I'm not quite sure who to thank. I think Dave brought this to me. Do I thank you, Dave, for my brand-new jacket? No? Is it Howard? Who is it? Howard? Thank you, Howard. You see, this proves you whine and complain enough, people go out and get you things, you know? This is so nice, so warm. And, you know, it's waterproof and it breathes. In addition to being the height and height of fashion. Oh, it is so pretty. Okay. I love my coat, thank you. Psalm 128. Hear the word of the Lord. Blessed is everyone who fears Yahweh, who walks in His ways, When you eat the labor of your hands, you shall be happy, and it shall be well with you. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine, and in the very heart of your house, your children like olive plants all around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears Yahweh. Yahweh bless you out of Zion, and may you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life. Yes, may you see your children's children. That's the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Again, our Father, we give you thanks for your promises to us, your people. Thank you for your love. Thank you that you watch over us and you guard us and you correct and overrule our errors and follies when we seek you. Father, we look to you as parents and pray that you will help us to be faithful and wise, teach us how to train up our children so that they might look like the Lord Jesus and help them to be happy, to receive our help. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I really hope you like the titles of my talks. They're so positive and uplifting. I'm changing the title. This is ten assumptions that are not as happy as they ought to be or something like that. The most influential thing that most of us will ever do is to faithfully rear up our children. And there's really little question about that. I mean, you all, I guess, we all have dreams of greatness and all of that, but the truth is that Our influence will be seen and felt through our children. God will use them in amazing ways. And those of you who've seen and maybe your children are growing and they're older and they've gone out and gone to various places, you've seen as you go around and you meet people and everybody says, oh, I know your son. And you go at first, you go, do you? And they go, yeah, I really like him. You go, oh. I'm so glad. But you know, they've been effective and they've been influenced and that's really, really how God uses us in the most influential way. That's where our influence will be felt and it will be felt for thousands of years. It's an amazing thing when you think about it, but it's true. And so this is one of the biggest things we ever do is rear our children, and it's very, very difficult. And it's, again, one of those things that you need constant prayer and wisdom over and strength and patience. But it is something worth all that. And we have to give attention to it and think through it and constantly be evaluating how we're doing it when we're in the middle of it. And like I say very often, too often, we find out after we've done something really wrong, then you find out, oh, that wasn't the best way to do it. But you see, the good thing is, and what I want, I'm going to go through things that probably you've done a couple of them. I've done all of them. That's where I got them. But the point is, if you sit there and you start thinking, oh, I did that, oh, I did that, oh, I did that, all right, but you know what? You weren't, were you trying to mess up your children? I mean, you sit there every day and say, now, what can we do today to really warp them today? No, you see, we were trying to do what we thought was best and we were trying to do them good. God is merciful in that and He accepts the heart intention for the deed many times and overrules our folly. So I don't want to be so negative here in the sense that if it discourages you and you think, oh my word, my children are just hopeless. They are not, and thanks be to God, He's merciful to us in all of this business. But it's very important, and it is important that we pay attention to it and think about it. Listen to some of the things that God says in the scriptures. For example, Proverbs 19, 18. This shows you how influential our training is. It really is. Important ordinarily our training will determine how our children are what they how they live what their character is and all that that's true It's a powerful influence that we wield but listen to what God says in Proverbs 19 18 chasing your son while there's hope listen to that and Do not set your heart on his destruction Proverbs 22, 6 we've already looked at and you're familiar with, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he's old he will not depart from it. And Proverbs 29, 17, correct your son and he will give you rest. Yes, he will give delight, he will give delight to your soul. The greatest joys that you will ever have will come from your children. and very likely the greatest sorrows that you have come from your children. That's just the way it is. Well, someone might say, well, it sounds like you're just ignoring God's grace here. Well, actually I'm not. I'm assuming, of course, that God must bless our efforts. But you see, the truth is that God blesses not willy-nilly and not arbitrarily, regardless of how we live. He blesses those who fear Him. So it's, you know, if I can't say, boy, I've had a lot of, you know, I can't understand my bad luck. I've wrecked three cars in the last three weeks. And you go, my word, what happened? Well, I get drunk and drive. I can't understand why this keeps happening to me. And you go, you know what, that's not bad luck. That's stupidity. That's what that's called. And you're wrong. Well, things happen because God works