Address—Tim Ruga
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Good evening everyone.
Could we start the meeting tonight with him 209?
Our times are in thy hand, and I'd like to just sing the 1St 3 verses of this hymn 209.
Our times are in thine hands.
So I don't know what you're taking.
And it's just perfectly easy because it's not the time I don't get together.
Pray our God and our Father, we thank Thee that at the end of another day we can come together and to consider some part of Thy truth from Thy word, and we pray that that would help.
As we open my word tonight, that would help with the speaker that would speak instead of him and that that would help with each one of the hearers too.
That thy voice should be heard and any thoughts expressed that are not for myself, that they would fall by the wayside. Well, we just pray for blessing, for encouragement, for help for each one here and commit this time to the asking it in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 12.
Hebrews 12.
And verse 5.
And justice starting in the middle of the verse. My son despised not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor fate, when thou art rebuked of him for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he received.
Now just we'll just read only that far tonight. I have in my heart to speak on the subject of the discipline of children and this subject is on my heart maybe a little bit of a continuation from what Brother Bernie brought before I think about four days ago now some we're still have been with us since then.
Others didn't hear that at all, but it won't be a repeat. Uh, this burden is on my heart because this is a family camp. There are many families here.
And not only are there many families, but I see a great many young people. And in God's time you may before long have a family yourself. And in that family God perhaps will give you children.
Charges from himself to raise for him. And that's an awesome responsibility. And so I want to speak a little bit about that and what I understand from the Word of God as regards the raising, in particular the discipline of children.
Now I say so with the recognition of my own failure. I have not done this.
As I ought to have, and I'm not speaking from myself. But along the way I have learned a few things and seen a few things in the scripture, and my intent tonight is to pass on hopefully some of what.
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The word of God says in this subject and our failure is never an excuse. I realized also if a perfect person had to get up and speak on any subject like this, then no one ever would speak on a subject like this because we fail so much in the raising of children. So I'm just going to say that in the beginning and also stress that God who gives the responsibility of raising children.
Parents is the one who gave a perfect instruction manual on it. And so whatever I say or don't say here tonight, the responsibility doesn't end with these words, but it continues on with you as parents or you when you become parents, to go back to the Word of God and see what God himself tells you from his word. And so at the beginning of this meeting, I want to take up some principles and then I want to go on to some practical.
Aspects of this subject.
And the first thing we have right here, and what we read, he says, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth.
That word love is perhaps the foundational concept when it comes to the family.
Without love, there will be no true discipline in the family. You need to have love in order to have a proper family with discipline. And I'm gonna say the other way around as well.
And discipline without love is nothing more than child abuse.
And that's very serious. And so this is a fundamental concept when it comes to the subject of discipline in the in the family is that there has to be love. There has to be love from the parents to the children. And I'm saying it that way because do not try to seek love from the children. Your job is to be a parent. The children will love as you do what is right before the Lord. So that's number one. Now the next principle I want to try to establish is that.
When it comes to parenting and discipline of children, there are in the Christian life at least two connected ideas that we need to get a hold of, and they are faith and obedience. They go together in Christianity. And I just want to lay that out for a minute because I think it's a really, really important fundamental concept for us to understand.
Faith and obedience go together in the Word of God. Sometimes we forget that, but let's go to Romans chapter 10 and just see that.
Romans 10.
And verse 16 this is brought out in the negative, but it still gives the principle. It says that they have not all obeyed the gospel and so on.
There is such a thing as obeying the gospel, and you go to Romans chapter one, you find that the apostle Paul speaks about the obedience of the faith. Go to Acts chapter 6 is another example. You'll find there a great number of the priests were obedient to the faith. And so when we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, it's not just that we believe on him, but we call Him Lord, and there's an obedience that goes with it.
It's a fundamental element to Christianity, and it's also a fundamental element to.
The raising and discipline of children in the family. I'm going to go more to the side of obedience, but I just want to establish that these things go together. And it's not just that it's faith and obedience, but the Word of God brings out this further concept with regard to both.
And that is, that is to be implicit.
Faith and implicit obedience, and we need that because his parents will be a lot of these things that we don't understand and maybe we don't know why they're doing it, where do to do it, but we are to understand or see what God says and we are to believe him and obey him. And implicit means that you don't question it. God has said it, therefore I believe it and I will do it.
Very important. Let's see about the faith first. Well, we can just.
