Gospel-Powered Discipline

We're going to talk about discipline tonight. Last week we talked about education, or it is training our children by word of mouth, putting into their minds conviction. Let's take our Bibles and let's begin with Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4. Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4. Here's the Apostle Paul addressing the church at Ephesus. He talks to the children first, and then talks to their parents.

If you can't imagine this letter coming to the church at the church, everybody's gathered for the first time to hear this, that the first people that are addressed in chapter 6 are the children in the cry of the ocean, and they should obey their parents. Like they, in verse 4, we need to address to the parents. Let me read verse 8 and 6 for you. Right.

Fathers, do not invest your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Alright. Fathers, do not invest your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. We're told to do two things here.

We're told to bring them up in the training or discipline and the instruction of the Lord. Some of you may be, and I don't know about all of you, but some here tonight are really unfamiliar with the use of physical discipline in the training that he's talking about here, the thought of spanking that seemed impulsive to you. We want to look at what the scripture says about that tonight.

Now before we do that, we need to understand that spanking, or physical discipline, use of the rod is not the only means that God has given us to raise our children. I grew up in a generation that reacted against the culture of the 60s, early 70s, where freedom became a thing, and now they're pressing people and all sorts of things. well, at least thanking children became almost a big business today. I mean, most people today, the thought of thanking a child is just a horrible thought, and our culture is just moving farther and farther away from it.

But the first thing I want you to notice is that this verse does not say a strict discipline produces a child. It does not raise a child. It says that the instruction and the training are the Lord Now we already mentioned a couple weeks ago What what our goal for raising up children are What is the goal we have for our children What do we want them to achieve What do we want them to be in the lives of our children?

And to kind of summarize it as, I want my child to be a godly, independent disciple who loves and serves God, who serves others, and can handle life by hand through God's Word. That's what I want to happen with my children when we leave. And God gives us two rails to get to that goal. Two rails. Instruction and discipline. Both of them.

Not one or the other. All right? Both of these must be operative. Now, we talked last week about instruction and how important that is. We have to build inner conditions in our children through our instruction. If we don't have instruction, our discipline will gain compliance, but it won't equip them.

Okay? I can get my kids to comply as long as I'm faster, stronger, and bigger than they are, and smarter. But what happens when they get faster, stronger, bigger, and smarter? Then the only thing I've done is discipline them. I won't have compliance anymore. If I only teach them and I don't use discipline, then there's a lot of times they're not going to get the lesson learned.

The problem is there are a lot of times who juggle their kids to death. to death. They're constantly talking to you. And the keys don't run the lesson because there's less discipline. So both of these traps, both these rails are necessary in order to reach the door. I can only press that upon you enough. Now we talked about instruction last week, this week we're going to talk about the other one, which is discipline.

So we're only going to talk about discipline. But I want to continue to say this. Both rails are necessary. Okay? Not one or the other, but both. Having said that, let's see what God says about discipline.

If you're going to discipline your children, there have to be some convictions that you have. You have to be convinced of certain things. Okay? Now I want to ask you, what should you be convinced of? What should be your convictions when it comes to the discipline of your children? The first is that God commands you to do That's Jesus, that's the most important point.

Proverbs 19, he says, discipline your son, for in that there is hope. Do not be a willing party to his death Alright Proverbs 23 13 do not withhold discipline from a but if you punish him with the rod he will not die Okay Ephesians 6, 4 tells us to bring their luck with the instruction and the discipline. Alright? So, you have to use it whether or not the way the religious experts agree that it's necessary.

But you have to use it whether you think it's necessary or not because God commands it. God commands that you survive. You have to be convinced that authority is good and appropriate. Authority is good and appropriate. Our culture has an animosity towards authority, but God does not. Again, some of us from my age grew up in the 60s where this whole idea of authority just started coming under a major attack.

In fact, when we were growing up, the saying was, we don't trust anybody over 30. Okay? Because they're old, old ideas, and what do they know? They're just stupid old people. We lost this whole idea of wisdom and authority, that authority was necessary. And what we have to see is that God loves authority and hates rebellion.

God hates rebellion. In 2 Kings 2-23-24, it looks like after a young man who left the prophet, they called him the old bald head, and a bear came out and taught him the Jesus. Now, you know, that's kind of radical, isn't it? It says something about God's view of authority. And in Romans 13, in Romans 13-13, it says that all the authority that is in our lives has been established by God.

God. And so we have to see that authority is necessary. So let me read to us Proverbs 30, verse 17. Proverbs 30, 17. We've got it. John has lost the promise, and has sworn to leave his school of mother, and be picked out by the ravens of the valley, and be beaten by the vultures.

Whoa! Disobey your mom and dad and get your eyes pecked out. Now, of course, this is just a proverb, and certainly, ravens aren't going to start circling your house when your kids start telling you what they think. All right? You would tell them that you couldn't. Good question You know I use that as a proverb that been touched one very graphic way of telling you what God thinks about rebellion right Disobey your mom and dad and the rabbi's going to peck your eyes out.

That's pretty strong stuff, isn't it? So if you tolerate child rebellion, you want God's authority, and you expose the children to God's judgment. That's basically what their proverb says. If you want them, it teaches them to submit to authority. And by the way, the Trinity is inherently authoritative and hierarchical. Here's the perfect community.