through this. He's not going to bless those who don't fear Him and who don't care to honor Him and who don't seek to do what He says. He honors those who honors Him. who honor him, and he uses those efforts, those means to bring about his desired end. So if we are faithful to correct our sons, God uses that correction and works in them so that they can give us rest. When we faithfully apply the rod, God blesses it to drive out foolishness from the hearts of our children. When we do all this, that's not ignoring the grace of God. That's simply saying that God blesses our obedience, even when it's imperfect as it usually is. It always is. So to say this is not ignoring the grace of God at all. God blesses faithfulness. He withholds blessing when there's rebellion and disobedience. And this is why it's so important to give attention here. And again, you see that when you hear that God blesses those who are seeking to honor Him. All right, that gives you comfort because you mess up. But you see, if I'm seeking to honor Him and I'm seeking to be wise in this and then I mess up, God will bless and He will overrule often our mistakes. Well, I do want to consider some common misconceptions or false assumptions that many parents have regarding child rearing. And I've heard these things, obviously a lot of this I've thought myself, but I've also heard this in a lot of young parents. And that helped me to make my list as I've talked to them and seen some of the things they're thinking as well. But there are ten assumptions that can cause a lot of trouble. The first one is this, assuming that spanking is unnecessary or ineffective. And here I'm not referring to those, I'm not simply referring to those who think about their little adorables as if they never need any kind of chastening. There are such people, but you're not among them, and so there's no point really in addressing that. What really here, I'm referring to those who give up on the rod because of the difficulty and the pain and the disruption that it brings, because it does bring a great deal of trouble to you. If you're going to use it properly and faithfully, it's a lot of trouble. It's so much trouble that most parents just can't do it. They'd rather yell at them or yell at your children or ignore what they're doing or pretend that it's okay what they're doing when it isn't. Because it's a lot of trouble. You're over at somebody's house and, you know, little Johnny does something and you go, ugh, but you're having fun, you're talking, you're, you know, playing a game or something and you just don't want to stop and go and deal with it. And so you ignore it, and then it turns out, then later on you get home and you maybe wail him a little bit, and you find out that it's not really having that much effect. And then I get a phone call saying, I just don't think it's working for us. Well, the truth is most parents don't do this faithfully because they love themselves too much, not because they love their children too much. The Bible says it plainly, he who spares the rod hates his son. I've had to tell, moms sometimes say this, I just love them so much, I can't bear to see them hurt. I say, okay, now here's the truth. Now I'm going to say this gently. You love yourself too much. And you don't want to go to the trouble to do this. If you loved your son, you would do what God says. God says, if you spare this, you hate him. He who loves him, disciplines him promptly. That is, at the proper time. The man who spares the rod is not showing love, but hatred. And you see why when you read the rest of the Bible. Because the rod is an indispensable means of sanctification. This is how we grow, all of us grow, in the grace and knowledge of Christ Jesus. Proverbs 22, 15. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it from him. Now if I told you, hey, you know what, you've got a problem here with your children. Your child has got a heart full of foolishness. Now what would you, just putting this aside for a moment, what would you think would be the solution to foolishness? You would think putting him in a right kind of class and letting him hear a good lecture on wisdom and read a good book on wisdom. And, you know, that's our answer, reformed, that's our answer for everything. You know, you got a problem, here's a good book for you. And we shove the book at you and you come back with your problem. I said, did you read your book? Well, no wonder you're still having problems. We think reading and listening to lectures is the solution to everything. And of course it isn't. God says, here's the solution to folly. When you see that your son is not wise, give him the rod. And that will drive folly far from him. That's the best solution. Or listen to this one, Proverbs 23, 13 and 14. Do not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with the rod, he will not die. That's a good thing to remember, by the way. You shall beat him with the rod and deliver his soul from hell. He may think he's going to die, but he's wrong. He's not going to die. He's fine. But look at what the last part of that says. You will beat him with the rod and deliver his soul from hell. Now, first of all, I guess I should say, just not to assume anything, this is not talking about beating, beating, abuse, beating. You know, thankfully the Lord has created us all with a perfect rod spot. And you can use sufficient force and it doesn't break anything, but it does sting a good deal and sends tremendous straightforward messages straight to the brain and the heart. And you're to use that spot with great zeal and love. And when you do, you see, listen to this, deliver his soul from hell. How are you going to save your children? Well, you would think, well, I just need to teach them the catechism and teach them how