Refer to it. We, we won't turn there, but if you were to go to John chapter 20, I think we all know the story about what Thomas said about the Lord Jesus. And when the Lord Jesus came there after Thomas's words, he says Thomas, because thou hast seen, thou hast believed, but blessed are they which have not seen and yet have believed. That's what the Lord is looking for.
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To see and get evidence for faith and believe is still something God in His grace will accept.
And Thomas has accepted, thank the Lord. But that's not what he desires. He wants us to take things without evidence simply because he says them, and to lay hold of them and believe them.
And it's the same with obedience. And to see that, perhaps the best example I can think of is in Hebrews Chapter 11.
Hebrews 11, verse 8.
Says by faith Abraham when he was called.
To go out into a place which he should have to receive for an inheritance, obeyed. And he went out not knowing whither he went. Very important. It's not a matter of when, of what, whether or not we understand. It's a matter of whether or not God has said it. And Abraham went out and he did it. We're talking about this the other day. Have been reminded about this since we've been here.
I'll walk down that path at night and I get down to the corner and as I'm going along with some of the light comes on. Oh, that's really nice. Now I always can see where I'm going and I get to the end of that light and what happens next? Haven't we all experience it? Right, The next light goes on. That's great. That is what, four or five of them in a row?
It's not the point to see the end of the path when we start. God wants us to simply go out in faith and obedience and act on what He has said and He will give always what is needed for the next step. And.
That is an important concept to get a hold of when we talk about the discipline of children and raising children in a family, because not only.
Are we to act in that kind of faith and obedience? But we need to train our children to do it as well.
Now I wanna just bring out another concept and that is, and this is maybe more in reaction to things that I've heard particularly from young people, that obedience is not legality. Oftentimes these things get confused and say so and so is strict. They're legal. That doesn't equate. It doesn't follow non sequiturs, we say in logic.
Obedience is correct. It's from God. Legality is a principle of.
Doing something to gain merit before God. And that's always wrong. We have grace versus the law in Scripture, but we don't have grace versus obedience in Scripture. Very important to get a hold of that in our own personal lives. And when it comes to this subject, let's go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 10 for a moment.
2nd Corinthians 10, verse 5.
Says.
And casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exhausted itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.
And that last part there, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. This is what we're called to do in our Christian life. Our thoughts even are to be brought into the obedience of Christ. It doesn't mean that we should never understand anything. And we're going to take that up further.
In connection with children as well. But the first thing is implicit obedience. That's what God wants from us. Now let me just try to illustrate it for a moment by an example. Let's suppose we have a parent here and this parent has a child. We'll call the child Johnny, just common name. And the child Johnny walks over here and the parents says Johnny, come here and Johnny.
Ignores the pair and keeps on going.
And the parents just gives a little bit of an embarrassed laugh to the ones around them, goes and picks up Johnny and carries Johnny back. Now we have another parent, another Johnny. The parents does the same thing since Johnny come here. Johnny just ignores and keeps going. And that parent goes and takes Johnny and gives discipline, whatever that may be.
What's the difference? You might say, well, the one was showing grace and the other ones being strict and legal. I don't believe so.
The one who was actually training the child to be disobedient in the way of rebellion and the other one was teaching obedience and the issues are very great for the one they were selling there. Something that would go on a course of misery not only for the parent and those around, but for the child for many years to come.
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Potentially that's what that is, if the parent doesn't change what they're doing.
For the other one, there's the training of the child that brings peace and harmony to the parents, those around and the child themselves, hopefully for years to come. An immense difference. The things that we're talking about here tonight are not light matters. They're huge. And parents, I have to say this.
With some sorrow in my heart, you only have one chance at this. You can't go back and do it again.
You've got to get it right from the word of God.
And so you need to take it seriously, very seriously. The training of children. There are many of us here who are older and we've made a lot of mistakes. And the Lord is very gracious, I have to say that. But we can't excuse our mistakes. And you won't be able to either if you haven't had children yet or if your children are young, you still have time. You can raise them for the Lord and in accordance with His word. Now let's go over to Ephesians chapter 6. And I just want to.
Something about the well known verse first verse there.
Season 6 and verse one.
Says children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
We often talk about mail and who should read who's mail, and when it comes to the husband and wife, that the husband should read his web mail and the wife should read her mail and not get mixed up about that. And that's very good. When it comes to this case, you can read the children's mail if you're a parent. We're gonna come to that. This is telling the children what to do, but this is also telling the parents what the children have to do.
