Proverbs 22, verse 6 is our text
upon which all of this is built. Train up a child in the way he
should go. The way, if you'll notice in
the margin, his way. Not the child's natural way,
but God's way. Are you looking at it? Train
up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will
not depart from it. Now, I hope you realize how difficult
this is for me to do. A very broad subject, isn't it? And I do not normally, as you
know, I do not normally teach or speak on subjects, but I am
an expository preacher or teacher. But we had this subject before
us, biblical child discipline. While contemplating this study
and telling you long before we got to it, I did not receive
any encouragement from anybody to do this. And I knew I wouldn't. I knew
particularly young parents would not ask me, per se, to do this. In fact, one said to me they
were afraid of what was going to be said. Now, I understand
that. I really do. We've said so many
times that But we often avoid what we know to be true because it requires something
of us, doesn't it? You can't be indifferent to the
truth. And the truth never hurts. Never hurts. And as with any
truth from God's Word, it's convicting first. that we're going to clearly see
from God's Word our shortcomings as parents and the glaring faults
and rebellion of our children. And the truth requires a diligent
hearer and a doer. If we hear the Word, Scripture
says, and don't do it, we deceive ourselves. And when we hear the
truth, then we're responsible for it. It puts responsibility
on us. Don't look so downcast. My, my,
this is all good. Everybody's already going, oh,
no. This is the whole point. This
is good. The first thing we're going to
see, the first lesson we need to learn is, What does God say
about all this? But as I said, truth is always
good, never hurtful. And the reason perhaps we may
not want to hear it is because it's going to require some hard
work on our part. Parenting is hard work. Actually,
it requires as much or more discipline for us than our children. I want you to think about this,
how important this subject is. Our responsibilities as parents
are great, very great. Having a child is not a right,
it's a privilege, and not to be taken lightly. The whole world
is having children, and they don't deserve to have them. And having a child is a privilege,
a God-given gift and a privilege. The guidance, the care of little
ones, little human beings that are totally dependent upon us
is a serious matter, isn't it? The molding and the shaping of
a young human being, and that's what we're doing as parents,
is a serious and a difficult, yea, impossible thing. but for
the grace of God and the wisdom of God. Yet God has promised. We just
read it. God has promised His grace. God
has given us good instruction. Good instruction. We're going to see how very,
very much Scripture tells us on this subject. Far from being
silent, it's very plain. very much said, and we need wisdom,
the wisdom of Solomon, the same wisdom that comes only from above. Whatever we say, here is the
difficulty of parenting and here is a cardinal rule. Is that a good thing to say,
cardinal rule? Where did that come from? Hope that's not a
Catholic saying. Anyway, here's a general rule
that we're going to keep seeing, that whatever we say or do, we
must be prepared to carry it through. We must be prepared to carry
it through. So it's a serious thing, what we say, what we do,
and so forth. We're going to look at this a
great deal, how fathers and mothers must work together, absolutely
must work together, reinforce one another, not work against
one another. And much more on that later. Now, where do we begin such a
difficult subject as this? Where do we begin? where we begin where all truth
begins, we begin with God. We just read the portion of God's
Word, but the thing I want us to see throughout this whole
first lesson is, we need to have this foundation laid. We need
to have it settled in our minds and our hearts. This scripture,
let God be true. and every man a liar on every
subject. We're going to have to first
reject modern, worldly thought on child raising. There's a lot
of it. A lot of it. Modern, worldly
opinions on this subject are not working Even modern experts, and I'm
not going to quote any of them during this, they're not worth
quoting, but modern experts even admit now it's not working. All this time out stuff and rewarding
bad behavior, it's not working. And one of
the signs of the very last day, the perilous time. The last of
the very last day. Now in 2 Timothy 3, verse 2,
I believe it is, 4. They're disobedient to children.
Disobedient to parents. Right along with lovers of self,
covetous, boasters, proud, disobedient to parents. That's one of the signs of the
time. Let it not be said of our children. So let God be true. on this subject, and every other,
and every man alive. So, it says there in Proverbs
22, His way. Go back to Proverbs 1. We need
to look at what God's Word says to us as parents. Our responsibility
as parents. And as we said, and we're going
to look at scripture after scripture after scripture throughout this
study, we need to get back to the book. We need to get back
to the book, his way, his way, what God says. And he says very
much. And something we're going to
see is that we're going to look to our Heavenly Father for wisdom,
and we're going to look at him as our supreme example. You see,
he's the father and we're his children. And we're to raise
our children just like he raises his. Right? He's a supreme example. How he raises his children is
how we raise ours. Now look at, and I noticed this
actually for the first time in the book of Proverbs. It begins
this way, verse 1. The Proverbs of Solomon, the
son of David, king of Israel. Proverbs Solomon, the son of
David. God begins this book full of
wisdom by saying this is the son of a wise and godly father
who learned from his father. Son who is also a king. Does that sound familiar? A son and a king. This is his
word to us. This is Christ, this is the Word
of the Son of God who is the Word. And as we said, we're going
to look at scripture after scripture, and what we need to ask ourselves
is, are we going to hear this? Are we going to heed this? Are
we going to do what God says? This is not a suggestion. What God says is not a suggestion.