to, you know, tell them to believe in Jesus. Well, sure, you do teach the catechism. Yes, you do teach them to believe in Jesus and all that, but you've got to spank too. That's part of their salvation. In fact, an essential part of their salvation, because it's one of the ways they learned that sin brings great pain and sorrow. And they learn that when they can't even understand you're talking to them. You see, when you can't explain that to them, you can't sit them down and say, son, you've got to understand, Adam sinned and brought curse on the world. And I just have to tell you about how this curse has worked out. They can't listen to that lecture. They can't understand the lecture. But they can learn this lesson when you spank them properly with the rod. and make it clear to them. You see, this is why it has to be prompt, because even little ones who can't understand long sentences or anything, they know that when you said no, no, and then they look at you like they do, you know, they just stand there, you said no, and they go, you said don't touch that, and they go. Looking at you all the time, saying, I don't believe you. Well, that's when you just say, what did Daddy say? I said, no, come here. No. And they go, oh, I've got to learn to obey because that's what Jesus said. They learned that lesson. And you couldn't have talked to them to get that through their heads, but when you do this, they learn that lesson. I can't sin because sin hurts me. And it makes Daddy upset, it makes Mama upset. And I used to tell the boys, look at what you've done. We were so happy. We were having such a good time. And now you made Daddy stop, and now I've got to whip you, and you're going to be crying. And I'm upset, and Mama's upset, we're not having a good time anymore. You've got to get happy so we can have a good time. That's the truth. All these things are taught by the rod. When you do it faithfully, and again, I'm assuming, I'm not going to go into this, I'm assuming you know what that means. In love, that you're loving your children, you're not just, you know, there's not just thunder and lightning and hail and brimstone and sulfur falling on them, but you're also showing them and loving them, and when you spank them, you grab them and you love them and you pray with them, and if they're going to keep rebelling, you've got to do it again, you know, you do the whole process. All of that, that's what God uses. And he uses it when they can't listen to lectures, when they can't understand a sentence. That's when he uses it. If you wait until they can understand a sentence, you've waited too long. And you've got a lot of ground to make up. Some parents say, well, I've got to wait until they understand this. You mean understand vocabulary and grammar? No. They understand this action. God blesses it in that way. No, you can't wait. You do it appropriately, appropriate to the age, and of course appropriate to the offense, all those things, but do it because God actually delivers them from sin. Proverbs 29, 15, the rod and rebuke give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. Enough said there. But to withhold the rod is to withhold one of the ordained means of wisdom and salvation. Your child cannot be wise, nor will he be delivered from sin apart from the rod. Now that's a pretty absolute statement, but God said it, not me. Anyone who will not do this does not love his children. Anyone who doesn't do this and thinks he has a better way is trying to be wiser than God. So, Don't lose faith in God's means. Some people say, well I've done this and I've done this and it's just not, I'm not seeing any result. I know the feeling. I mean, five boys, I know the feeling. It just happens, right? You go through, we used to have these, like, 40-day trials or something. It was like being in the wilderness. And I told people, my hand, I'm sorry, my hand's like this, but I had to pry a rod out of it to come to the meeting, because that's the way I've been walking around for the last three weeks. And we weren't seeing a whole lot of fruit. But you know what? You persevere. You walk by faith, not by sight. Right? You walk by faith, not by sight. God does bless. This is a cumulative thing. And you know how that is, really. Right? When you're inconsistent one time, then you have to make up two weeks. You let it go once, and then all of a sudden, ah, I put myself back, then I've got to make up. Well, all right, that's the way it is. It's cumulative. Be patient, continue to weed and water, and God blesses. So, press on in that. And then here's the second assumption. Assuming that spanking is all that's needed, and there are some of our brothers and sisters that just think they can't figure it out. They'll say things like this, I don't understand it. I have spanked them every day. And I believe they have. But you see, the problem here is that's all you did. Just spanking them is not what God says. That's one of the things, but that's not it. What about... loving them. What about playing with them? What about showing them the affection and the attention and all the things that they need? This is not the only thing you need to do in child rearing, to spank the children. And God says it this way, it is the rod and reproof The rod coupled with the things of discipline, Musar, training, those kinds of things. So the rod by itself is not a manifestation of love. That is to say, spanking without reproof, spanking without encouragement, spanking without exhortation, spanking without physical affection, spanking without doing all the other things that we're commanded to do for our children is not biblical training. It's not a manifestation of God's love. Spanking by itself is not enough. It's part of a far more complex duty and complicated duty. The rod