And notice what it says, Children, obey your appearance in the Lord, as many children here. That verse is for you, but I'm not talking to you tonight. But insofar as God is talking to you through His Word, listen.
What does it say next?
For this is right, I'll come back to that in a minute, But first it says in the Lord. And so parents, very important to your Christian parents, do not require your child to do something that is not in the Lord. Anything illegal, anything against the word of God, if you require that of your child, God is going to hold you accountable for that. So assuming that what you're asking is in the Lord.
This is what your child is required to do. And what does it say?
Does it say obey the parent because it's a good idea or it seems right? Or it seems like, uh, that would be the better way to go Or you understand it doesn't say any of those things actually, just simply says it is right. And that goes along with implicit obedience or obedience without questioning, That's what God.
Wants from the children and God also requires that the parents.
Bring up their children to do this. This is not just mail for the children. We're going to see that in a minute. I trust with the Lord's help.
We wanna give an example first though.
I researched this and I could never find out for sure if this story was true, but it was told in a number of periodicals around the 1880s.
Of a man who was a switchman on a railroad, and I'm sure some of you have heard this story before, but it's vivid of what happened. His job was to switch the track so when the trains were coming, they would be switching to the proper places and so that they wouldn't hit each other. And he had to stay at his post. And it came a certain day when his child was there.
I don't know his name, perhaps Johnny, but the child was there and he was.
On the track and on the wrong track and the train was coming and the child didn't see the train coming and so the man had to stay where he was because another train was coming. He had to switch that track. And so this train was bearing down on Johnny right behind him and there was no way to go to him. So the father simply said lie down.
And that child, having been trained to obey without question, immediately laid right down on the ties between the rails and the train thundered right over top of them. Johnny's life.
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Was safe that day because he learned implicit obedience.
That's what I'm talking about.
That's one example. That was a life or death example.
I don't know if it was true, but I do know this one was true.
And this one comes from my wife's family.
Back when.
Uh, maybe she was a baby.
The, their family was in, uh, the city of Toronto. They were on a busy St. and, and the light turned so that all the cars stopped and along the streets that they wanted to cross. And so they crossed in front of all those cars and they got to the other side and the light was in just about to turn so those cars could go again. And my father-in-law looked and he saw that my wife's oldest sister, Esther, was still over on the other side.
And she had seen them by that time, and she was getting ready to come to them.
And the cars were just about to go and he shouted, Esther, stay there.
And she stayed.
Thank the Lord she didn't come. She obeyed what she was told and she stayed where she was and all those cars went fine and after they went five and he went back and got her. That story I know is true. But the point is this is a kind of obedience that we need to teach our children. It's very important to have asked, what do you mean?
Or to say, I'll come over there and then you can explain why I shouldn't come.
Or anything else might have been deadly, and certainly would be in that first case if such a thing happened.
We can't go on raising our children as if these things don't matter. If we do, our children will end up and of course of self will and disobedience. Now, I don't mean to say that their whole lives they're just to obey without questioning anything. I I think actually they should.
But I do believe that parents have a responsibility as soon as children get old enough to start teaching them why. Very important. We don't keep our children in ignorance. We need to teach them why. And God does that with us as soon as we're able to understand. He is there to teach us everything about why. And He doesn't intend for us to just only go on an ignorant obedience, but He desires that from us. He desires that we would do like Abraham, who went out not knowing whether he went.
And where does God put us? Just look at that in first Peter chapter one.
First Peter one and verse.
Uh, for the sake of time, we'll just take a part of the verse here. Verse 14 is obedient children not fashioning yourselves according to the former, lost in your ignorance. It's just part of a sentence, but it's enough. You can see that God has made us and called us to be obedient children. He wants us to obey, but He hasn't left us in the former ignorance. He teaches us what He wants us to know.
And as we go on, we learn more and more about his ways, and we learn more and more.
About the reason why he wants us to do these things. And that's important for us as parents too. As our children get older, we need to tell them why, but that's never the reason for obedience. That's so that they will know for themselves and that they can act intelligently in their own lives. Now enough of the principles. I wanna go on to who and we're gonna start with the fathers. And I'd like to go right back to verse. I believe that brother Bernie Al already mentioned.
About Abraham and Genesis chapter 18.
Genesis 18.
