doing it, that's
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Speaker 1: delayed obedience. And there is a very important Greek word
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Speaker 1: for delayed obedience, it is disobedience. Our children must learn
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Speaker 1: to do what they're told, when they're told, and to
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Speaker 1: do it with a respectful attitude. Honor your father and
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Speaker 1: your mother. It's the first command with a promise. Honor
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Speaker 1: your father than your mother. So if I tell my
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Speaker 1: child to do something, and my child does what I
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Speaker 1: tell them and when I tell them, but does it
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Speaker 1: with the lagging of the head and the clacking of
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Speaker 1: the tongue and the stumping of the feet and the
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Speaker 1: slimming of the door, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,
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Speaker 1: they have still violated the fifth commandment. That's wrong, it's unacceptable,
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Speaker 1: and it has to be corrected. That's what we're shooting
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Speaker 1: for in these first three years. We've got so many
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Speaker 1: people out there, and it's programs out there, and they
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Speaker 1: will tell you by this and your child will learn
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Speaker 1: to read by age three. You know what, much more
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Speaker 1: important that your child learned to do what they're told
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Speaker 1: when they're told, with a respectful latitude. Much more important.
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Speaker 1: You can learn to read whenever. Okay, I know there
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Speaker 1: are all these people out there that earlier they learn
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Speaker 1: how to read, the better off they're going to be.
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Speaker 1: And there's plenty of people who learn how to read
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Speaker 1: by age three who hate books today, plenty of other
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Speaker 1: folks who learn how to read much later in life.
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Speaker 1: I just can't put them down. Am I saying that
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Speaker 1: it's not important that we teach our children to read?
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Speaker 1: Please don't. Okay, that is not my point. But what
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Speaker 1: I am saying is, if you put reading by age
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Speaker 1: three on one side of the scale, and learning to
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Speaker 1: do what you're told when you're told with a respectful
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Speaker 1: latitude on the other, the scales tip and the side
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Speaker 1: of obedience. We must teach our children to obey. Will
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Speaker 1: they do this perfectly? Will they do anything perfectly? No? No,
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Speaker 1: our children will not do this perfectly. But it is
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Speaker 1: incredibly important that they do this. Why First because God
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Speaker 1: commands it. Secondly, because we're going to move to the
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Speaker 1: next phase. We're teaching our children something, and it is
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Speaker 1: not unto impossible to teach a disobedient child. And we
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Speaker 1: want our children to give us their hearts. And so
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Speaker 1: we work toward disobedience, not to impress people. We work
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Speaker 1: toward this because we have a greater goal in mind.
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Speaker 1: We represent God's authority in their lives, and we want
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Speaker 1: them to understand the importance of obedience, and so it's
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Speaker 1: important that we communicate that to them during this phase.
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Speaker 1: What do we avoid? Avoid inconsistency? Avoid inconsistency. What does
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Speaker 1: inconsistentency look like? Oh, I'm glad you asked. Inconsistency looks
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Speaker 1: like mom has one standard of obedience and dad has another,
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Speaker 1: and instead of getting on the same page, they send
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Speaker 1: mixed messages to the child. That's inconsistency. Or how about
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Speaker 1: the inconsistency of when we're at home, we have one standard,
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Speaker 1: but when we're out in front of people and don't
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Speaker 1: want to be embarrassed, we have another That is inconsistency,
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Speaker 1: and it confuses the child. So we want to avoid inconsistency.
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Speaker 1: We want to be consistent. Secondly, we want to avoid anger.
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Speaker 1: We want to avoid anger. Why well, according to James
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Speaker 1: one nineteen, the anger of man does not produce the
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Speaker 1: righteousness of God. We want to avoid anger. We want
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Speaker 1: to avoid using anger as a tool against our children.
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Speaker 1: That's wrong, because I don't want my children to obey me,
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Speaker 1: because they fear me. I want them to obey me
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Speaker 1: because they honor me and the position that God has
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Speaker 1: placed me in. So we avoid anger things like yelling.
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Speaker 1: But you need to confess. I used to be a yeller.
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Speaker 1: I was a yeller, just I was. It was just
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Speaker 1: my thing. I yelled. My lovely wife one day spoke
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Speaker 1: me aside and she said, sweetheart, I love you. I
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Speaker 1: just need to say something to you. You are a
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Speaker 1: very large, scary, deep dark milk chocolate man with a
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Speaker 1: scary voice. You don't have to yell at anybody. Here's
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Speaker 1: the other thing I had to learn as a big,
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Speaker 1: scary man with a big, scary voice who yelled at
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Speaker 1: his children, I was teaching them to respond and fear
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Speaker 1: to me. My wife's not big and scary. They didn't
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Speaker 1: respect her the same way. That's what anger, yelling and
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Speaker 1: all that stuff gets. We want to win our children's hearts.
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Speaker 1: Anger doesn't do that, and the anger of man does
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Speaker 1: not produce the righteousness of God. If we are using
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Speaker 1: anger as a tool, we are not trusting God. We're
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Speaker 1: not trusting God. Avoid contradiction. Contradiction like what contradiction Like
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Speaker 1: you be kind to your brother? You can't say a man.
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Speaker 1: You ought to say ouch. Okay, that's contradiction. How about
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Speaker 1: this contradiction. Johnny put down that toy touch one two,
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Speaker 1: see women, that's contradiction. Yeah, that's contradiction. Because remember when
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Speaker 1: I said earlier, there's a Greek word for delayed obedience,
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Speaker 1: and it is called disobedience. If I tell Johnny you
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Speaker 1: to do something and then I count, I'm teaching Johnny.
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Speaker 1: You don't have to do what I say when I
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Speaker 1: say it, but somewhere between when I say it and
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Speaker 1: when I count to three. In other words, here's what
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Speaker 1: I'm doing. I'm saying, Johnny, Daddy wants to teach you something.
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Speaker 1: Daddy wants to teach you this thing called delayed obedience.
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Speaker 1: Or Johnny let that he just be honest. Daddy wants
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Speaker 1: to teach you to sin. So Johnny put that down one.
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Speaker 1: I'm coaching Johnny in sin. I'm flexing his sin muscle,
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Speaker 1: and I'm teaching him delayed obedience by counting, or by
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Speaker 1: repeating myself ninety seven times. I didn't say, never repeat yourself.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes Johnny might not have heard me. By the way,
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Speaker 1: there's a way to figure that out. You tell Johnny
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Speaker 1: to do something, Johny didn't do it. You start walking
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Speaker 1: toward Johnny with the rod of correction. Johnny will either
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Speaker 1: one immediately go and do when he heards you say,
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Speaker 1: in which case he's busted, or Johnny will say what
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Speaker 1: I do, then Johnny earns a repeat. What to employ?