and reproof and that kind of chastening gives wisdom. And here's the third assumption. Assuming that what is obvious to you is obvious to them. And this happens when your children get a little bit older. We often forget how important experience is to giving discernment. There are things that are clear to you now that weren't clear to you when you were 15. In fact, you never had thought of them when you were 15. But they're so obvious now, you think anybody with an IQ of 10 knows these things. But that's not true. You know them because of the experience you've had. And we need to remember. And what things were obvious to me when I was 30 or what things are obvious when I'm 50 were not obvious when I'm 30. We continue to grow and things become more clear as time goes on. Now we can see how good it was that mom and dad didn't let me do what they didn't let me do when I was 15. I didn't think that was a good thing at the time. I was really pretty upset about it, but now I see how wise it was and what a blessing it was. Now I can see how foolish and silly it was when I wanted to dress like everybody else all the time and thought it was, you know, everybody in the world was watching me because I had the wrong pants on. Or something. what kind of T-shirt I wore, what kind of pants or socks, what shirts were cool. And then you look at your pictures and you go, oh, I really thought that was cool. Oh, that is so awful. And your children want to look at your pictures, and you say, no, absolutely not. It's my business, not yours. You're not about to look at those pictures. Who do you think you are? No, they love it, and they laugh, and they laugh. That's smart, Alex. Experience is a great teacher, and we say that all the time, but it's true, and we don't need to undermine it. Don't assume that your children have the same insight that you have now. They were just, in many ways, they're just like you were, and remember that. They need help and guidance. They need real instruction. They need patience. And this is what you see in the father of the Proverbs. The way he instructs his son is most... The first nine chapters of Proverbs are like a child-rearing manual, honestly. They're beautiful. The father is talking to his son, and think about all the things he covers. He covers every aspect of life, almost. And he focuses on a couple of things pretty severely, which tells you, what should I focus on with my teenagers? And of course, one of the things five times in there, he talks about sexual immorality. And it's not because he thought his son was a pervert. He just thought his son was a boy. And he understood what it's like to be a young man in the midst of the world. And so he tells his son stories. You see, it's not just catechetical instruction, as good and as important as that is. He tells him stories. He says, I'm going to tell you about something. I was standing by the window the other day and I looked out in the street. Guess what I saw? And he starts telling him this story. And he tells him about the people, probably, that he grew up with. Like you have learned, and you can tell those stories. God teaches us by stories. Use those things. Tell the story so that your son can understand. So not just abstract principles, not just decrees from on high, but stories about how God works and how folly and wisdom works and looks in the world. This is how God instructs us, and we need to follow that pattern. Sin is deceitful. It is often very difficult to recognize, and we have to warn our children so they learn to recognize sin in all of its deceitful disguises, because it doesn't look bad to them. just because you've been around long enough to know that's bad. But it doesn't look bad to them. And if all you say is, look, I'm telling you, that's bad. And you don't ever explain why it's bad or show them why it's bad. You just sound like, you know, a grumpy old guy that just doesn't want to have any fun anymore. So you've got to show them that this is why it's bad, this is why you can see that it's bad, because you know what happened one time back when you were their age and you remember it. Never assume it's so obvious there's no need to say anything. Nowadays, we can't assume anything. Because what you, if you're in your 40s, 50s, what you thought of as very, very obviously wrong, well, those rules have changed. They're not obviously wrong to everybody today. And we have to talk and explain why it is that's not a good thing to do, that's not a good idea. Here's the fourth assumption. Assuming that they understand something because we told them once, How many times have you said, I just told you that, right? I explained to you that the other day. We think if we spend quality time explaining something to our children, they'll never have a problem again because we have already talked about that. And then we're flabbergasted when they actually go out and do something we talked about once. You go, didn't we just talk about that? We'll win. It was like two years ago yesterday. Just because you talked about it once doesn't mean that they've got it. Again, this goes back to our over-trust in teaching and in lecturing and giving directives and all that. I'm not demeaning sound instruction in the least, but I just want to remind you how many times do you have to hear things before they click for you? I mean, there are certain things that are pretty obvious, you get them right away, but how many things have you had to listen to and think about and hear them over and over and hear them said in different ways and from different people and all of a sudden one day you go, oh, I got it, I got that. That's the way it is. We must not assume that our children are smarter than we are. They're usually just like us and they need to hear things over and over again