And again, we'll just take part of this for time.
God says in verse 19 about Abraham again.
For I know him that he will command his children in his household after him.
And they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment. And so the examples, Abraham, he's the father, is responsible.
No question that fathers have primary responsibility for children in the family that God has given to us.
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But what I really like about this verse is it shows something important. It says I know him.
That he will command his children after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment. It's not only that this should be done.
But the verse also shows that it can be done. Sometimes it seems like there's a despair with parents to say well.
It just seems hopeless to raise my children for the Lord.
And certainly it seems very hard at times to do that. And yet God has said it can be done and he charges us to do it. We're not going to turn there, uh, at least at the moment. But in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse four, we well know the verse there as well about the Father's raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We're told to do that, and God would not tell us to do it if we couldn't do it.
Let's go over and see a New Testament example, First Timothy, chapter 3.
And this is talking about the bishops or overseers, elders in the assembly. But as has often been mentioned for these verses, what it says of the overseer really is what ought to be true of every believer, every father, certainly.
And it certainly must be true of an elder, but it's an example for all of us and just to skip most of this, but look at verse four says that he must be one that rule it while his own house having his children in subjection with all gravity for from the unknown, not how to rule his own house shall shall he take care of the Church of God.
And so we see first of all that he rules or he conducts, I think is the other way. That can be his own house. But look what it says next. He has his children in subjection.
God requires that the Christian father have his children in subjection. This is not just left up to them. When it comes to the wife, God tells her to submit. The husband is never told to have any part in that. That's her mail. But when it comes to the children, the father is told that he has to have them in subjection.
Therefore, you are required to teach that kind of obedience.
To your children, your father, it's important that is for you.
And then it goes on to add the additional part about why it's important and how. Then that goes on into the assembly. But God requires that this first be done in the household. And that's the primary responsibility that He gives us to our fathers. Whatever other responsibility there may be from others, the first thing is what God says to the Father. Now let's look.
At what it says to father and mother in Proverbs.
Proverbs, chapter one.
And verse eight, it says, My son here the instruction of thy father.
And forsake not the law of thy mother. It should be the teaching, I think, of thy mother. And so here we not only have instruction from the father, but teaching from the mother. And this is so important. The father is to bring up the child and the nurture and admonition of the Lord. So the mother has this responsibility to also, uh, raise the children and teach them. And you find all through Proverbs that it's in the way of the Lord as well.
No question about it. And for the first five years of life minimum, the mother has almost sole responsibility of those children. The father is often away working or with other responsibilities, and they're there with the mother and mothers. You have a tremendous responsibility before God, an awesome responsibility, and He will help you with this. But in that responsibility, it's vital that you understand that for your children.
One of the things that we've had before us is that they be taught this unquestioning.
Obedience.
And you mothers are part of that team that has to teach them that the father shirts his responsibility. You will bear the sorrow along with him, and so you must share that responsibility.
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Now there's another point that I want to mention. Perhaps it was a principle that I didn't go over in the beginning. And that is why this is so important. And the wisdom of this world is, say, what are you talking about?
Discipline and implicit obedience. That sounds like really harsh to speak that way, very negative. And indeed, that's what the world says. But the reason why the world says that is because the world is in rebellion about what God has said about the nature of man. And when we get married and we have children and one day the Lord blesses us with a child, and that child comes out and you hold that child for the first time in your hands.
And what you see there, you see this beautiful little Angel.
And that's all you're saying, right?
And you're not thinking at all that there's an evil thing inside of that. It's not an Angel, but there's a demon in there. It's not a demon really. And I don't mean to say that, but, well, let's see what God says. OK, Let's go to Psalm 58.
Lord willing, I'm about to be a grandpa and I'm not going to see it that way.
But what God says is true, and if we don't listen to it, there's going to be great harm, not only for the child, but many others.
Psalm 58, verse three says the wicked are strange from the womb. They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. And you go on and you read this passage, you find this is someone who goes on to a life of absolute wickedness. You say, well, that's not what we're talking about. And I'm going to say yes, it is.
The old nature is the old nature and it's no different in the person this is chapters talking about from what it is in me. And when I was born, that old nature was there. And that little cute little child that is born has that old nature, and that old nature wants to come out right away as soon as they can. And this is what the word of God says. He takes Hitler. Was he speaking lies as soon as he was born?