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Speaker 1: You know what? Employing encouragement with your children. There's this
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Speaker 1: beautiful grace that God gives our children, and it is
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Speaker 1: this desire that they have to please us. That thing
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Speaker 1: in them that lights up when you put something on
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Speaker 1: the refrigerator that they did, or that thing in them
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Speaker 1: that smiles so big that you did. It looks like
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Speaker 1: they're gonna break their face just because you said, Yay,
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Speaker 1: there's something. And that's God's grace. That's God's grace. Use that,
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Speaker 1: not use that, Enjoy that it's God's grace. Encourage your children. Secondly,
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Speaker 1: instruct your children. Instruct your children. This is formative discipline.
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Speaker 1: Instruct your children. Imagine if you will. You know, there's
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Speaker 1: a coach who comes out and you know, you got
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Speaker 1: a basketball team. And the coach comes out and he's
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Speaker 1: got his players out there. It's the first day of practice,
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Speaker 1: and he throws the ball out there and he says, Okay, guys,
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Speaker 1: I want you guys to run our full court press. Guys,
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Speaker 1: let's go. What's wrong? I can't imagine. Come on, everybody's
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Speaker 1: doing laughs. What's the problem, oh coach, it's the first
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Speaker 1: day of practice. You never taught us what our full
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Speaker 1: court press was, and you're now punishing us for not
23:47
Speaker 1: doing something that you never taught us to do. By
23:52
Speaker 1: the way, don't get too hard on the coach, because
23:56
Speaker 1: the overwhelming majority of Christian parents who say done share
24:01
Speaker 1: have never taken fifteen minutes to teach Johnny how to share.
24:08
Speaker 1: They've never sat down with Johnny and Susie and Mikey
24:12
Speaker 1: and said, Okay, Johnny, Susie and Mikey, we're gonna play
24:15
Speaker 1: the sharing game, mister sharing gang. We're gonna learn how
24:18
Speaker 1: to share. Daddy's gonna have the toy, and you're gonna look,
24:21
Speaker 1: and Daddy's gonna have the joy, and we rejoice with
24:23
Speaker 1: one another because we are members of one another. You
24:26
Speaker 1: rejoice when I rejoice, so you're happy because I have
24:28
Speaker 1: the toy. But now I also want to rejoice when
24:30
Speaker 1: you rejoice, So I'm gonna give it to Susie, and
24:33
Speaker 1: Susie's gonna have her turn, and we're gonna delight in
24:35
Speaker 1: the fact that Susie's enjoying this because this is called sharing, Remember,
24:38
Speaker 1: because the remembers of one another. I'll rejoice me. Notice
24:41
Speaker 1: there's biblical principles being taught here, and I'm actually showing
24:44
Speaker 1: them exactly what I want them to do. You'd be
24:48
Speaker 1: surprised how many Christian parents have never once instructed their
24:54
Speaker 1: children in anything, never once down and taking five, ten,
25:01
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes with their children to teach them to do
25:06
Speaker 1: those things that we expect them to do. Never once said, Okay,
25:10
Speaker 1: we're gonna practice greeting. When we greet, what do we
25:14
Speaker 1: do when we greet? We stand up, we looked in
25:17
Speaker 1: the eye, we reach our hand, we shake firmly. None
25:20
Speaker 1: of the fish, you know what I mean. Come on,
25:21
Speaker 1: that's all we do, and we do it, and it's great.
25:23
Speaker 1: What do we encouragement? That's awesome, that's wonderful, that's great.
25:27
Speaker 1: Let's do it again. That's awesome, that's wonderful, that's great.
25:31
Speaker 1: Let's do it again. That's awesome, that's wonder one. That's great,
25:34
Speaker 1: Let's do it again. And all of a sudden, the
25:36
Speaker 1: shy kid who likes to hide behind your leg when
25:38
Speaker 1: he meets other people, comes to church the next day
25:41
Speaker 1: and looks at you and says, can we do it?
25:47
Speaker 1: Here comes somebody, and they may just get it backwards
25:51
Speaker 1: because they're thinking about it so hard. Okay, I'm gonna
25:53
Speaker 1: shake it. Oh, I'm gonna look up here, and you
25:57
Speaker 1: can see them going through the emotions. But what are
25:59
Speaker 1: they doing. They're recalling what you taught them, and they're
26:03
Speaker 1: attempting to comply. Now, once you've encouraged your children and
26:08
Speaker 1: instructed your children, they are going to rebel against what
26:13
Speaker 1: you've instructed and encouraged them to do. So then what
26:16
Speaker 1: do you employ? Correction? Correction for those who are not
26:22
Speaker 1: used to that kind of archaic language, let me put
26:25
Speaker 1: the cookies on the bottom shelf. Please spank your children early.
26:32
Speaker 1: And often I've met people who said, you know, I'll
26:39
Speaker 1: tell you what that one right there, it's just a
26:43
Speaker 1: breeze raising him, or is it? No? Never a him,
26:45
Speaker 1: Never get that with him? Always with her, it was
26:47
Speaker 1: just a breeze raising her. I think maybe I spanked
26:51
Speaker 1: her once or twice, going, really, that doesn't get us
26:55
Speaker 1: out of the bed in the morning. Some days, are
26:58
Speaker 1: you serious in their whole life. That's not very active parenting.
27:12
Speaker 1: We're not raising Jesus Amen, we're raising rebellious children. But
27:21
Speaker 1: some will tell you I love this. This again is
27:26
Speaker 1: from Wesley. Some will tell you all this is lost labor.
27:32
Speaker 1: A child need not be spanked at all. Instruction, persuasion,
27:35
Speaker 1: and advice will be sufficient for any child without spanking,
27:40
Speaker 1: especially if general reproof be added, as occasion may require.
27:44
Speaker 1: I answer, there may be particular instances wherein this method
27:48
Speaker 1: may be successful. But you must not in any wise
27:51
Speaker 1: lay this down as an universal rule, unless you suppose
27:55
Speaker 1: yourself wives than Solomon, order to speak more properly, wiser
27:58
Speaker 1: than God. For it is God himself, who best know
28:03
Speaker 1: of his own creatures, that has told us expressly. He
28:06
Speaker 1: that spare the rod hateth his son, but he that
28:09
Speaker 1: loveth him chasten at him betimes. And upon this is
28:13
Speaker 1: grounded that plain commandment directed to all that fear God.
28:17
Speaker 1: Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not
28:21
Speaker 1: thy soul spare for his crying. Spank your children. And
28:28
Speaker 1: we don't like this. Here's why we don't like this.