It's not advice. God doesn't give advice. Are
we going to trust the Lord and submit ourselves and our children
to his way, his word and his way, or are we going to lean
to our own understanding? Or are we just going to hope
that our kids turn out all right? A lot of people do that, you
know, I just hope they turn out all right. So he says in verse one, this
is the word of the son, the king. Word of the son who is king.
Verses two through four. To know wisdom. This thing of
parenting is not something we are immediately given. We have
to learn to be parents as well as children have to learn. Right? Learn to be parents. Where do
we learn? Well, my dear old grandmother,
this is the way she used to do things. Would you forget her?
Unless she was a godly woman, unless she acted according to
biblical principles, forget her. She's a fallible, finite, ignorant
woman with a wild tale. Forget that, okay? To know wisdom,
where does it come from? Where does this kind of wisdom
come from? and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding,
to receive the instruction of wisdom. That's Christ. Justice
and judgment. Equity. To give subtlety to the
simple. I need some subtlety, don't you?
You're going to need a lot of it when you deal with children. Most of it requires a straightforward,
plain dealing. Some of it is going to require
a lot of subtlety. discretion, to give knowledge and discretion. My, my, we're going to run into
some things that we've never dealt with before,
decisions we have to make. Well, God doesn't leave us in
the dark. And although there are different things we will
be faced with, there are foundational principles which we can apply
to everything. This is what I'm trying to establish
in our hearts and minds. God has put down foundational principles that
can be applied to everything and certainly give us wisdom.
Look at verse 5. A wise man will hear. You want
to be wise yourself? You want to be a wise parent?
Then listen. Listen. And we'll increase learning. Verse 7, the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of knowledge. We're going to look at three
words throughout this study. The first word is fear. Should
a child fear their parent? Should we fear our Heavenly Father?
This is the beginning of knowledge. That's something to do with respect,
that this is the parent. This is my authority. Not first, my good buddy, my
friend. Is God our friend? Absolutely. But not first. Here, we're going
to look at words like this. Trust. Trust. Most of what we tell our children,
they're just going to have to trust us. And this is why we
said in the beginning that it's going to have to be whatever
we say, whether warning, we have to fulfill it, or whether promise,
it's going to have to be fulfilled, to trust. And the third word
is love. These three things we're going
to see throughout this time. Fear of the Lord, he says, is
the beginning of knowledge. Fear of the Lord. Fools despise
it. Fear is profound. All respect
reverence. See that you reverence them. And these are some of the first
principles we're going to instill in our children. Chapter 2. Now, if you'll notice how God's
Word is written, it's written to the sons of God as a parent. to children, as a parent to children. Verse two, or verse one of chapter
two. My son. You see that? My son. John wrote, little children,
I write unto you that you sin not. Doesn't it? In other words,
don't do that. Sin not. Little children. My son. If thou wilt," verse
1, "'receive my words,' and a man can receive nothing except it
be given him, he has to ask the Lord, give me a receptive heart,
"'and hide my commandments with thee.'" David wrote, "'Hide thy
word in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.'" The Lord
instilled this in me first as a parent, that I might in turn
instill this in my children. So this is where it begins. It
begins with us learning from God. And if I sound like, I don't
mean to sound like I'm an authority, but if any man speak, let him
speak as the oracles of God. I'm speaking on the authority
of this work. I'm not a novice at parenting. Whether I did a
good job or not, you be the judge. But I'm speaking from God's work.
God's work. We need wisdom from above, and
God's the only one who has it. Verse 6, the Lord giveth wisdom. Where does it come from? The
Lord giveth wisdom. Where? Out of his mouth. Folks, there is no wisdom. And I've often brought this to
your attention. And I'm going to take all the
time I want this morning, because we started about five, ten minutes
late, plus our children are not, the young people are not in the
classes down there. It's a big subject. But anything
we hear in the world that sounds wise and sounds good and sounds
profound or whatever, I guarantee you, it's a paraphrase or it
came in some way from Scripture. That's right. So it all comes
from God. Out of his mouth cometh knowledge
and understanding. Verse 7, he lays it up. Sound
wisdom for the righteous. God's people are going to hear
this. I'm confident somebody's going to hear this. I'm confident
some young parents, even grandparents. We grandparents need to hear
this. The older women are going to need to teach the younger
women these things. They haven't already, and they'd
start now. And the righteous, that's who this is for. This
is for God's people who hear this. And it says he's a buckler
to them that walk upright. He's a defense. He's a strength. He's an encouragement. He'll
back you up on this. He'll prove his word through
you and to you and for you. Yes, he will. A buckler. Now look at chapter 3. Chapter
3, verse 5. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart. Lean not unto thine understanding. As we said, we just don't have
this. It's too bad that we're not as
fruitful in wisdom as we are in giving birth to children. Some women are very fruitful
in that, but this wisdom is not natural. It's not natural. We
don't know how to parent kids, do we? They come out, and boy,
Hannah and those who had the first one are going to say, it's
going to come, and you're going to say, now what? Mom. Right? First thing. Mom. Dad. Help. I know the older I got, the more
I called my parents. And even now, as a pastor, I've been consulting
my pastor more than ever. I wish he was pastor. I wish
he'd do this for me. There came a time when I wished
they would raise my daughter for us. So it comes from above. Well,
he gives it. He gives it. But lean not to that own understanding
in all thy ways. Acknowledge him, he'll direct
your paths. Lord, I need wisdom from above.