just like we do. Mothers have come to me and said, I can't understand it, they've heard good preaching all their lives. As if that's the magic, I mean that's the magic solution to everything. Just sit a child in front of good preaching all his life, he'll never do anything wrong. But you see, that's just not the way it works. They've got to understand, they've got to grow. Our children need to hear things over and over again. Yeah, that's true. And they've got to see them worked out. They've got to be encouraged to live in certain ways. And we must understand that that's the way it is for us as well. We need to have things shown to us over and over again. So do our children. One hearing is not enough. Always repeat instructions and explain them and illustrate them and all the rest. And then the fifth assumption, assuming that the consequences of the fall are not present in our children. And again, I've heard parents say sometimes, well, I know there's one thing my child will never do, and that is lie to me. And you don't want to laugh when they say it, but you just want to say, I wonder how many times that's already happened. I know my children would never do that. They know what's right. Well, look, the unspoken assumption is that if you know what's right, you're always going to do it. That the sin that everybody has and the effects of the sin of Adam are not affecting your son or your daughter, and that's just not true. If you believe that, invariably you're going to be disappointed. You set up an unrealistic standard of behavior for the children and sometimes the children know this and the fear of disappointing parents leads them either to learn elaborate hypocrisies or to go into overt rebellion out of frustration and sinful anger. And again, I'm not saying we need to expect sin or to take it for granted as if it's unavoidable. One of the great evils of our day is always assuming that children have to go through a season of rebellion before they can, you know, settle down. They've got to go sow their wild oats or they've got to go through rebellion, you know, motorcycle time or something. But it's important that we not be naive about sin and temptation and thus we are not to leave our children without guidance and safeguards against sin and temptation. Yes, so there do need to be rules to assist them. and to help them to see where boundaries ought to be. Your goal is always realizing the difficulty of standing against temptation and to give them all the assistance necessary and successfully to resist temptation and to protect them from as much of it as possible. So the goal is always, I'm not going to be able to be there all the time. I've got to train them so that when they get out and I'm not around, they're going to stand firm. They're going to be able to understand the dangers that await them if they follow that temptation. So we're to show them these things and never assume that they are not susceptible to temptation. They are. And the sixth thing, assuming that our children should be allowed to do everything we did when we were their age. I've had a lot of people complain about the idea of getting more involved in your child's relationships and avoiding these kind of dating relationships where they become little mini marriages and you have all these little mini divorces so that by the time you finally get married, you've been through three divorces already, practically speaking. and you're jaded and all the rest, and not to mention the dangers of those kinds of relationships on other levels. But people say to me, well, you know, that's the way I was, and I turned out all right. And I just want to say, yeah, and you know what, I heard a guy that jumped out of an airplane, his parachute didn't open up, and he survived. So why don't we just go out and jump out of airplanes without parachutes? What about that? That would be fun. I mean, he was all right. Why wouldn't you be all right? You see, the problem with that, we don't always know how we've been affected by our follies in the past. We have been affected by them probably much more than we realize. So you may not think you've been affected by the things you did that were really wrong and stupid, but you have been. And that's the first thing. The second thing is even if you weren't hurt or injured by your folly, God protects the stupid. And many of us did things completely mindlessly. Nobody had told us. Nobody had warned us. We got into stuff. And you know what? All that shows is God just protects the ignorant and foolish sometimes in His good mercy. And He protected us from amazingly dangerous situations that we got out of them without a scratch. But that doesn't mean we should let our children do them. Some parents say, how can you forbid your children from doing something you've done? Isn't that hypocritical? Here we go with the hypocrite thing again. Hypocrisy would be refusing to acknowledge your own folly and acting like it was wise and defending it. That would be hypocrisy. But it's not hypocritical to refuse to allow your children to follow you in sin. There's nothing wrong with saying no. They say, didn't you do that? Yeah, it was really wrong. I sure did, and I wish I hadn't, because that was a horrible thing to do. God may protect us from eras of ignorance, but to assume that He will protect our children when we know better is to presume upon His grace and mercy. I may walk through a minefield and not realize I'm there and make it all the way through, but once somebody says, hey, you realize you just walked through a minefield? I'll just say, well, blindfold me, let me see if I can do it again. That's tempting God, you see, the second one. Now, here's the seventh assumption. Assuming that boys and girls should be given the same type of training and that