28:30
Speaker 1: There's a number of reasons we don't like this. The
28:33
Speaker 1: number one reason we don't like this is because we
28:36
Speaker 1: mistakenly believe that our children will love us more if
28:41
Speaker 1: we don't spank them. That's just not true. You don't
28:45
Speaker 1: spank your children, they will grow to despise you. They
28:49
Speaker 1: will not grow to respect you. It is simply not true.
28:53
Speaker 1: Here's the other thing. We believe doctor Spock and doctor
28:57
Speaker 1: Phil and doctor Oprah more than we leave doctor Solomon. Amen.
29:04
Speaker 1: Because doctor Solomon says, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
29:09
Speaker 1: folly is bound up in the heart of a child,
29:11
Speaker 1: and the rod of correction will drive it far from him.
29:13
Speaker 1: Imagine if you will, your child is bitten by a snake.
29:17
Speaker 1: We talked about this around Texas, we got gaging. You know,
29:21
Speaker 1: everybody knows what to do, especially out in West Texas.
29:24
Speaker 1: You just pull a random person over in West Texas
29:26
Speaker 1: and ask them. They know what to do. What do
29:28
Speaker 1: you do if you're bitten by a snake? Well, the
29:29
Speaker 1: first thing you do is you find a snake, cut
29:31
Speaker 1: his head off. You take them back in, and the
29:37
Speaker 1: bitten person take him to the hospital. You want them
29:42
Speaker 1: both why because you want the people at the hospital
29:46
Speaker 1: to know what kind of snake bit your baby. So
29:49
Speaker 1: you go, here's my baby. That's what bit him. Then
29:53
Speaker 1: they will come back with the anti venom. And then
29:56
Speaker 1: come back with the anti venom, and they will bring
29:58
Speaker 1: the needle and they will give the child a shot.
29:59
Speaker 1: And the oh wait a minute, No no no, no, no, no no,
30:02
Speaker 1: don't give my child that shot. Why because that needle
30:05
Speaker 1: will hurt my baby. Okay, but there's venom in your child,
30:08
Speaker 1: and I have to give your child this shot so
30:10
Speaker 1: your child will live. Yes, but I love my child
30:13
Speaker 1: and I do not want you to inflict pain on
30:16
Speaker 1: my child by sticking that needle in my child. So
30:18
Speaker 1: I simply cannot let you do it. Now. No parent
30:24
Speaker 1: would ever do that, Yes they would, because God says
30:27
Speaker 1: there's a venom in your child, and the anti venom
30:29
Speaker 1: is the right of correction. And your response, oh, but
30:32
Speaker 1: I love my child so much, I can never do that.
30:40
Speaker 1: It's poison. It's poison. Please correct your children. The other
30:47
Speaker 1: reason that we don't like this is because of all
30:51
Speaker 1: the talk of abuse. Are the people who are abused? Yes,
30:55
Speaker 1: there are people who are abused. Yes, absolutely, there are
30:59
Speaker 1: people who are abused. So don't abuse your children but
31:04
Speaker 1: spank them. Yes, but you know all these people who
31:08
Speaker 1: are abused and spanking and abused and this and that.
31:10
Speaker 1: There are people who abuse the internet. You got that.
31:14
Speaker 1: There are people who abuse work. They're called workaholics. Got
31:17
Speaker 1: a job. There are people who abuse all manner of things.
31:24
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that you abandon those things because somebody
31:28
Speaker 1: abuses them. Employ this please, by the way, you know
31:37
Speaker 1: what I found. People who abuse children usually are people
31:43
Speaker 1: who don't spank enough. Now, I know that sounds counterintuitive,
31:49
Speaker 1: but let me play this out for you. Mom's home,
31:52
Speaker 1: and Mom's got Johnny and Susie, and Mom's doing her thing,
31:56
Speaker 1: and she's going about her business, and Johnny's just particularly
31:59
Speaker 1: just rowdy today. And Johnny gets up in the morning,
32:02
Speaker 1: and Johnny's playing around and doing whatever and not being
32:05
Speaker 1: very obedient. Mom's frustration meter grows up a little bit,
32:08
Speaker 1: goes up to about a one. But it's okay, Johnny's
32:10
Speaker 1: all right. Eventually she gets some wrangle, gets the clothes on,
32:12
Speaker 1: come down to the table. Now at the table. He's
32:15
Speaker 1: not being obedient, doesn't want this, he doesn't want that.
32:17
Speaker 1: He throws a tantrum, so on and so forth. Mommy's
32:19
Speaker 1: frustration meda grows up a little bit more, but that's okay.
32:21
Speaker 1: We get through breakfast. After that, Johnny is supposed to
32:23
Speaker 1: sit down and do whatever. Johnny doesn't want to be obedient.
32:26
Speaker 1: Johnny wants to do what Johnny wants to do. Eventually,
32:28
Speaker 1: Mom just sort of gives in. That frustration Meeta is
32:30
Speaker 1: going up higher and higher, and hire naptime comes. Johnny
32:32
Speaker 1: doesn't want to take a nap. Back and forth, back
32:34
Speaker 1: and forth, back and forth. Mom's frustration meter is off
32:37
Speaker 1: the charts. Now Susie decides that she wants to join in.
32:40
Speaker 1: Mom's frustration meeter is off the charts. Now they finally
32:44
Speaker 1: get up. It's time for them to do something. After lunchtime,
32:47
Speaker 1: Johnny does one more thing and Mom goes off and
32:56
Speaker 1: she wheels on the boy in anger and abuses the child,
33:04
Speaker 1: all because she refused to give him the ten or
33:07
Speaker 1: twelve spankings that he should have gotten earlier in the
33:09
Speaker 1: day where she was under control, where she could have
33:17
Speaker 1: brought the Scripture to bear, showed him his sin, reminded
33:23
Speaker 1: him of the God who loves him and therefore gave
33:26
Speaker 1: him parents who would correct him. Reminded him that Christ
33:32
Speaker 1: had to die because of sins like the one that
33:35
Speaker 1: he committed and that ultimately he needs Jesus for forgiveness.
33:40
Speaker 1: She should have done that ten eleven, twelve times, lovingly
33:44
Speaker 1: and under control, but she didn't, so she got angry
33:48
Speaker 1: and she beat the child. Now he's confused, she feels guilty,
33:54
Speaker 1: and guess what, it'll be that much longer before she
33:57
Speaker 1: spanks him again. When she does, you guessed it, she'll
34:03
Speaker 1: probably be out, probably be out of control. That's what
34:10
Speaker 1: happens with the abuse active parenting, spanking her children on
34:16
Speaker 1: the regulation. It becomes tiring. Some of them will go
34:21
Speaker 1: through phases where you've got a few days where you
34:24
Speaker 1: feel like one of y'all is not gonna make it amen,
34:30
Speaker 1: And there will be those moments. We have those moments.