The perfect community, the very first community, is the Trinity. and God created humanity to reflect the Trinity and to reflect its glory. And the members of the Trinity are equal in value. Each member of the Trinity is in essence God. One is not less than the other. They are equal in value. Jesus is as much God as the Father.

The Holy Spirit is as much God as the Son and the Father. They are equal in their essence. They are divine. Each is God, the part of the Godhead. And yet the Son and the Spirit submit to the authority of the Father. Even in a perfect community, you find that there is authority and there is submission.

Someone writes, one of the lessons of the Trinity is that God loves what we despise. And that God loves and embraces rightful authority, submission in relationships. Alright, you have to be convinced as well that discipline leads to a life that is good. Discipline leads to a life that is good. Proverbs 19, 19. Discipline your son during that there is hope.

Do not be a living person who steps in. In other words, you don't discipline. You're a party to his death. What is that? Look at what 336133 says. Someone in 336133.

Society today. Okay. Society of the younger generation. Yeah. Out of control. Yeah.

Out of control. Okay. Jesus 6, 1, 2, 3. So we read that. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with the promise that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. All right.

God says a reading brings a good and a long life. All things being in the home. If you disobey your parents, your life's going to be miserable, you're not going to live very long. Okay? This is the first commitment we were promised in the Apostle Paul says, as opposed to the Old Testament. And so when we talked to our children, we did this with our children, we said over and over and over, obey your parents.

Why? Because your life will be better. And it will be longer. Okay? I love it when Ted trips his. He says that the use of the rye is a rescue.

The use of the rye is a rescue. So, when we look at it, here's our children. Our children are in a world that's dangerous. Okay? And the rye helps rescue children from spiritual death. Okay?

How so? Because we want to bring them within the circle of safety. What to bring them into the circle of safety? What's the circle of safety where you honor and obey your parents because then it will go well and you'll have a long life. And so the rod brings our children back into the circle of safety. It brings them back to the place of obedience.

It brings them back to the place of honoring their parents and therefore brings them to the place of blessing. blessing. It will go well with you and your life will be longer. So I think that helps a lot and helps us to see that this brings them back into this circle of safety. It's a rescue mission. Take out the rod as a rescue mission. The rock is going to help expose the heart.

It brings them to the realization that they need a Savior. And failure to obey not only that but failure to obey God Himself We must always understand that we have delicate authority from God The authority that we wield in our households is the authority given to us by God And therefore, to rebel against mom and dad is to rebel against God. Now, this is going to help them understand that.

Okay? You have to be convinced that discipline is an expression of love, not an expression of hate. Okay? Proverbs 13, verse 24. He who spares the rod. Listen.

He who spares the rod hates his son. Have you taken care of that? He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him. Okay? So, Revelation 3.19. Revelation 3.19.

Go ahead. Okay, we've already wasted 30 seconds. All right. You hear what Jesus says? He's talking to one of the churches. Those that I love, I do what?

I reprove and discipline. I love you enough to discipline you. Okay? Hebrews 12, 5 and 6. And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses your sons. My son, do not regard lightly this new reward, nor be weary when you are proved by him.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. So discipline is an expression of love. Think about this. When you don't want to spank your child, who are you thinking of? You're thinking of yourself. I don't want my child to be angry with me.

I don't want them to make it hate me. you're thinking about yourself, you're not thinking about Him. Right? If you love Him, you will discipline Him. It's an expression of love. It's an expression of love. Okay?

How can we be passive about our sin and pray for love? We discipline so that they know experientially the hatred that God has for sin. This is one way of teaching that they will understand that God did sin and that it took His Son to erase that from the picture That God is so determined about justice that he sacrifices his own son in order to regain justice that he did So spanking a child is not abuse, but failure to spank is abuse.

Alright? You have to be convinced that the use of the lie is an expression of faith. And I think this is one of the most important lessons that Becca and I learned. That the lie is an expression of faith. You obey God when it comes to this, not because you perfectly understand how it works, but because God's communing with it. It's an expression of confidence in God's wisdom.

We all say, how is God going to give a change to this kid? Well, God says it will. Are you going to believe him or not? Okay. I don't think that he would. Sometimes it's not longer than others, but sometimes it's about more power than others.

That's true. That's true. Okay? But you've got to be convinced that discipline is an act of faith. Because you're expressing confidence in God's wisdom and not your own. Or not the latest and next verse.

Okay? You have to be convinced that discipline imparts wisdom. Alright? Proverbs 29.15. The rod of correction imparts wisdom. But a child lets himself as face as his mother.

Alright? It imparts wisdom. I also want to read Proverbs 20, 15. The quality is not enough in the heart of the child, the morality discipline will drive it far from him. So quality is not enough in the heart of the child, and the morality discipline will drive that far from him, and it will impart wisdom to him. Now, don't equate folly or foolishness with silliness.

When you read about folly in the book of Proverbs it not talking about some child who foolish But children do foolish things We often better remember see you know about one time being outside, coming in into the house, and Emma is standing there, she's like running the sink, pouring water up her nose. Like this. Now why? Because she has stuck That's great, I don't know.

Alright, well, that's the foolishness that children do, right? That's not what he's talking about. He's not talking about that. He's talking about the fact that your child is not morally neutral. He's a fool when he comes into the world. Alright?