Well, you say I don't. He couldn't until he was able to talk. Well, we see what God is saying here. Really.
That old nature wants to express itself as soon as it's able, and it's just as vile in any one of us as any other bad person we can think of. And it's true of that little child. And to deny it and say, no, it's not a good person, and all we have to do is encourage it and give it opportunity and help it express itself. And all the good will come out is to say that God hasn't told us the truth about human nature.
The world denies this principle and they get it wrong.
But we don't have an excuse before God. We have to get it right. And Christian parents and those who are going to be one day, you only have one chance.
When your children are gone, when they're growing up, it's too late.
So listen to God on these subjects. Psalm 51 David says, Behold, I was shaping in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
That's the truth about how we are formed and how it is that we're born. That's every one of us. And that's that child too. And that is why child training is so important. There's evil that wants to come out of there. It's built right into the fallen nature of man. And God has given us as Christian parents this instruction in His Word to train children so that they might.
Be for himself. Ultimately, that can only happen when they get saved.
But as the Christian father and mother, you do not wait till your child gets saved to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We're going to see this further as we go on. Let's go on and just to see a little bit more about what God considers to be this sin of disobedience. And I want to do that because we often overlook it or take it too lightly with disobedience is.
All by itself, our subject, our basic subject, and and this child discipline is obedience.
Let's go to First Samuel, chapter 15.
First Samuel 15.
And.
Verse 22 we're just going to take a part of this for a time. The uh, Samuel says to Saul here just the end of verse 22. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of Rams for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness or self will.
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Is as iniquity and idolatry.
So what is the opposite of?
Obedience.
God says it's rebellion and self will, and then just to make it further clear, he says what that's like and he likens it to umm, witchcraft and iniquity and idolatry.
Do I think of it that way? Honestly, I don't.
I have a hard time thinking of it like that. I don't know how many people do. If you do, you're ahead. But it doesn't matter how we think of it. Actually doesn't matter at all. What matters is how God thinks of it. And this is what God has said. And disobedience is no light matter.
And God says it's a very serious issue and one that if we take it lightly and say, oh, Johnny, you know, he's just having a hard day.
Let me just go pick them up and ignore what he just said. What was he doing right there? Just simply disobeying and no big deal? No, it's rebellion and by letting it go, maybe you don't deal with everything every time.
By by letting that go and not addressing it and just allowing these things to continue on, what are we doing? We're teaching rebellion. And that's a very serious thing because it never stops there. It goes on and on and on. But the first time, this is how God sees it. And that leads me to the next part of my subject, which is banking.
It's a bit uncomfortable. I did not like spankings when I was little and I got plenty of them.
But it's important, and the world does not accept that anymore either. In fact, it's getting more and more difficult to do it in our society. But Christian, father and mother, it's important and you must do it. I wanna show you that from the Word of God. Let's go to Proverbs chapter 13.
Father Bernie brought out some of these verses a couple of nights ago.
But we need to go there again.
Proverbs 13.
And verse 24 says he that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him the time. Now we have this word love again, don't we? We started out with that in our meeting. And I, I just want to bring that up because when you think about the subject and what I've said so far tonight.
If you had to say negative, positive, what would you say? I think he's probably saying negative, right? And yet God really says that these things.
Which seemed to us as negative and certainly are hard things. He calls it loving.
It's really a positive thing, in spite of how difficult it seems. And so it says here that he that beareth his rod hates his son. The world says you cannot put a hand on that child. And I'm gonna say I'm gonna repeat this again. If you put a hand on your child and it's not done out of love, that is pure child abuse. Don't ever do that.
All discipline must be conducted with love and it has to be under control. And really Christian parents, I don't have the time to go into everything with spanking. Maybe somebody have a whole meeting on that, but, uh.
I know it's really good if you can just stop and be completely under control and explain to the child why it is that you have to do what you're doing.
And then show them that love, pray with them, and then administer this banking very hard. Maybe then go back and spend more time with them. The Lord will guide in those things. I'm not gonna be prescriptive about them, but what it says here is if you don't, thank you, hate.
And who will agree with that in the world? But Christians? Whoever you are, unmarried or parent, this is not my word. This is God's word. If you don't spank your child ever, you hate them.
And if you do.
You love them, not just if you do, but loving them will thank them. And then it says this little word the time.