34:32
Speaker 1: We call them tag team moments. Okay, we call them
34:35
Speaker 1: tag team moments. And Mama will come in and she
34:38
Speaker 1: will say, will you please go spank your son? Not
34:41
Speaker 1: to go? Okay, which morning? Because you know, and why
34:46
Speaker 1: why do I need to go spank your son? Because
34:49
Speaker 1: I love him and I want him to live? Enuff said, son, Dad,
34:57
Speaker 1: He's here to spank you because mom loves you and
34:59
Speaker 1: wants you to live. And she did this. I understand dad.
35:07
Speaker 1: Do those moments come? Yes, those moments come. But here's
35:10
Speaker 1: what's interesting. The more committed we are to dealing with
35:14
Speaker 1: things regularly, the less likely we are to get to
35:19
Speaker 1: those kinds of moments. And so we employ correction, loving correction.
35:25
Speaker 1: By the way, in our home, correction of our children
35:28
Speaker 1: always ends with reconciliation, always ends with reconciliation. It never
35:35
Speaker 1: ends with additional punishment, especially the kind of punishment that says,
35:40
Speaker 1: I'm so mad at you, I just don't want to
35:41
Speaker 1: see your face. Wait a minute, I send justice was
35:50
Speaker 1: swift and it's been meted out. Now you're gonna punish
35:53
Speaker 1: me with the relationship too. Sounds like you're holding onto
35:56
Speaker 1: something that you should have let go of. Again, if
36:00
Speaker 1: you can't say a man, you'll say ouch, that's a
36:03
Speaker 1: you problem. Now you need to go deal with God,
36:08
Speaker 1: deal with your child, reconcile with your child, and then
36:12
Speaker 1: move on so that your child recognizes that what he
36:17
Speaker 1: is hitting his head against is a rock called God's
36:21
Speaker 1: truth and God's word. This is not about my relationship
36:25
Speaker 1: with you. I love you, and it's because I love
36:28
Speaker 1: you that I'm obeying God in this area. It's not personal.
36:32
Speaker 1: I'm doing this because it's my duty as your parent
36:35
Speaker 1: and because I want the best for you. And once
36:38
Speaker 1: it's over, it's over. We need to reconcile and we
36:41
Speaker 1: just move on. Well, what happens if I spank my
36:48
Speaker 1: child and my child won't reconcile. I'm afraid you have
36:52
Speaker 1: to spank them again, because that's rebellion. What if I
37:02
Speaker 1: do that and I just get tired? Tag team, Some
37:16
Speaker 1: of you are looking at me like you know what
37:17
Speaker 1: I'm talking about because you had a session or two
37:20
Speaker 1: like that. It happens. It happens. But our children need
37:26
Speaker 1: to know that we're absolutely committed to them, and we're
37:30
Speaker 1: absolutely committed even more to God than what he says
37:34
Speaker 1: about the way we deal with them. They need to
37:37
Speaker 1: know that why is it important? Eventually we get to
37:43
Speaker 1: this next level we even deal with that. We started
37:47
Speaker 1: even when they're smaller and they can't quite understand it,
37:49
Speaker 1: but eventually we formally get to the catechism phase. In
37:52
Speaker 1: the catechism phase, we say to our child, give me
37:55
Speaker 1: your mind. In the first phase, it's given me your attention.
37:59
Speaker 1: In this next phases, give me your mind. Now that
38:02
Speaker 1: I have your attention, hear me. There's some things that
38:05
Speaker 1: I want to teach you again, Fathers, do not provoke
38:09
Speaker 1: your children to anger, but bring them up in the
38:11
Speaker 1: discipline and instruction of the Lord. That means we are
38:16
Speaker 1: to teach them what to believe and why to believe it.
38:21
Speaker 1: This happens when our children become verbal. You know, one
38:24
Speaker 1: of the greatest tragedies in recent days is this emphasis.
38:28
Speaker 1: You see, young people are going off and droves from
38:33
Speaker 1: their churches to universities and they're not lasting. And so
38:37
Speaker 1: a lot of people think that the problem is universities,
38:40
Speaker 1: or they think the problem is that the kids aren't
38:42
Speaker 1: quite ready and prepared to the benefaith when they get
38:44
Speaker 1: to universities. So what's happening is there's a new trend.
38:47
Speaker 1: And the new trend is you do intensive worldview and
38:51
Speaker 1: apologetics training with your children, you know, seventeen eighteen years old,
38:55
Speaker 1: so that when they go off to college, they've had
38:57
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks of intensive apologetics training so that
39:01
Speaker 1: everything's okay. So you teach them what to believe and
39:03
Speaker 1: why to believe right before you send them off the slaughter.
39:09
Speaker 1: You teach them what to believe and why to believe
39:11
Speaker 1: when they become verbal. But we're not catechizing anymore. Here's
39:15
Speaker 1: the great irony. What's apologetics? Apologetics again based on First
39:20
Speaker 1: Peter Chapter three. Always be ready to give an answer
39:23
Speaker 1: to anyone who asks you the reason for the hope
39:24
Speaker 1: that is in you, yet with gentleness and with reverence.
39:28
Speaker 1: It is knowing what you believe, why you believe it,
39:30
Speaker 1: and being able to communicate that effectively to others. That's
39:34
Speaker 1: the definition of apologetics in a nutshell. Know what you believe,
39:37
Speaker 1: know why you believe it, and be able to communicate
39:40
Speaker 1: that effectively to others. So when people ask you the
39:43
Speaker 1: reason for the hope that is in you, you can
39:47
Speaker 1: respond and give the reason for the hope that is
39:50
Speaker 1: in you. So they ask you a question about what
39:53
Speaker 1: you believe, and you can answer the question that they
39:56
Speaker 1: ask about what you believe. Some of you are going, Okay,
39:58
Speaker 1: we get it. Why do you keep pressing that point?
40:00
Speaker 1: What's catechism? Catechisms learning what you believe through a series
40:05
Speaker 1: of questions and answers. Apologetics being able to answer questions
40:13
Speaker 1: about what you believe. Apologetics training is not what you
40:18
Speaker 1: do for two weeks with a seventeen year old before
40:20
Speaker 1: you set them off to the university it's what you
40:23
Speaker 1: do with two and three year olds for the whole
40:26
Speaker 1: time that you got them. Teach them what to believe
40:30
Speaker 1: and why to believe it. What do we employ? Scripture memory?