And a fool is someone who lives in God's world without listening to God. to God. That's a fool. He's trying to live in a God-trained world without listening to God. When a child not submitting to parental authority is acting in a foolish manner. Now when you look up in the Proverbs and you look at all the descriptions of a fool, a fool in Proverbs is someone who lives by his lust and his wants.

He lives out of the immediacy of his lust, his cravings, his expectations, his hopes, his fears. He's not living by God's commandments or by God's wisdom. He's living out of his own lusts and cravings. The immediacy of those things drives him. And thus, driven by his wants and passions, he is a fool. That's what the Bible says.

Yes, Susan. Neutral. They're born with... Proverbs says, folly is bound up in the heart of a child. That living for his wants, his cravings, all of that, and for dying against God is bound up in his heart. So he needs wisdom to drive out that folly.

And folly will leave and wisdom will come when the rod of discipline is brought to bear. Okay? It drives the foolishness from his heart when he imparts wisdom. I mean, when children are little, they get to understand. They get wise. They say, if I do that, I get a spanking.

I'm not going to do that anymore. All right? They're getting wise now. They're beginning to get the wisdom back with particular actions that have particular consequences. And so they start getting wise. So they're not living by their lusts or their desires.

Immediately, that's not living that way now. They're saying, I want that, but that gets me that, so I will do this. Okay? There's wisdom. Now, of course, I always illustrate this. You know, I want to do this, you know, whenever I go to a lot of different places.

I talked about the fact that Josh Boston, he was in first grade. Found out he didn't like school. You know that was back in the day when we got to first day and it was a full day and it was like I can sign up for this, this is the pitch. So what he did was he asked the teacher if he could go to the bathroom. The teacher said yes and said just walk out the door and then home.

Okay. And at that time, Julia was trying her best to explain to him just how important education was. And the next day, he asked the teacher to go to the bathroom and he went home. He wasn't getting it. He wasn't getting it. But with Larry's intervening with the ride, he got real wise after that.

He got wise. He found out, well I don't know about this education thing, but I do know this, don't go home. Alright? And here's another one. What's that? I could see this going on Oh yeah, come here for lunch, Adam.

He said, what did he say? We're having lasagna. He said you like lasagna better than green beans. We said, Adam, do you like green beans? Yeah. I said, you can be honest, we didn't have green beans.

He said, you can be honest Adam, do you like green beans? I'm not going to get expected. He said, no you're not going to get expected. No I won't. And then we try to explain to him the nuances of when green beans are served. You can't say you don't like them, but other times, okay.

It was funny. I don't like green beans. He's already figured some things out. He's figured some things out there, hasn't he? All right? Now, this is real important for us, okay?

We have to understand that discipline is corrective, not punitive. Not punitive In other words you can stop what you so mad that you just want to This is the term that my mother used I just want to make you mad Right? Right. I just stop. It just makes me so mad. It's at that point where you have to say, discipline is not about me getting that kind of question.

You made life really inconvenient for me, so I'm not going to make you suffer. discipline should never be the way he was 12. He was just the discipline of our Heavenly Father. He was just the public of the perfect discipline. And God disciplines us for our good that we will share in his holiness. So he has a goal for us. He wants to use discipline to correct our way so that we end up at the place of righteousness.

And it was not there to get us from what we've done. Alright? And so that's what we have to always remember with our children. We're not getting them from what they've done. Right? We're correcting them so that their path changes, so they head in another different direction and go somewhere.

Right? So it's important to remember that. And when you're really mad and you really want to take it out on your kids, you need to go and pray. I said, Lord, help me now to control my temperament, not my discipline, for the right purpose. You have to be convinced that discipline expresses the fear of God. Right?

The fear of God is going to make us willing to discipline. It motivates us to persist in discipline. The fear of God reminds us that failure to discipline has consequences. For example, pick up the book of 1 Samuel, the Old Testament, the first two chapters of the book of Eli and his sons. And Eli's sons served at the tabernacle. They were placed within the center and they were having sex with women at the tabernacle.

I mean, come on! And they were taking all the best parts of the meat that they weren't allowed to have they had with the sacrifice, there were parts they couldn't have, but there were parts they couldn't have. They were a big story meeting of people. They were doing all kinds of winky things. And it says, the reason why they did that is Eli failed to correct his sons.

He just failed to correct his sons He didn fear God enough And as a result it cost him his life it cost life it cost his sons their lives and it cost him the ministry that his family would have From that point on, his family would barge the ministry at the tabernacle for every generation that followed. Because he didn't fear God. You've got to fear God.

The fear of God equips you to overcome the fear of your children. You say, I'm not afraid of my children. We don't have to. I know we are. We all are. We're afraid.

I'm afraid that if I do this, some horrible thing is going to happen. They're not going to like me anymore. They're going to hate me. The fear of God is going to keep us from being man-pleasers if we're going to be God-pleasers. I'm going to do this because God commands it. And what if my kids don't like me?

I've got to choose what God says over what they're going to do. Parents who lack that kind of confidence will often be slaves of their children's approval. Now this is really important when we get to the teenage years, I think, because that's when they're really tempted, not religiously bad. The tempest, right, will just mend your head. So the fear of God is going to help you express the fear, the awesome respect of the fear of God over the smile of the sober notice.