they should respond in the same way to their training. And here, again, I don't want to give the impression, and I'm not teaching this, just in case you want to hear it this way, that girls don't need to be educated or something like that. That is, I think, a disastrous conclusion that some have drawn in our day. Of course, there are many things that children, regardless of their gender, have to learn, and they have to learn the same things. But here's the thing I'm saying, that boys don't need to learn the same thing necessarily in the same way, nor do they respond to the same things in the same way as girls, and I don't want us turning our boys into girls or our girls into boys. This applies to what is taught and emphasized with each. And so, as I say, a lot of the content is going to be common. We're going to have those things in common. All children need to know the Bible. All need to know the disciplines of the Christian life. All need to know how to read and express themselves clearly and plainly and enjoy beauty and appreciate beauty in all areas of life and so many other things. But boys don't respond to those things in the same way that girls do. And that's perfectly all right. We must not be influenced by the pressure of our day to make boys and girls the same. They are not the same, of course, as you know, and it would be wrong to expect the same sorts of things from them. Boys need to learn to take leadership and assume risk and responsibilities inherent in leadership. They're going to be called to do that in their life. And so they have to learn how to lose without bitterness and discouragement. And they have to learn how to win without arrogance and overconfidence. And they must learn to persevere and work hard and overcome obstacles and bear up against opposition when it feels like they're going to die if they keep going. That's part of the value of sports and hard work. You know, just plain old hard, nasty, dirty, stinking work. You need to get a job that you just tremble to go to every day because it's so hard. Well, and dirty. And, you know, I had a couple of those jobs where mom wouldn't let me come into the house until she holds me down in the backyard. You know, just stand there, you're not coming close to the house. Oh, my goodness. And that's the kind of thing where you've got to learn those kind of things when you feel like I cannot go on, but you have to. You have to learn to persevere in that way. You've got to learn mental and physical toughness. That's the calling of those who lead. Leaders have to take hard licks, and it's essential that they learn to sacrifice and give and take the blows and not get their feelings hurt every time somebody says something against them. You can't be overly sensitive and be a leader. You can't be dominated by your feelings. You've got to learn to live by principle and keep doing what is right, even though it's very, very difficult. Robert E. Lee said, you know, you have to learn to do your duty. And that's the way he would put it. And Randolph, John Randolph of Roanoke said, life is not as important as the duties of life, the responsibilities of life. These are the things that are important for guys to get impressed upon them. And when we teach things, we want to teach them with these kinds of goals in mind, impressing these things on them through the things that we teach them. Girls obviously have to learn to be really great helpers. and they've got to learn this. Their calling ultimately is to be a helper to their husbands and to be equipped to do that. Now that doesn't mean they won't be a doctor or a nurse or something else, and it's perfectly fine to have all of the training in other fields, that's fine too, but they have to learn these things for sure. So this means there has to be some emphasis on how to do the things they're going to be called to do so that they're not completely in the dark about these things. Not worrying about the, you know, the, not that they all become great chefs of Europe or something, that's not what we're looking for, but they have to learn basic skills in those areas. And there has to be done, they have to learn to sacrifice and deny themselves, which is what a wife and mother is called to over and over and over and over and over again. They have to learn to do mundane skills with joy, I mean mundane jobs with joy. I cannot tell you how much I admire the ability of my wife and other wives to wash dishes and clean things up, knowing that two seconds after you finish, some blockhead's going to come in and mess it all up. You know, men are not like that. If I do something, I would, you know, that yellow tape that goes around crime scenes, if I clean the kitchen, tape all around, nobody's allowed for at least three hours. I want to be able to look at this. This was a good job. We like to build things and go around and look at them, you know, the next day. But how would you feel if you built something, you know, you build this really beautiful shed, and two hours later you come back, because you just like to go back and look at it again. You just like to look at what you did. You go back to look at it, and somebody's torn it all to pieces. How would you feel? You just go, oh, well, let me just try to build it again. That you? Well, let's talk. I'm not that way. But, you know, that's what mama does all the time. She cleans up, puts all the dishes away. As soon as she puts the last dish away, here comes, you know, Bozo, who just ate 35 minutes ago, but he's hungry. I'm hungry again. What can I eat now? So, you know what, stand over there and I'll squirt something in your mouth. I don't know. I don't want you messing up anything. Now you see, but what grace does it take? And I asked Wendy one time, I said, I don't know, how do you do