40:36
Speaker 1: Scripture memory. Our children need to memorize the scriptures. Get
40:41
Speaker 1: it in there. They need to memorize God's word, your word.
40:45
Speaker 1: Have I hidden in my heart that I might not
40:47
Speaker 1: sin against you? Do you believe that? If you believe that,
40:51
Speaker 1: you'll get the scripture into your child. Secondly, great hymns
40:55
Speaker 1: of the faith, great hymns of the faith. Why are
40:58
Speaker 1: they great hymns of the faith. They're great hymns of
41:01
Speaker 1: the faith because of their content. They stood the test
41:05
Speaker 1: of time, because of their content. Teach your children the
41:07
Speaker 1: great hymns of the faith. Get it in there. Cram
41:10
Speaker 1: it in there, CDEs music around your house, Play it.
41:14
Speaker 1: They'll learn it. You'll be amazed. And the catechis them
41:18
Speaker 1: to fit your faith tradition. Okay, do these things. Get
41:22
Speaker 1: it in there. Now. Here are some objections that are
41:24
Speaker 1: here when I talk to people about these things. And again,
41:26
Speaker 1: I know this is part of the culture around here,
41:29
Speaker 1: but you know that there are these objections. Well, you know,
41:32
Speaker 1: I don't want to cram religion down my child's throat.
41:35
Speaker 1: I'd rather them develop a relationship with God, not just
41:39
Speaker 1: that sort of rope memorization religion stuff. Really, do you
41:42
Speaker 1: want them to love books? Of course I do, but
41:45
Speaker 1: you make them learn the ABC's by rope memorization. Do
41:51
Speaker 1: you want them to love education? Of course I do,
41:54
Speaker 1: but you force them to start school before they even
41:57
Speaker 1: know what school is, and you force them to go
41:59
Speaker 1: every whether they feel like it or not. How come
42:03
Speaker 1: when it comes to God we're afraid, but when it
42:09
Speaker 1: comes to everything else we will not compromise. Why is that? No?
42:16
Speaker 1: Get it in there? They learn far more than we
42:20
Speaker 1: think they learn. Little Micah is our sixteen month old.
42:25
Speaker 1: And this is several months ago. We're and our family
42:28
Speaker 1: worship one evening, and in our family worship time in
42:32
Speaker 1: the evening, we end all the time with the doxology.
42:35
Speaker 1: It's just what we do. And the boy, the little
42:38
Speaker 1: boys all get excited about that. They love to sing
42:41
Speaker 1: the doxology and they love to stand up and just
42:43
Speaker 1: felt it out. One day we're sitting in our family worship,
42:47
Speaker 1: was going a little bit longer, and then a little
42:49
Speaker 1: bit longer, a little bit longer the older kids that
42:52
Speaker 1: just sort of relaxed onto something and it was just good.
42:55
Speaker 1: You know. Well, it was a little past Micah's bedtime.
43:00
Speaker 1: I can't talk, but Michael wanted to communicate to us
43:03
Speaker 1: that he was done. So all of a sudden we hear, uh,
43:18
Speaker 1: where's that. It's Michael singing the doxology. It's time to go.
43:26
Speaker 1: Have we taught him the doxology? Well? Yes, and no
43:31
Speaker 1: heard it every night and he knew that. That's what
43:34
Speaker 1: we did. When we finished, they learned more than we
43:39
Speaker 1: think they learned. Last phase, the discipleship phase, Give me
43:51
Speaker 1: your hand, Give me your hand. This is what we're
43:54
Speaker 1: moving toward. This is where we get to the pidea
43:58
Speaker 1: where we walk together them to live out what they've
44:01
Speaker 1: come to believe and teach them through life on life interaction. Again,
44:07
Speaker 1: this is where we're getting to. So so many parents
44:11
Speaker 1: will either err on one side or the other. So
44:15
Speaker 1: many parents will work hard on the discipline and training
44:19
Speaker 1: phase because we want obedient children and we value that
44:22
Speaker 1: above all else, and we end up with children who
44:27
Speaker 1: are obedient outwardly and very impressive outwardly. Then there are
44:34
Speaker 1: others who are on the other side. I want knowledgeable children.
44:39
Speaker 1: I want your well informed children, and we don't deal
44:45
Speaker 1: with the discipline side of the equation. All of these
44:49
Speaker 1: things work together. So when we're disciplining our children and
44:53
Speaker 1: training our children, when we're catechizing our children, when we
44:56
Speaker 1: eventually get to this place where we're walking with our
44:58
Speaker 1: children in their adult lives, teaching them to walk out
45:02
Speaker 1: the things that they've learned. By the way, when I
45:03
Speaker 1: say their adult lives, I mean New Testament adultthood, not
45:08
Speaker 1: modern American adulthood. I mean twelve thirteen adulthood, not eighteen
45:15
Speaker 1: to thirty five somewhere in the middle of air depending
45:18
Speaker 1: on whether you go to graduate school or not adulthood. Okay,
45:22
Speaker 1: I mean Biblical adulthood. This time when they reach that
45:26
Speaker 1: age in their life twelve thirteen years old where you
45:30
Speaker 1: begin to treat them like young adults and you say
45:34
Speaker 1: to them, give me your hand. You've given me your attention,
45:39
Speaker 1: and as an obedient child, you've learned from me, and
45:43
Speaker 1: I've taught you what to believe in why to believe it.
45:46
Speaker 1: Now I want you to walk with me as I
45:50
Speaker 1: show you, through life or life interaction, how to walk
45:54
Speaker 1: out these things. This is when we maximize our time together.
46:01
Speaker 1: What do we avoid? Avoid shipping your kids off during
46:04
Speaker 1: this crucial time. You know one of the things that
46:07
Speaker 1: I just cannot comprehend. I just I don't get it,
46:10
Speaker 1: and I see it everywhere I go, and you see
46:12
Speaker 1: homeschool families who will say we're going to homeschool until
46:16
Speaker 1: junior high or high school. I'm going turn out. That's
46:21
Speaker 1: the most crucial phase. That's to give me your hand phase.
46:26
Speaker 1: That's the walk with me while I show you how
46:28
Speaker 1: to live out what I've taught you to believe. Phase.
46:34
Speaker 1: Why do you know the most common answer? Sports? Right,
46:43
Speaker 1: that's the answer. I want them in cheerleading, I want
46:48
Speaker 1: them in football, I want them in basketball or whatever.