Now here's a question that we have to ask. When should you exercise discipline? When is the right time? Well, you should exercise discipline whenever the attitude or actions of your child would keep him from achieving God's goal. Now that's, I think, very, very, very important. What is God's goal?

Okay. Do you get all of them because he put his shoes on the wrong feet? Well, he puts his shoes on the wrong feet. That's a different reason God's goal, an independent God, a disciple who loves God, serves God, and I'll serve to others and can handle life by letting God's Word. No it has nothing to do with that Um are you going to get it because you forgot to put away the washroom Or you dropped the phone But you let him get away with filling the fit with salt and salt.

Right? What's good for you is to keep God's role in mind. He helps you sort out those times and exercise discipline. Ask yourself this question. If this attitude or behavior or thinking continues, will it keep them from achieving God's goal? If it will, I need to deal with it.

This is what helped me a great deal. Helped me really sort things out with my kids in terms of when should I discipline them and when should I? And by the way, too often what we want to do is forget compliance. We let it go. Alright, for example. For example, here's the same kid suddenly taking out the garbage.

He says, no, I'm not going to take out the garbage. I'm not going to do that. Guys want me to do it. They can do it. I really could do it, though, to a sister. They never have to do it.

You always are picking on me. You always have to do it. No, I'm not going to do it. So what do you do? You want to spank him because why? He's defiled.

But what about the little boy when you say, son, take out the garbage, and he walks over He picks the door open and goes on out and puts the garbage in. He did not admit. A lot of times, no. Why not? Because the doctor's going to get outside. But the point is, just like the first one, the second one is not going to reach God's goal with that attitude.

Right? It's not going to reach God's goal. He didn't call on it. Because that attitude is not, if that attitude continues, he's not going to end up at that goal. So, you see what I'm saying? You always have to have the goal in mind.

It helps sort it out, but it also helps you see things that maybe you wouldn't see before. When you always are thinking, I have to equip him for life, not just get compliance. right then you can see things you there are some things you say it doesn't matter but there are other things that you're gonna say it does matter and I need to get on it okay you should exercise discipline whenever disobedience occurs how's that one whenever disobedience occurs there needs to be discipline don't ...to Joel Rod and all those other things. Remember what's at stake.

Because he's disobedient, he's moved out of the circumcision. I'm assuming he ain't no meanie. Whenever disobedience occurs, use the rod. Or do you? No, I think, again, I think I need to say it, And that's strong enough to realize there's place for worse and there's place also for other ways of discipline. There are ways of discipline.

Okay. Well, I don't have... I don't have enough time to do that. Why is there a rhyme? There's no rhyme either. A rhyme is more effective and then it displaces the force of the flow.

A rhyme concentrates it. How's that for both things? What can you say? Yeah. My question is what happens if your file is bigger than... Okay, let's get to that.

The secret of time. Okay? What did I do now? No. Okay. You have to remember that you train by what you do.

You don't just train by what you say, you train by what you do. In other words, you don't want to train them if they don't have to obey chapter 3. I'm going to count to 30. Well, what if you just told them, I've got three seconds to extend my rebellion? Or they don't have to obey until they've warned them. You train by what you do.

So, whatever discipline needs to occur, discipline comes into play. You should exercise discipline immediately. When you tell your child to do something, tell them it's 2915, you're out of correction, you're not supposed to listen to the child and make himself disgrace his mother. You don't want to take your child and just totally embarrass you and disgrace you and be totally, you're dying against God.

Never say that. Human corruption the human heart is so corrupt that violence and blasphemy and rebellion are all there If you don bring discipline to bear you come to full flower Don't argue. Don't argue. I've known parents who would say, I've got to convince my children that what I'm about to do is right. And they end up talking for an hour or more. I do talking about what they're trying to do now.

Exercise discipline immediately. And by the way, don't fall into this kit, and that is don't respect as the last resort. There are lots of Christians today who feel very uncomfortable with what I'm saying to them. Because they bought into, well you know what, that study just came out from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, that says that people who spent their children producing users.

So they hear that, but they also read what the Scripture says, and they don't know what to do with that. So what they do is they do all kinds of stuff, and they only use the rod as a last resort. Don't fall into that trap. That's not what the Bible says. Because wisdom is imparted. And the rod does a lot better at those earlier stages than a sound argument.

Okay? Don't use the rod as a last resort. Okay? When the cats do that, they're setting themselves up to run by that. Now, let's talk about objections. Let's talk about objections.

Yeah. I have a question. Yeah. Sometimes you tell them immediately that it's not going to take too long, but But if you sit there and talk to them half an hour, I don't think they're going to hear anything they want to say. Because the only thing they're waiting for is, gee, what is this guy doing? Is this going to happen or not?

Sometimes it's like, OK, son, you know I'm doing this. I'm just going to leave you. I doing this because God tells me I under authority I have to stand because that what God tells me And you And you under authority You disobeyed me so you disobeyed God So that what we going to do Is that enough Let do the job better Give me the instruction after. Yeah, you can also, and then there's, because a lot of times, they're a whole lot more ready to listen after standing than before.

Because now you've created the conditions where we're learning to take place. Alright? They're ready to listen now. When you're saying spanking, don't justify it. When you're saying don't spend half an hour, an hour justifying that spanking is okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. When you get to the point where you're in a half hour's time, remember to say some super stop, and come back to the lab. And even if we get like bad, like better than three or four hours. You just got to point there. Don't do anything.