this? How do you do it? She said, well, she said, the only way I've been able to do this is that I think, she said, I've been able to say, Lord, you saw it was clean. She said, for that 30 seconds, It was clean. And she said, she used to say, well, she still does this, she said, she always tells young mothers when toddlers and all the, you know, the little, we call them crumb grabbers and all that, you know, when they're just driving you nuts all day long, they drive you nuts, they drive you nuts, you just, and you finally get them to sleep, and you go and flop down, and Wendy used to say, she said, all right, all right, but after they get good and asleep, go back in the room and look at them then. and you'll realize they're really sweet. I'm really glad they're here. Because otherwise you want to kill them. I don't know how they do it. It's amazing grace, but girls have to learn self-denial. And it's really hard for girls. It's hard to learn. It's hard for men, of course, too. We've got to learn it in a different way and for different reasons, but you've got to learn these kinds of things. So we have to begin to realize, yeah, there are important differences in the way we train our children depending on their gender. And here's the eighth thing, and I've got to move really fast. Assuming that the goal of biblical training is good behavior rather than holiness, Wow. It's not all that difficult to get well-behaved children. You're bigger than they are. And you can make them do it. I mean, I've proven it. I can make them do it. We're bigger than they are. And if I put in the necessary time and effort, I can make them behave. But God didn't tell me to make your children behave. He expects me to help them to be holy. Not just behave. But the goal of Christian parents sometimes is just, I just want my children, when we go out, not to embarrass me. Now whether you say it or not, that becomes your goal and you're happy. If it's a success, you went out, and they didn't throw one of those timber tantrums that you can't control, or they didn't go around breaking every third glass in the house of your friends, and, you know, you got in and out unscathed, and you're really pleased with that. That's not the goal of child rearing. And we can't allow that to become the goal. Obviously, early years of child training are dominated by the task of subduing and winning the victory over sinful, stubborn natures. Boy, you see it in the one-year-old, you see it in the two-year-old, you see it in all of them. That stubborn willfulness that has to be broken in the proper way so that they learn, you are not the ruler of your life, God is. You have to do what God says, not what you want to do. You've got to do what God says. You've got to learn from the beginning, from the womb, they have to learn to obey God. And that's the place of discipline. That's where you're teaching them to learn to deny their own wills and obey God. And so there's a lot of training that has to go in there and a lot of effort that we've talked about. But the goal of all that is not good behavior merely, but holiness of heart. It's a deadly mistake if we make good behavior the goal. So think about such things as this real quickly. Beware of discontented obedience as much as disobedience. You know, it's not enough that I said, take out the garbage, and my son looks at me and goes, and it's like I don't understand those three words anymore. They don't make sense. And so I said, take the garbage out. So he goes, okay. And I hear every step and it shakes every window. That's not obedience. It's not like I said cut off your finger with a plastic knife or something. Come on, get happy about this. This is the cost of living here, man. It's time to get happy. Grudging, grumbling obedience is not true obedience. Remember that God judged Israel for murmuring. and grumbling. And we, our children, have to learn, look, surly attitude doesn't get it, man. You've got to be happy in obedience. I want you to learn to deny yourself and be happy to have the privilege to do that. It's hard to learn those lessons. But discontented obedience is not obedience. And learn, too, that indifferent and careless obedience is not obedience. If you listlessly go through the motions of obedience, or you perform your duties carelessly and indifferently, you're sinning. You're sinning against God, who demands that we do everything we do to His glory. It's not enough just to go through the motions. We're to be a zealous people, loving Him, serving Him with warm-heartedness. Dull, lifeless worship, unconcerned for the glory of God, indifference toward the things of God, those are not marks of good hearts. Those are the marks of hearts that are far from him. Like God says, you draw near to me with your lips, but your hearts are far away. I'm not interested in that kind of worship. Well, we're not interested in that kind of life from our children either. It is not normal to be indifferent to the faith and the glory of God. That's not normal. It's not normal to have no passion for God's glory and pleasing Him. That's not normal. It's not normal not to enjoy the world He's given us. That's not normal. We have to be people who flourish in Him and be fruitful. That's what is normal for God's people, and our children have to learn that. All right, here's the ninth assumption, assuming that our words are more important than our lives. You know, there are certain clichés. There's a reason why things get to be clichés, because they're true. I mean, that's why they're clichés. So when we say actions speak louder than words, it's true. Actions speak louder than words. And we somehow think that that's not true when it comes sometimes to our children, that they're going to listen to what we say in spite of what they know about