46:50
Speaker 1: That is the most common answer, because we believe that
46:57
Speaker 1: that is the crucial life altering experience that all of
47:02
Speaker 1: our children need to have. No, don't shipt your kids
47:09
Speaker 1: off during this time. Secondly, avoid discipleship by proxy. Avoid
47:15
Speaker 1: discipleship by proxy. What is discipleship by proxy? Well, the
47:20
Speaker 1: most common form of discipleship by proxy among Christians in
47:23
Speaker 1: our culture is youth ministry AMEN, where the youth pastor
47:30
Speaker 1: is the one who disciples get Youth pastors talk about
47:33
Speaker 1: teenagers as my kids, my students, my teenagers. They set
47:38
Speaker 1: the tone, they set the direction, they set the scope
47:41
Speaker 1: and the sequence for what these kids are going to
47:44
Speaker 1: experience while they're in that ministry. And then they have
47:46
Speaker 1: parents who come to them and sit down in the
47:50
Speaker 1: office of this youth pastor who in most instances have
47:52
Speaker 1: never raised any kids, and say to them, here's the
47:55
Speaker 1: problem that the kids dealing with. What are you going
47:58
Speaker 1: to do? Discipleship by proxy early, avoid gender confusion, Avoid
48:08
Speaker 1: gender confusion. This is when it's important for young men
48:12
Speaker 1: to be with men and young women to be with women.
48:16
Speaker 1: And I say this, I say this, I say this.
48:19
Speaker 1: Just hear me on this. I say this so many
48:21
Speaker 1: of the places that I go one of the and
48:24
Speaker 1: I've been so pleased since I've been here. It's been
48:27
Speaker 1: just amazing. But you are going to recognize what I'm
48:30
Speaker 1: talking about immediately. I go to homeschool conference, and I've
48:34
Speaker 1: been doing the homeschool conference thing all that long. I
48:37
Speaker 1: really haven't the last four or five years. Maybe i've
48:40
Speaker 1: been doing homeschool conferences. But I began to notice something
48:43
Speaker 1: and I've started to talk about it that makes some
48:45
Speaker 1: people uncomfortable. I have noticed that there is an epidemic
48:52
Speaker 1: of effeminate boys in the homeschool movement. An epidemic of
48:58
Speaker 1: effeminate boys, Boys whose fathers see their role as a
49:03
Speaker 1: homeschool dad as buying the curriculum every year, every year.
49:08
Speaker 1: Boys who are being discipled by their mothers, who would
49:11
Speaker 1: make somebody a great wife one day, but there's nothing
49:18
Speaker 1: masculine about them. That's just wrong. Boys need their fathers,
49:29
Speaker 1: Boys need men. Moms. Hear me on this, because sometimes
49:37
Speaker 1: what happened is dad recognizes the need for this boy
49:41
Speaker 1: to be turned into a man, and he sort of
49:44
Speaker 1: steps it up with intensity, and you respond by putting
49:48
Speaker 1: yourself between the boy and his father because you just
49:51
Speaker 1: don't want him to be that hard on him. Let
49:55
Speaker 1: him go, right, you let him go, because there's things
50:00
Speaker 1: about being a man that you just don't understand. He
50:07
Speaker 1: needs to be hard on him. And you sit there
50:10
Speaker 1: and Dad's telling him, suck it up, son, suck it up.
50:14
Speaker 1: Don't you cry? Do I believe there's wrong for man
50:17
Speaker 1: to cry. I've been crying all weekend. But there are
50:22
Speaker 1: times when you don't. And there are times when a
50:26
Speaker 1: father says to his son, suck it up, son, don't
50:28
Speaker 1: you cry? Man up? Butcher up Sally, and Mom wants
50:34
Speaker 1: to rescue him and say, oh, he's just a boy,
50:37
Speaker 1: to which Dad responds, that's right, he's just a boy.
50:40
Speaker 1: But one day he'll be a man and he'll be
50:42
Speaker 1: the head of a household and trag that he's gonna
50:44
Speaker 1: strike and everybody's gonna look to him, and if he crumbles,
50:47
Speaker 1: his whole family's gonna crumble. And now's when he learns that,
50:51
Speaker 1: and from me is where he learns that. Let him
50:54
Speaker 1: learn it, Let him learn it, Let me harden the boy.
51:04
Speaker 1: Please let me do it, because we need men, and
51:09
Speaker 1: this is the way you make men. I had a
51:12
Speaker 1: lost mother who got this, you know. One of the
51:15
Speaker 1: blessings of my life was when I was a boy again.
51:20
Speaker 1: My mother's single teenage Buddhist mother. She doesn't know God.
51:24
Speaker 1: She's living her life raising a son all by herself.
51:28
Speaker 1: She got pregnant with me when she was seventeen years old.
51:31
Speaker 1: So here I am. I get old enough to find
51:32
Speaker 1: a little trouble and drug infested, gang infested south central LA.
51:36
Speaker 1: There's enough trouble to be found. My mother did not
51:39
Speaker 1: know what to do with me, and then she figured
51:41
Speaker 1: out something. So we got on a greyhound bus for
51:45
Speaker 1: three days and went from Los Angeles, California, to Baufort,
51:49
Speaker 1: South Carolina, where I then spent the next year and
51:52
Speaker 1: a half with my uncle, who was retired drill instruct
51:55
Speaker 1: in the Marine Corps. And I got out of trouble
52:06
Speaker 1: quick fast and in a hurry. I lived with a
52:11
Speaker 1: man for the first time in my life, and it
52:15
Speaker 1: was magnificent. He pushed me, he taught me. When I
52:22
Speaker 1: say that, I tell that story, and people always have
52:25
Speaker 1: this picture, you know, of the d I with a
52:26
Speaker 1: hat on, yelling in my face. My uncle never raised
52:31
Speaker 1: his voice at me. He didn't have to. He was
52:40
Speaker 1: every bit the man. He's the kind of man when
52:45
Speaker 1: he walks into a room space where he organizes itself
52:48
Speaker 1: around him. He's that guy. And it was a magnificent thing.
52:56
Speaker 1: And there were moments where I just came to the
52:59
Speaker 1: end of myself. I just didn't like it. I didn't
53:02
Speaker 1: like it. Christmas time comes and you buy me this
53:06
Speaker 1: wonderful Christmas gift that I just loved because I came
53:09
Speaker 1: from the city. Now I'm out here in the country.
53:11
Speaker 1: I'm out here this where we live in the double
53:13
Speaker 1: white trailer. We're out here in these woods and there's
53:15
Speaker 1: stuff to shoot, and you buy me this pellet rifle.
53:21
Speaker 1: Wasn't a pelant gun. It's a pellet rifle, a daisy
53:24
Speaker 1: pneumatic single pump BB splash pellet rifle. Okay, it was
53:29
Speaker 1: a rifle. It wasn't a gun. It was a rifle,
53:32
Speaker 1: all right. That was okay. I figured out that there
53:35
Speaker 1: was a rifle. It wasn't a gun. That's cool. I
53:37
Speaker 1: get that. So I'm writing Christmas Day to go out
53:40
Speaker 1: and shoot my rifle. But I don't get my rifle.