You just got to point there. That would happen to the fourth hour or three minutes. Especially the blue light show. One would... One? One would get us to laugh.

One would get us to laugh and there was another who would just look so on the, you know, her big eyes were looking at me and her ears would come up and spill all over and I was just killed. That was awesome. Alright. Yes, yes, but what if? Let's look at some common objections. Here's one.

I love my children too much to stay. I love my children, my child too much to stay. I love my child too much to stay, but my book says I love my children too much to stay. I don't want to be proud of my grandmother. The fourth is, Proverbs 13.4 says, Use the right things to serve. And when you don't discipline, you're making life a little bit easier for you.

You're not harming anyone. And you have to remember that discipline is an expression of love. It's not as stressful as it now can be if you really hate your children. If you do the most the best for them, you want them to accept the role, then you interrupt them enough to discipline them. Yeah. That is also interesting.

We were talking about it being easier for you not to spend time with them That is a very time You know Brian is a little older than me so I think maybe I should try other things The inconvenience of those other things is pretty extreme. And if you're talking about a kid that's never been spent at all, then you're not really talking about a life of ease. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I'm afraid it's going to make them more valueless and angry. A lot of parents struggle with this. They think, because they've gone into all the world and all these so-called studies that says it just makes them angry. No.

Especially if you spank them for being angry. You feel that? This is something that parents do too often. They will spank their child, but then don't deal with the attitude. The attitude is also part of this equation. Not just this outward behavior, but the attitude that's going with it.

Okay. Boy, that girl was a weird clown. One day, this little girl was flying and having a fit, and it was because her mother was taking care of her. And it was because what else am I going to pet the cat? She's not supposed to pet the cat. We're going to deal with that attitude.

You can't pet the cat. And you ought to be happy about the fact that you can. And if you're not, we're going to deal with that attitude. Yes? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. that age, what am I supposed to do? Tell them you were wrong for doing it, they're wrong for doing it, deal with it. Right, because I sin doesn't mean now that I'm free not to obey God. Follow what I'm saying? Now I need to say if I'm wrong, I need to confess that and say I was wrong, please forgive me.

But yet you still have responsibility to obey, Lindsay. I have a question back to you, John. What should take place if you're dealing with that issue with the rod and the heart is still angry? Yeah. Always remember, okay, I emphasize it. When I go over on this side and take this one, remember, there's always this side of the structure.

I have to be talking to them about that. I have to tell them about that, what that means. I'll see it comes from the heart. All those sorts of things are involved. But I also have to let them know I love this Bruce Ray wrote a book called, We Hold Not Correction. He talks about a family there that would spank their children if mom would say, honey, I don't think he's spanking, I think he needs more spanking.

If they're still angry, say, that attitude is not acceptable. I mean, you need to continue to persist in the discipline for the attitude. But again, I'm emphasizing that there's also teaching going on that says, you know, look, the whole of the Bible is a storehouse of things. My child is angry, and I can look at Matthew 5 and say, you know what Jesus said about when you're angry at someone like this, you don't give word.

You would worry right now if you could alone do that. Yes, you would. Okay? I mean, so, you're bringing the conviction of Scripture, what's happening here leads to murder. Can you see that that would break their heart and say, oh my, this is bad, this shouldn't be taking this way. You see what I'm saying?

Tonight we're talking about discipline, but it's never in isolation from the teaching. Okay? There's one whole part of this thing that I'm having a little, I'm more than tired of developing. This is our last night, so maybe some other time. All right. I have a question.

Yes. Discipline is also... I'm right in thinking that discipline is also not a guarantee of a regenerate soul or even compliance. Right. Right. Maybe that brings us to the next one.

It doesn't work. Yeah. Okay. It doesn't work. I hear this all the time, although that's the aspect of it. It just doesn't work.

Well let think about why it doesn work Are you sure what I learned through my past experience and my past experience with a Bible study The first is this. Essentially what you're saying is, God, I know you are listening and listening to us, doing this inside and out with how we are being, but I think this is a bad idea and some other people have come up with better ideas. Right?

What it means it doesn't work, it means people are showing that it doesn't work or you believe God. Here's another one, inconsistent use of the ride. The child never knows exactly what's going on. Again, this is where the goal is important. I can walk across my mom's nice plain floor with my money boots today, but because she's in a good mood, I don't care anything about it.

But tomorrow I walk across her floor with my body boots and she wails the car out of me. Now what's that telling the kid? He doesn't know which end is up. He doesn't know where it's coming from. It's not going to be useful. It's not going to work if you're inconsistent with it.

There's a failure to persist. Many parents think that this is going to change the child overnight. I spank him, it doesn't work. How many times have you spanked him? Well, I spanked him three times over the last seven days. Okay.

You've got 18 years here to work with. You've got a long way to go. There's a barrier to persist. We expect things to happen overnight. And this is what I tell parents all the time. You're in it for the long haul.

You're in it for the long haul. Okay? You're not just in it for right now. And by the way, it'll seem that one thing settled at this stage, maybe it'll enter the next stage, and you've got a whole new set of things you've got to deal with. Right? Children change.