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This we're talking about in Dorothy in a, in a reading not long ago. And a couple of thoughts were brought out that I really appreciated. The first one was that it could mean promptly. And I think that's important. You let something go on and on and on and the child almost thinks, well, I can do it. And then you go and discipline them. It's confusing. And plus you've had all kinds of grief.
There's no reason to let that happen. In fact, maybe you don't even have to spank. Maybe you just have to speak a word. But do it early and it never even has to get to the point of the spanking. But.
Whatever it is, take care of it early. Here it is a rod they're chasing, it says here.
Whether it's a rod or something else, but certainly to chasten the child and do it early before the thing gets out of control. Very important. Another thought that was expressed is be diligent. Don't give up in it. Keep on going until you get through. Sometimes there's a half hearted attempt at it or almost no attempt and the child makes a pretense that, uh, that you know, the sorrow part of it and just to get.
Anything further and now I got away with murder on that one, you know, No, we need to be discerning and take care of that matter and do it right. Another thought that's expressed is to do it early in life.
Don't wait until the child is old before you try to discipline them. Don't wait until you can reason with them before you try to start to discipline them. And I'm not going to say more about that at the moment, but we're going to come back at the end to an example of that might give some guidance.
Word of God does not say an age, but it certainly gives guidance. Let's go on to Proverbs chapter Umm 22.
1St 15 says foolishness or folly is found in the heart of a trial, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. And then just over in 23 verse 13 says, withhold not correction from the child poor thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die, thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell obviously.
Spirit of God had already taken up the part about loving and none of this is done in in anger.
Or haste. This needs to be done in a controlled, loving manner. But the verses show how serious it is. God says the one that beateth his child and does this, and he's not talking about beating the tar out of the kid, talking about taking a switch or something and spanking that child in a way that doesn't do any serious bodily harm but teaches the child a serious lesson.
Out of love.
And.
What does God say about it? He says it saved him from umm, delivers his soul from hell. Shield the pit of the grave. That's what God says. It's serious. We can't just go by this and say you know what? Spanking is optional, it doesn't matter.
Or if we do, we may find our children go off into a terrible end.
This is God's word. Don't look at me, don't look at others. But again, read this for yourself and consider what God has said. I'm not gonna go on about that, but I wanna go on about the next subject with parents, and that would be authority and all of these things with obedience and what we're doing there is this also this matter of authority. And it's an important subject because God.
Not only gave you or will give you.
If He does the children, but He gives you authority along with the responsibility that comes with those children. And I'll just say this from personal experience. When I was very, very young, I did not know the Lord, but I learned pretty early in life who my father was and I learned with some very hard correction at times.
That he had authority and that he was boss and he didn't apologize for that. And I.
Learn not to.
Umm, to question that issue. And it was important. And you know, early in life, I didn't struggle with that. He was my father. He had authority. And in my little world, in my little mind, he was Lord.
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I didn't know the Lord. I only knew my father and his authority. A little later I got older, I understood more. I came to know about the Lord, and I had no trouble submitting to his authority. I had already learned it. And then I got older and I went to school and there was an authority there. And I got older yet again, and I went to work and there was an authority there. And even before that there was authorities on the road and there were authorities all over the place.
And I had no trouble with that. I had learned it when I was a little.
Child. And if my father hadn't taught me that lesson, it would have been a bad thing for me.
Parent, you need to teach that lesson to your children and it will be an important lesson for the rest of their life. Let's go to Ephesians chapter 6.
And skipping past the children, we're going all the way to when these children grow up and they get a job.
In verse five it says servants be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling and singleness of your heart is unto Christ, not with I service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God. This is what it says here. This is really interesting from the head.
Is doing the will of God from the heart?
Parents, you need to teach your children to implicitly obey. You need to teach them authority. You need to exercise your authority when they're old enough. You need to teach them about the Lord and His authority so that when they get to this point in their life, they can take a job and they can know that they are doing whatever they're doing and respecting that authority that the Lord has put over them, but they're ultimately doing.
For him, and they're obeying him, not because they agree with it.
And now I'm talking about somebody my age, not because I agree with it, but I'm doing it from the heart as unto the Lord, because it's an authority that He put there.
Very very important lesson and now at my age is not the time to learn it.
And it's not the child's fault if you don't teach it to them.
As parents, we will answer to the Lord if we don't teach these things to our children. Very important. Another thing that's important.