53:45
Speaker 1: I get a list. Before you can have your rifle,
53:51
Speaker 1: you must learn to DISSI little symbol and reassemble your
53:54
Speaker 1: weapon to clean, carry and control your weapon. Qualify in
53:58
Speaker 1: the backyard on a target range of my designed from
54:00
Speaker 1: the three firing positions. I ain't want that old gun anyway.
54:13
Speaker 1: I thought he was the meanest man in the world
54:16
Speaker 1: until I got my rifle and nobody could shoot like me.
54:22
Speaker 1: My mama couldn't teach me that. My mother would get
54:28
Speaker 1: upset those days when I would come home and I
54:31
Speaker 1: would be so dirty that she'd have to hose me
54:34
Speaker 1: off in the backyard before I could come into the house.
54:38
Speaker 1: It made her so upset that I ruined so many clothes.
54:41
Speaker 1: But he was all right because she saw a boy
54:44
Speaker 1: becoming a man. But listen to me, folks, this was
54:50
Speaker 1: a lost woman and her lost brother, and they got
54:57
Speaker 1: that and what I'm saying. And there are Christian people
55:01
Speaker 1: out there who are missing this point. There are men
55:13
Speaker 1: out there in the making who need to be made men.
55:20
Speaker 1: There are women out there in the making who need
55:22
Speaker 1: to be made women. And hats off, hats off to
55:26
Speaker 1: this community, because when it comes to making women, we
55:30
Speaker 1: far exceed anything else that's out there. But I just
55:34
Speaker 1: have to say, on the men's side, in many instances,
55:38
Speaker 1: we're falling down. And the reason we're falling down is
55:42
Speaker 1: because of dads again who think the extent of their
55:45
Speaker 1: responsibility is buying the curriculum and saying it's okay to
55:50
Speaker 1: homeschool another year, not because we're committed to it, but
55:54
Speaker 1: because it works for us for now, and there is
55:57
Speaker 1: no vision. Is this easy. It is absolutely not easy,
56:06
Speaker 1: But it's what we're called to see. The discipline, catechism,
56:12
Speaker 1: and discipleship of our children is not just about outward obedience.
56:18
Speaker 1: We're after our children's hearts. We want our children's hearts.
56:26
Speaker 1: We want them to be pliable, we want them to
56:29
Speaker 1: be soft, we want them to be teachable. We want
56:32
Speaker 1: to communicate their need for Christ again and again and again.
56:35
Speaker 1: We want them to show them their sin and their
56:38
Speaker 1: need for a redeemer again and again and again. We
56:41
Speaker 1: want to show them justice and mercy again and again
56:46
Speaker 1: and again. And we want to instruct them. We want
56:50
Speaker 1: to fill them up with the Word of God and
56:53
Speaker 1: the great truths of the faith, and then eventually grab
56:56
Speaker 1: them by the hand and walk with them. I told
56:59
Speaker 1: you I don't share a lot of personal anecdotes. I
57:02
Speaker 1: share that one about my life with my uncle because
57:06
Speaker 1: that's really not about me, and that was just God's
57:10
Speaker 1: grace to me. It really was how God could use
57:13
Speaker 1: my lost mother who was practicing Buddhism. By the way, yes,
57:16
Speaker 1: my mother is saved. Six months after me, she was converted.
57:20
Speaker 1: And my lost uncle is he there yet? No, he not,
57:25
Speaker 1: but he's still in Beauford. I know where he is,
57:29
Speaker 1: and so I share that with you. But I share
57:31
Speaker 1: this with you and hopefully you'll understand why. And one
57:34
Speaker 1: of the reasons I don't share a lot of the
57:35
Speaker 1: personal anecdotes is because it's not about me and my story.
57:38
Speaker 1: It's about Christ and his story. But secondly, the last
57:41
Speaker 1: thing you want when you talk about family, there are
57:43
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there. You haven't seen it done.
57:45
Speaker 1: You don't know what to do. So what do you do?
57:46
Speaker 1: You find people out there who are talking about it
57:48
Speaker 1: and teaching it and try to do everything that they
57:50
Speaker 1: do well. That didn't work, that didn't work, well, I'll
57:57
Speaker 1: do what the Balkaans do for their children. Only problem
58:00
Speaker 1: is we don't do the same thing for every child
58:03
Speaker 1: because every child's different. A man, there are some of
58:08
Speaker 1: our children. There are some of our children who can
58:12
Speaker 1: get this. There's others. Why bother You know what I'm
58:22
Speaker 1: talking about? You know, I mean there is there are Okay,
58:26
Speaker 1: so we just children differently. But I had to sell
58:28
Speaker 1: you this. Several years ago, Trey and I, my oldest son,
58:32
Speaker 1: Tray and I started traveling together. And we're wearying now
58:37
Speaker 1: because we just came back from the Middle East together.
58:39
Speaker 1: We've been traveling together for four years now, four years
58:43
Speaker 1: and I never forget one trip in particular when we
58:45
Speaker 1: went to a church in a state that shall remain nameless.
58:52
Speaker 1: I'm really close to here. And here we are in
58:58
Speaker 1: this nameless state, really close to here, and I'm doing
59:04
Speaker 1: this event and I finished this event, and I'm just
59:07
Speaker 1: I'm tired, I'm beat, I'm worn out, and I've talked
59:11
Speaker 1: to a number of people. And after he talk to
59:12
Speaker 1: number of people, I'm outside and I'm in the parking lot.
59:16
Speaker 1: And while I'm outside in the parking lot, this one
59:18
Speaker 1: young man comes up to me. He is a youth
59:21
Speaker 1: pastor and no, I'm sorry, he's a college minister. And
59:26
Speaker 1: he has several of his of the college students around
59:28
Speaker 1: with him. And I talked about some of these things,
59:30
Speaker 1: and he knows about some of the stuff that I've
59:32
Speaker 1: written and said about youth ministry, college ministry, so on
59:35
Speaker 1: and so forth. And so he's got a few questions
59:38
Speaker 1: for me while his little cronies stand around, and he's
59:41
Speaker 1: trying to show off because he's got, like, you know,
59:43
Speaker 1: a week's worth of theological training. And so here he
59:47
Speaker 1: is and he wants to ask me the questions, and
59:49
Speaker 1: he wants to ask me these questions. And while he's
59:51
Speaker 1: asking me these questions, he's asked me these questions. Now
59:53
Speaker 1: I'm standing over here facing him, he's facing he's not
59:56
Speaker 1: even facing me. I just I want you know. He's
1:00:00
Speaker 1: pontificating in front of his friends, try to show off
1:00:03
Speaker 1: in front of his friends. Now my son is right here.