And the problems start evolving and changing as they grow. So, there's different things you gotta do six times. Well, failure to be effective, that is to say, does the child even notice this thing? Right? What do you do when your son says to you, that could hurt? . . Hopefully they only say it once I never had a kid say that I have I have Alright.

Now here's another one, and I think it's very, very important. James chapter 1, verses 19 and 20. James 1, 19 and 20. Righteous God. Know this, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to fear, slow to speak, slow to anger. For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

You discipline an uncontrolled anger. If you're not in control of your anger, you're not disciplined in your anger. Because it's how it goes what's going on. It's how it goes when you're not in control. Then I could go in the lesson. All I'm going to know is my dad, this is what they're going to do, my dad leads me.

He just wants his path to flourish. He just wants to feel better. So fear not, control your anger. Anger of man does not work for righteousness of God. And here's another real important one. Discipline is the only means that we use.

What did we talk about? We talked about teaching. I talked about teaching, okay? So discipline and teaching work together, not separately. So, discipline is the only thing that you do. You're not even exploring.

I was talking to a young man the other day, okay? And I said, what you've got to find out is what is he thinking? With that expression of anger you're describing to me, you've got to deal with that with him. But you also have to spend time setting another time when you're down in a discipline situation and say, honey, when you put that, when you were screaming the other day, what were you thinking?

You pull them down and just deal with the things. But try to understand the dynamics of their hearts. What do you want when you're doing that? Then you can teach them what God says about that last. Right? So discipline is the only thing you're doing.

But of course it won't be effective. Now here's one. Here's one that seems to have a lot of traction with people. I afraid it will make him into an abuser Alright I afraid it will make him into an abuser By the way let simply end up recording Is there another person in the room Okay. Well, you have to choose whether you want to do the broader or the later scientific study.

And, those studies, I mean, we, by the way, many of you ran for a moment. Now, those psychological studies are not very scientific, that's the basic thing. How do you measure a person's heart? You measure your pain. And as my son is often telling me, I love this, correlation does not always mean causation. So what I do with this objection, I'm afraid it's going to make him an enviouser.

Well, first of all, I would say this. In my experience, in my counseling and past experience, I would say this. Abusers are not formed by the spendings, but by someone who exhibits a philosophy of life. It's the philosophy of life that abusers model. It's their whole way of life that produces the abuser, not the spendings. It's nothing you call stinking, it's called abuse.

Here's a child who grows up seeing mom performing a person who will beat his way to submission, who will beat his way to love. I'm keeping the deal here. I want what I want when I want it. If you don't give me what I want, you're going to pay. Alright? The whole way of life that abusers have, it's that whole way of life modeled not just in the beatings, But in every other area of life, that's what produces new users.

Okay? The meetings are something that accompany it, but that's not the formative issue, in my opinion. It's the whole way of life. It's the whole way of handling stress and conflict. I don't like conflict, so I'm going to beat you. Instead of trying to solve the problem, I'm just going to beat you.

Okay? So, a kid grows up learning, if there's stress and conflict, what do I do? I get angry and I get out of control. It's a life that is out of control that produces these views, not the spankings. Okay? And I also assert that there's more violence today probably because of the lack of the of the ride.

Then violence has grown because we have a whole generation, right? The parents of our generation are the first ones to start saying, and you know Dr. Spock, not the guy in Star Trek. Dr. Spock was a new life psychologist who was very influential in the 60s for telling people, don't spank the children. And so our generation, those of us who are 60 years old when the first generation have parents who thought spanking is wrong.

Now, then, so we're brought up that way, and then your generation. So I would suggest that there's more violence because there's less use of the lie. Okay? Because the human heart is so corrupt. Now, the essential truth for all discipline is this. It's absolutely essential.

Okay? All that is essential to a fellow disciple is this. Relationship is evidence. Discipline accomplishes its purpose within a loving relationship. The only time you speak to your children is when you're correcting them. Isn't that what God models for us?

He has entered into relationship with us. He loves us enough to discipline us. But His love is not just seen as discipline. His love is seen in so many other ways. And so relationship is everything. Discipline always affected within a loving relationship.

And so I would say to you, when you think about discipline, you need to be thinking about the whole relationship you have with your children. You need to be growing in love with them. You need to be establishing that relationship, doing the hard work of denying yourself something's over here so you can spend time with your children, to talk with them and walk with them and have fun with them.

If that's not happening, then discipline will not be effective. We live in a world that constantly challenges our view on the line. And I would advance any view we have to choose whether we going to be God or the witness We need to be people of faith in the God test Alright if you want to ask questions let do it You don't have to be able to say it. Right, Carrie?

If you're grown in your relationship, okay, I don't have a word to write on. Think of it this way. You've got to imagine this. Here's the axis. Call this an axis. We do this.

Yes. Thank you. You can tell I love math. Here's the axis. Down here. Just draw it.

Draw it on this paper. Here's the axis. Axis. Axis. Axis. Axis.

Axis. Is it one axis? Thank you. Axis. Axis and y. you know this is the part of math that I really why why is why the tall one all right all right and this and the one is it why I mean I'm the X you draw some you know, line, that this is increasing in age. Okay?

On the y-axis, at the top, you have axis, pardon me. Oh, you math men up there are laughing. Up here, some of you non-math people are laughing. Stop it, Rebecca. Up here is discipline. Down here is instruction.