Is to teach the children that our word is true, that we mean what we say. Nothing more fatal than to tell our children to do something and they don't do it. And we say, oh, well, Johnny, come here. Johnny walks away. I just go pick Johnny up. What have I also taught Johnny besides rebellion?
They taught Johnny that my word does not matter. I don't mean what I say. I say come here. Johnny didn't come here and there was no consequence. Didn't matter.
Let's go to Matthew chapter 5.
Matthew 5 and verse 37. But let your communication be yay, yay, nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
It is so important in every aspect of our life that we mean what we say, but nowhere more important parents and those who are gonna be parents than when it comes to your children. And by the way, don't be telling your children every little thing.
Putting on things that don't matter so that you feel really bad to follow up on it all over the place, actually say that, which is important. And once you've said it, follow up on it and make sure you carry through. Otherwise a child will think, oh, it doesn't matter. I'll just go do whatever I want. And you know, I've seen cases where there are parents who say all kinds of things to their children and children don't listen to a word and they crawl all over the parent and the parents all harried and.
When you talk to that parent sometimes and you can tell they think that they're being meek and lowly and gracious and all of this, and it's not bad at all. The parents really shirking the responsibility that God gave them. And they're bringing up that child in a way that's going to harm that child very greatly and possibly many more besides. And so keeping our word is very, very important.
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And all these things tend toward rebellion. Just one other issue I want to address about that.
This is sometimes difficult for us as people because we say, who am I? Why should I exercise? Because I'm stronger than the child. I can beat on the child and do whatever I want. Sometimes people think like that, right? And it's true. We are stronger than the child that we could go beat on a child, which is evil.
Anyone who does that is evil. That's pure abuse.
The issue isn't who we are. The issue is the one who gave us authority. God gave us the children. God, along with the children, gave us the authority. And the children need to understand when they're old enough, that the authority comes from Him. Before the children understand that, we need to understand that the authority comes from Him, and we act on His authority, but we carry.
All these things that He says in His word, according to His authority, we are nothing. Let's just get over that right at the beginning. As Christians, we are nothing. But when God gives us responsibility and He gives us authority, He is expecting that we will act on that, and one day we will answer to Him for what we did with that responsibility and that authority. Now let's go over to Second Timothy chapter 3.
Just a few more things.
Second Timothy. Well, I'm just going to refer to this Second Timothy chapter 3.
Speaks about the way the in the second verse, the things that will be in christened them in the last day and it speaks about what will happen in that time will be disobedience to parents. We really already talked about this, that this is what God sees as a great evil within the Christian profession in the last day, disobedience to parents and that is coming in all around us. I say this because just to warrant, even though it's coming in, there's no reason for us to do it.
Ourselves we can be obedient to the Lord, but I do want to go to the example of of Samuel for a moment, and there are many things here to spend quite a bit of time on.
We won't, Umm.
In First Samuel chapter 3, we find it's a bad example Eli's sons, and because he had not restrained them, it says the Lord was going to execute judgment not only on his sons, but on Eli. Very serious.
But in First Samuel, I just want to go back to verses that have already been read in these meetings.
But look at a couple other points with them. First Samuel chapter one and verse 24 says about Hannah Samuel's mother. When she had weaned him, she took him up with her with three bullocks and so on. She went up to where Eli was to the House of the Lord. And there she says in verse 27 to Eli, she says, For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me.
My petition which I asked of him.
Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he liveth, he shall be lent to the Lord. And he, Samuel, I take it, worship the Lord there.
Now Samuel didn't know who the Lord was really. He hardly knew anything. Later on, we see by chapter 3, he'll find out who the Lord is, and he'll do that worship intelligently. But he was a young boy. How old was he? I don't know. It doesn't tell us how old he was, but it does say it was when he was leaned. After he's done nursing, perhaps it's a little later in those days, but when he was done work nursing, he was taken by his mother up to the House of the Lord, and he was left there.
How could that be? How could you do that?
This is a child who could be left in a place and expected to obey. And when you read about Samuel, as you go on in the next chapters, you find out that he was an obedient little boy. By the time he was weaned, his mother and his father no doubt had taught him this implicit obedience. So I'm not gonna put a a date or an age on when this lesson has to be taught to our children.
But the Spirit of God does. It gives enough of a clue here that we know it's not when the child gets older and understands everything. Samuel did not understand everything. He didn't know yet who the Lord was, and yet he had learned to be.