1:00:06
Speaker 1: I'm tired, but I stand there and he says it
1:00:12
Speaker 1: little piece, and I answer his question. I answer this question.
1:00:15
Speaker 1: He doesn't like my answer, doesn't know what to do
1:00:17
Speaker 1: with it, so he goes to another subject. He goes
1:00:18
Speaker 1: to another subject. I answer that question. It's getting worse
1:00:21
Speaker 1: for him, and his boys are starting to kind of
1:00:23
Speaker 1: look down, like, you know what, this ain't going well
1:00:25
Speaker 1: for you because you're wrong, And he keeps going, and eventually,
1:00:33
Speaker 1: after a while, it must have gone on for twenty
1:00:35
Speaker 1: twenty five minutes. Parking Lot's emptying out, and I said,
1:00:39
Speaker 1: you know what, I keep answering your questions and you
1:00:43
Speaker 1: keep going on to other things. You're really not interested
1:00:45
Speaker 1: in my answers, and I'm really tired. So he gets
1:00:50
Speaker 1: an attitude, so I said, listen, you have been completely
1:00:56
Speaker 1: and utterly disrespectful to me. I have tried to be
1:01:01
Speaker 1: patient and kind, but I'm done. And he looks at
1:01:05
Speaker 1: me and he says, how come you people always got
1:01:07
Speaker 1: to turn it into a respect issue At which time
1:01:13
Speaker 1: his friends simultaneously take a step back and I looked
1:01:20
Speaker 1: at him and I said, I hope when you say
1:01:22
Speaker 1: you people, you mean tall people. I gave him an
1:01:29
Speaker 1: out and he didn't take it, and he said, no,
1:01:33
Speaker 1: why is it that colored people always talk about I said,
1:01:36
Speaker 1: really colored people, like for real colored people. I said,
1:01:45
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to leave now. He wouldn't
1:01:49
Speaker 1: move and his friend. At this point, his friends are
1:01:51
Speaker 1: kind of going and say, man, come on, let's you know,
1:01:53
Speaker 1: let's you know, and he keeps going at it, and finally, firmly,
1:01:58
Speaker 1: I look at him and I say, this conversation is over.
1:02:02
Speaker 1: You're leaving now, and I'm leaving now, at which point
1:02:07
Speaker 1: his boys grab him and they take him off. The
1:02:09
Speaker 1: organizers of the event are out there, and he goes,
1:02:11
Speaker 1: do look, I'm so sorry. I just I'm sorry. I
1:02:14
Speaker 1: can't blessed listen, that's okay. I'll see you all in
1:02:17
Speaker 1: the morning by whatever. My son was probably fourteen fifteen
1:02:23
Speaker 1: at the time. It's with me. Witnesses all is. We
1:02:27
Speaker 1: ride back to the hotel and there's just silence. We
1:02:33
Speaker 1: get back to the hotel room and there's silence. We
1:02:37
Speaker 1: lay down in our beds and their silence, and then
1:02:42
Speaker 1: Trey goes, Dad, yes, son, did that guy realize that
1:02:48
Speaker 1: you could crush him? I said, probably, son, Dad did
1:03:00
Speaker 1: you want to crush it? Oh? Like you wouldn't believe? Son?
1:03:08
Speaker 1: Silence again. Dad, I'm proud of you. I remember thinking
1:03:18
Speaker 1: to myself, he can't get this from a book, right,
1:03:24
Speaker 1: unless I became puffed up. The next day at the airport,
1:03:30
Speaker 1: they messed up our reservation and I was unguind Now
1:03:37
Speaker 1: we're getting ready to go through security, and this same
1:03:39
Speaker 1: boy doesn't he want to give me eye contact. And
1:03:43
Speaker 1: I said, come on, son, we'd go back to the desk.
1:03:49
Speaker 1: And I say, ma'am, I know you didn't mess up
1:03:52
Speaker 1: my reservation. I know you didn't do it on purpose.
1:03:55
Speaker 1: I know that wasn't your fault. And even if you had,
1:03:58
Speaker 1: I should never have to you the way that I did.
1:04:02
Speaker 1: Would you please forgive me? She started to cry, and
1:04:11
Speaker 1: I remember thinking again, when I was up here, my
1:04:16
Speaker 1: boy couldn't learned that from a book. Now I'm down here,
1:04:20
Speaker 1: my boy couldn't learned that from a book. At my best,
1:04:24
Speaker 1: at my worst, it's discipleship. It's walking together. Here's how
1:04:34
Speaker 1: you get it right, son. But lest you think too
1:04:38
Speaker 1: much of that, more often than not, here's where you're
1:04:41
Speaker 1: going to be. We are repentant to people, not just
1:04:46
Speaker 1: to become Christians, but as Christians. We are repentant to people.
1:04:52
Speaker 1: What's that about. It's about giving me your hand. Let's
1:04:58
Speaker 1: walk together, and let's see what it looks like when
1:05:02
Speaker 1: you put feet to all this stuff that you've learned
1:05:05
Speaker 1: to believe. See if our only goal is that our
1:05:11
Speaker 1: kids are obedient so that they look good to the
1:05:14
Speaker 1: outside world, we don't get that. Why do we want
1:05:19
Speaker 1: obedient children? My son, give me your heart and let
1:05:25
Speaker 1: your eyes observe my ways. The obedience is to give
1:05:31
Speaker 1: me your heart part. But eventually we move to the
1:05:37
Speaker 1: let your eyes observe my ways. Do what I say,
1:05:46
Speaker 1: do what I say, and eventually, when you understand a
1:05:51
Speaker 1: little better, we'll walk together and you do what I do,
1:05:58
Speaker 1: and many days it'll be But not that, Amena. Why
1:06:05
Speaker 1: that's all discipleship. That's what we're doing as we raised
1:06:10
Speaker 1: this next generation. Unfortunately, for the most part, you talk
1:06:15
Speaker 1: about child training and discipline. Most people their vision is this,
1:06:20
Speaker 1: how do I get my little ones to obey? Is
1:06:25
Speaker 1: it important? Yes, it is, But only in the context this,
1:06:31
Speaker 1: how do we live a life together with our children
1:06:34
Speaker 1: and raise disciples to the glory and honor of Christ.
1:06:41
Speaker 1: Is that a part of it? Yes it is, but
1:06:44
Speaker 1: please don't let it become the sum total because you
1:06:49
Speaker 1: miss the biggest part of the picture. Let's pray