Okay? As the child grows older, so in the early years, discipline is high. Right? So you have a descending arrow like this. And then on this instruction, it's an ascending arrow that goes up like this. Or instruction, you could put influence.

Instruction or influence. As the child grows older, your influence should increase. Your discipline should decrease. If you build a relationship with your children and you been consistent in your discipline you been consistent in your relationship Your influence will grow as your discipline goes down So, the problem with what you're saying is, by the time they get that big, the relationship with the early discipline should be such that you don't have to take a bat and smack them over the head. because he's big.

They should have that relationship. By then the raw part should almost be really almost. Here's an example. Let me give you this example. Calvin was a freshman in college. I'm trying to remember if he was a freshman or something.

He says, Hey Dad, a bunch of my friends and I want to go to Florida over spring break. I said, what? No way. What, are you crazy? You know better than that. He says, Dad, come on.

We're not going to go to those places. My friend has a place on the Pan Am or something. No one goes there for spring break. Just a bunch of us want to go down. Just to spend the time. I said, oh, so you can lay on the beach and just be lazy all day.

Well, I don't want that to happen. come on dad and I said no. Now he's 20 years old. He could have said to me, I'm going to get this. But he said okay, that's what you said. Of course the next year he said dad can I get on the beach? And I said come on, he goes to work.

You've raised me, you've taught me, you've done all these things. Don't you trust me? Well, yeah, let's get the big deal. I said okay. So the point is, there's influence. You're an influence girl, so get carried.

I don't love 13 year olds. I don't like 20 year olds. You know? She can no longer be with the same... Is that what you're saying? Stronger than me?

Well, I know, and I do that. But, you know, this is very awkward about it, but I still feel like, you know, Austin's 12. He'll be the size where I can spank him. Yeah. You know, I still feel like my own needs fangin'. Yeah.

And I ask the dad to do it. Sometimes it's awkward for him. Okay, here's some other things we need to understand too, okay? And I found helpful, I think it was, I can't remember which trip, brother, I think it was Ted in his book Shepherding a Child Heart Talks about the different ways of communicating It not just instruction What is it There pleading like God And Isaiah says, I'm here with my hands out.

I'm pleading with you. Come home. There's pleading. There's exhortation. There's all these different ways. And I think that it's more than just flat out preaching.

So you can look at him and say, son, this is breaking your mother's heart. This breaks my heart. This behavior that you're doing continues to break my heart. Do you want to do that? Now, of course, you don't want to be in the neighborhood with that. First off, Stacy.

All I can say is I can relate to the community and the compromise. And basically, I can still tell you about the community. And so, I tell them, in the beginning of my day, I was a guy who was real, real good, real good. You are not a man, and I've done this for a different kind of way. I've been here for a long time, especially for, um, I've been standing here.

I've been around for a long time. I was like, you're gonna have to stop. You're gonna put your back up. And I'm holding books. It's like, don't be complex. You're dead to the core.

And you're trying to stop. I was so interested in how time would go. Every voice would know that they're speaking to their parents. I sustained it. Every day. I'm not a boy, but...

Every day. No, I said all my kids. Yeah, but you're as tough as a boy. Yeah, but the first thing that I think you would want to see is that they were willing to submit to the family. That's been a whole lot. He was funny.

I know. And if the husband was willing to submit to that family, he's still listening. And I try not to go beyond. I think just every child is going to be different, every situation is going to be different. But I think you work really hard at figuring out when it would just be an exasperation to them. Yes, sometimes it gets to the point where it's not effective because of the age.

We have to admit that. It's not effective. Well, at that point, it's not effective. Then you have a problem and there's nothing wrong with... And I've had to tell parents this at times, then you need to involve the civil authorities. If it's that bad, you need to involve the civil authorities because God gave them his instruments to keep them, to restrain evil.

Mary, you got more on that? No. Okay. Lindsay, you had a question, I think. Didn't you earlier or not? Well, I did.

I guess it just sometimes... I don't know what I should be... what my response should be when, you know, the discipline takes place, the instruction takes place, and there's still the hardening of the heart. Yeah. So do, you know, as a parent, do I walk away? I mean, I just don't. Yeah, okay.

You know what? Study up on what the Bible says about the hardening of the heart and the horrible consequences that come from that and start teaching about that. And don't be afraid to just say, okay, it's hardening this heart here, all I'm thinking about is hardening the heart and never making a connection. I said, son, this is what, it's starting right here.

It's starting now. Or daughter, whichever word. It's starting. You're starting to harden your heart. And this is the horrible things that are happening to people who are hardening their hearts. I'm not doing too much to let you go back.

Get back. Get behind that. Guys, listen. You don't just teach generally. You teach the situation. You start seeing some characteristics there.

Start doing some working at it. saying, okay, what's the best thing? He's getting lazy. You've got tons of things in the problem that you can go to, and so forth. I can remember one of my children with a marathon session one time. The main reason that you end up spanking them is because the rebellions are feasible to listen to what you say, and even after spanking them once, that didn't work.

So that was a marathon session. And after that marathon session, his dad changed about, I didn't say we have spankers after that, but we never had a marathon session like that. The point got through. That made us late for something, but it didn't matter. We still had to deal with that. So we were late to wherever we were going, but we still had to deal with it.