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Obedient, perfectly obedient. What he was doing. Some people say, well, that's Samuel. And some people do really well with their children. But my children are different. You ever hear that? You know, I I've got children. There's just no way that'll work.
It's not really true, really. It's not the children who are different, it's the parents who are different. And as parents we need to get a hold of that. The word of God applies to all of us. I've seen parents.
With children that were very difficult to control. And I've seen those same children in the hands of others, babysitter, grandparents, whoever, for extended periods of time, acting good as gold. Why?
Because those others than their parents had a word and they knew that they meant what they said. And even though they hardly had any controller authority over them being other than their parents, now they're acting completely different than how they act with their parents. The problem if there's a problem in their families will be with us as parents. And it's why we need to take these principles to heart before God.
And we need to learn, we need to teach our children that we mean what we say.
This is in so many ways. I'm gonna give another example. It's a a personal one again.
When I was very young.
I was.
Umm, still. Well, I was just my father. I could talk and I could certainly understand what he was saying. And I don't remember what the issue was, but he told me I had to do something and I didn't like it. And so I started to cry. Not a a big cry, I was, it was a protest. I was whining, that's what it was. And I was going on and whining and whining.
And he waited a little bit. He knew what it was from the start, but he waited till he knew for sure that that's what I was doing and there was nothing wrong.
And he said this to me, and I'm telling you this because I was old enough to understand what I was doing, and I was old enough that I can still remember what he said. So our children are pretty smart sometimes, but if they're too young, you can't do what my father did here. I wasn't that young. He said this. He said you stopped crying.
Or I'm going to give you something to cry about.
Now guess what happened? That crime stopped immediately and he didn't have that problem any longer.
And if I kept going, there's no question and there wasn't any question in my mind, then what would have happened? I would certainly have been crying, and with good reason. And that's what we need to do with our words and our children. And believe me, that will yield a lot of happiness in our families. It sounds harsh sometimes it sounds cruel. It sounds like misery. It's not.
The miseries on the other side when these things go on unchecked and the happy families are those who are disciplined as executed carefully and promptly and where it's needed. And in those homes, I've noticed that the discipline actually is very rare because it's hardly ever needed. But when it is needed, it's done in a manner that's appropriate and then the home is happy again.
One more thing.
That is.
Taking your children to a camp like this, or to meeting when they're unruly does not satisfy what Ephesians 64 says about Father's Raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
There's a lot more to raising children and discipline of children than that.
And we need to do it carefully and diligently at home. And I'm gonna suggest.
It's very, very important that we all have a family Bible reading. Don't try to train your children all about sitting still and meeting and meeting. Do it at home. And by the way, you a Christian family, you have a Bible reading.
If not, I'll ask you again, are you a Christian family? Remember what Bernie read to us from Ephesians, umm, from Deuteronomy chapter 6 about that need to bring the Word of God, be diligently before our children. We need to have the Word of God out and read every day and our children need to be trained as we do that. They need to learn to sit still in the family Bible reading and learn that that's the time of respect. That's the time when we are considering.
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What God has to say from His Word and when our children learn the lesson there, believe me, it's a lot less struggle when we get to meeting, when there's a lot of other people around to disturb. Take care of it at home and it'll be much better then. And so these are just some practical thoughts.
That have come to me. I'm just much more that could be set aside, but I just want to end on one note. We won't turn back to it, but a little further down in the chapter where we started in Hebrews Chapter 11.
It says.
No chastening, for the present seemeth joyous but grievous.
But afterwards it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby.
And that's for us who are older. But the children and the whole family will get the peaceable fruit of righteousness if there's proper loving scriptural discipline and obedience that's enforced in the home. May the Lord help us because these are precious charges that He's put into our hands to raise for Him. And there's a great reward and benefit at the end if we can bring them up for His glory.
Let's just close this prayer. Our God and our Father, we thank Thee that we know a perfect Father.
That Thy way with us is perfect, that I love toward us is perfect. We thank Thee for all the way that's always LED us and brought us. But we think too of the responsibilities that doubt us. Give it to us in life. And for all that we as parents and others who will yet be parents here, have as responsibility before they, we pray for help.
We are weak, Father, we fail so often. We pray that thou would overrule when we do fail, and yet work to Thy glory.
We pray that that would help us to act according to Thy word, and we pray that there might be much blessing as a result to continue to commit ourselves to the and thank you for this time that we had together. In the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.