how we live. You can talk all you please about the importance of trusting the Lord and depending on Him. But when something goes wrong and you fall apart with worry and fret and fear, then you've taught the far more powerful lesson that the only time you can trust God is when everything's going just right. And that's the wrong lesson. You can talk all you please about being honest and being a man of integrity, but if he knows you watch and look at pornography late at night on the Internet, you just talk, look, the only thing you have to worry about is getting caught. That's the wrong lesson. You can talk for hours about the importance of worship, but if you always are indifferent about it, and you go through the motions, and you don't really sing, and you don't really do, and you're not excited about this, and you don't think it's as important as your hunting trip or your ball game, then you've taught the true lesson that worship is okay if you don't have something more fun to do. And you could go on and on and on. Your example is the most important factor in your training. And the fact is that most of the failures and sins that we see in our children most of the time are a reflection and an imitation of our own failures and sins. And so we have to face that reality. And here's the last thing. Assuming that the church is not essential to our child rearing. And this has become a very widespread and deadly assumption on the part of many in our day. And some of them are our really good friends that we've been in, say, for example, the homeschool movement, which I've been in a long, long time. and great supporter of, and all of a sudden I see all these homeschoolers thinking the church is not important anymore. And they think that really it's okay since they do school as a family, they can do church as a family. And that's a deadly mistake and a huge folly. Parents now assume, even in part because of homeschooling, that now they're the only teachers that their children need. And that is a huge mistake. I mean, I've said it and I mean it, if I was the only influence with my sons, they would be far weirder than they are. And some of you know them, and I'm talking dangerous weird. but they're only more normal because of you. You helped them. You rounded them out. You helped them as they watched you do things right. They saw you do things and it helped them. And if they hadn't been around you, they'd be in bad shape. If I'm the only influence, that's a bad, bad thing because God has given us a body and we need the nourishment of the whole body to be well-rounded people that can glorify God, conform to the image of Jesus. So, I won't go. into this, let's see, families only function properly when they're involved in the family, and that's what we need to understand. That's why the church becomes so, so important for you. Thank the Lord for your churches, the churches that you come from. I think I know just about all the churches that all of you come from, and I know the pastors, and wow, what a blessing you have. To be in those places is an incredible blessing to you as a family, not just as an individual, but as a family, because your family needs that. Our families are not self-sufficient. God didn't promise that the gates of hell won't prevail against your family. The gates of hell will prevail against your family if it's cut off from the church. It is the church that will stand, not the family. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church. You see? It's that. And the only way your family can survive is if it's a part of the family of God. So yeah, sure enough, fathers and mothers have authority over their children. That's an authority elders don't want to usurp. We're not trying to interfere. Each family has its own hearth and table, its own proper traditions and habits and memories and hopes. That's all fine. Traditions, all of that. But families function rightly only when the family table is a fruit of the Lord's table. The family table is a place of joy and celebration only when the family gathers together around the table with the rest of the family of the Heavenly Father. Marriages are healthy when they're engrafted into the network of marriages. and when a husband and wife are joyful members of the Bride of the Lamb. We can raise our children well only with the assistance of our brothers and sisters, our aunts and uncles and grandmothers and grandfathers in Christ Jesus. Any family that ignores or despises the family of God is truly doomed to misery and destruction. And so we need the church if we're to rear our children properly to the glory of God, and that in turn makes our families a great blessing to the world. Did you see in Psalm 128, it teaches that the blessed home is a home within Israel, and as the blessing that the Lord pours out upon the home, it becomes a blessing for Israel. You're blessed because you're part of Israel. And as you grow, then you become a great blessing to Israel. So just as membership in Israel means blessing to the family, so enjoying the blessings of being a part of the family becomes a great blessing to Israel itself. This is the way the family becomes an agent of blessing. So, trust in the Lord, humble yourself under his word, gladly submit to one another as members of his family, and thank Him that He doesn't allow these mistakes to be fatal when we're seeking to honor Him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that You will help us to be wise, that You will help us to make wise choices in the teaching and training of our children, help them to grow up in the grace and in the knowledge of the Savior, and grant us all the joy of seeing our children being fruitful, abundantly fruitful trees in your garden. Hear our prayers, receive our thanks for Jesus' sake. Amen.