We got it dealt with. Good with it. We just say, OK, we've got to get out of here. We still dealt with it. Which also did that not say something to that child Yeah it said this is really important Brian I heard you bring up something important I really kind of ashamed to admit but you know this banking it can be I know a lot of it's growing up. My father didn't spare a rock at all.

Okay. But, kind of what she said, I was very repellent when I grew up. and after a while the spanking just really didn't go down. Yeah. Okay. I heard for five minutes, and then Joe's the one who even made it through the last one. And, you know, once they saw that and started – they never did quit back, but, you know, it just got progressively – not necessarily the spanking, but we spanked you before. before now we're seeing it again so so you're going to get a spanking and now we're going to take away this and you're not going to go do this and you know groundings and and fun stuff and i mean it just got to the point where they had to strip away basically you know you can go to school and that's it no tv no no no toys no no ball no you know you're not going to play baseball, you're not going to do this, you know, just on and on and on until I finally got to him.

I'm not sure I ever did complete the mission. All right. You know, I think the cue card, it's hard for me to talk about because both my kids are sick. You know, you can't discover. Yeah. Some kids, you know, a little bit, and it goes a long way, and the next one, it's just like, all the time.

Yeah, that'll do it for personality. It'll do it, you know, whether they normally have a laid-back or more assertive personality, and things like that. I remember one time, and it just stuck with me. Becca said the first wrong thing that my wife says to me still, because she's pretty wise. I was saying something about Calvin and how easy it was. And she says, I worry more about Calvin than I do Levi.

Why? Because Calvin the quiet one Levi you already know where he stands But Calvin you don And I said wow yeah each kid is different Now a question came up about, is the rod the only thing that disciplines? No, it's not. There are other ways of discipline, natural consequences. Okay, things like that. And what I like, is what Jay Adams has said in his book, Christian Living in the Home.

You see, you've got to determine whether it's a swing issue or a fire issue. And what you get by that is, when the burner is hot on the stove and the child is reaching for the burner, you don't want natural consequences that time, right? So you spank him and tell him, don't touch the burner. That's a fire issue. A swing issue is, I'm going to go out and stand up in the swing.

Don't do that, you'll fall down and hurt yourself. We'll go and let him fall down and hurt himself. It's not going to kill them. It's not going to... All those beings. It's not going to have severe injuries.

Alright? So, your... Your daughter comes downstairs and you look at her and go... And she's not dressed in modest, she's just like... You're really going to wear that? Okay.

Let her go to school and everybody make fun of her. Natural consequences, right? It's not a fire issue, it's a swinging issue at that point. So there are And by the way, this is where I see a lot of parents fail. They're not willing to let their children experience the consequences. So when they do get to the point of natural consequences, they're bailing them out and all this kind of stuff.

And don't let them experience those things. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. I hate that. I don't want to hold it over their head.

Yeah, I mean, look at how the Bible deals with it. Does God hold us at arm's length? No. Okay, you've got to really make it up to me. No. There repentance and forgiveness and then you have that restoration So I really think a lot of these things these timeouts these groundings these other things aren effective because they essentially you're holding someone at arm's length and so you've got to really make it up to them one of them is I don't know, I mean, not, not...

Yeah, sure. You don't get your book because you need to study it. I don't know. Okay, but also involved in that, too, is this, okay? I'm going to talk to you. I'm going to figure it out.

Okay, you love to read these things. Great. but do you see what's going on here? What is it that you want? And all these other things, trying to build in these things, and then trying to help them with the solution. That's another thing that we can talk about is, alright, you've done this, it's wrong, don't do this again, what should you do instead? Okay, things like that.

Alright, Brian, just so I can teach you. My folks were very clear with me. You know, he thanked you. And he thought this was taken care of. You know, I never did. I never felt like they were holding anything.

I knew that. I mean, they explained, you know, if they had to ground me or if there was other consequences besides that, it wasn't like, you know, you just go over here and we're just worthless and we're doing this because we're not getting a license and we're going to have to escalate and escalate and escalate until something comes around. Yeah. One of the main things we learned with all this, though, is not to be confident.

It's a question of patience and it's a lot to watch over. Exactly. You've got to see the discipline in your teaching as leading them to Jesus. You want them to see the bankruptcy of their hearts. You want them to see the total depravity. You want to form these things, discipline and teachings, it gets them face to face with their strength part and how it grieves God and how God has given a savior to save them so that their heart will be whole and devoted to God I mean I could put it a number of different ways but that I think is how we always learn in our discipline and our teaching all right for our confidence in the savior and these are ways we're not going to see the gospel Okay.

Okay. Okay. She's right in the sense of, you know, once it's over, I'm not going to keep banging home in the head with that. Do you remember when you did this and you did this yesterday? We don't do that, right? You want to love them.

You want to build that relationship. heart is my heart to what the children have to find. They need to find me. I'm hard to heart because I have so much other strategies coming up. You're talking about the parents hurting you. Yeah. Yeah.

Staying angry. Right? Staying angry. Yeah, that's wrong. Don't put your anger all the time. Okay, let's pray, alright?

Thanks Father for attending today. We pray that this has been profitable. And we ask that you would help us to just take this through to you and more on this. Lord, we just pass the service, but your word has much to say, so help us to be students of your words so that we are better parents.