I need to know what to do. I don't know what to do. Would
you tell me what to do? Yes, I will. Yes, he will. He shall direct. And look at
verse 7. Be not wise in thine own eyes,
fear the Lord. Fear the Lord. He talks about
fear and trust, doesn't he? Trust in the Lord. Fear. Fear
and trust. Chapter 4, Talbert. Now, this
is for adults and young people that are here. Chapter 4, verse
1. Hear ye, children, hear. Isn't this our greatest problem?
Isn't it our greatest problem? You adults, don't you wish, don't
you wish that you'd just listen to your parents? You know, I
don't think I'd owe a dime had I listened. And so many things. Here are
your children, the instruction of a father. Who? God, our Father. Don't you wish you could get
your children's attention and keep it? Listen to me. Would you listen
to me? Tell me what's right. I give you, verse 2, good doctrine. This is good, good teaching. Verse 3, I was my father's son.
I was my father's son. tender and only beloved in the
sight of my mother. And he taught me also and said
unto me, let thine heart retain my word. Keep my commandment,
not my suggestions, not my opinions, commandment. And do what? Live. Live. You know that this is addressed
to Christ and speaking of him and all that. We're on the subject
of parenting. It's the last time I'm going
to say this, okay? Listen to me. It's the last time
I'm going to say this throughout this study. When we're talking
about rewards and obedience and all of this thing, we're not
talking about salvation. Proverbs 22.6 is not talking
about salvation. You cannot save your children's
soul. No. We can't touch their heart. Can't
touch it. This is talking about instilling
biblical principles, godly principles in them, molding character. And when they're old, these principles
will be instilled in them as children and will not depart
from them, such as a hard work ethic, respect, and all of these
things. We can't say they're so. This
is not talking about rewards for obedience, for salvation.
No. So it's the last time I'm going
to say that, okay? You know that. You know that well. When he talks about keep my commandments
and live, and even Peter said this. Peter said, who is he that
would, I can't quote it exactly, be able to enjoy life and see many good
days? Let him depart from evil, keep
his tongue from evil, and so forth and so on. In a practical
sense, it will go well with you. So look at verse 4. He taught me, he said, Let thine
heart retain my words, keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom. Get wisdom. So the first thing
for us as parents is this. Do we? We call ourselves believers. And I trust that most of you
are. I know you now, and I trust that
you are. You give evidence that you are.
Then do we truly believe God's Word is the only way? It's the
only way. It's the right way. That man's
way is the wrong way. There's a way that seems right
unto man, but the end is what? God's Word says destruction.
And do we see how that in Isaiah it says this, chapter 59, I think
of this all the time in reference to our day, judgments backwards. Judgment is turned way backward.
Justice, that is what is right, it stands afar off. Truth is
fallen in the street. Equity cannot enter. The truth,
not only the gospel, It's so foreign, the truth of anything
that God says is so foreign that when you tell it, when you quote
it, it's like strange doctrine, barbaric, old-fashioned. Nobody
believes like that anymore. Nobody spanks their children
anymore. It's so backward now. And so is the roads. Children
run the house now. So are the roads. Do you see
that, how it's all so backward, so far up? We're going to have
to stand, as Jeremiah said, stand ye in the way, and ask, and see,
and ask for the old paths wherein is the good way, and you'll find
rest for your soul. and wisdom from above, thy God's
grace, walk therein." I thought about old Abraham. The Lord said
about Abraham, Boy, don't you wish this was said about you.
Listen to this. Listen to what God said about
Abraham. Talk about a man. God said, Shall
I hide this thing from Abraham, the thing which I do? He shall
surely become a great and mighty nation. God says, I know him
that he will command his children and his household after him,
and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment,
that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he has promised.
I know him. He is going to command his children and his household. And they're
going to keep His way. Don't you wish it was said that
of you. It's not too late. It's never too late. Today is
the first day of the rest of our lives, as the old saying
is. It's a pretty good one. Today. Begin right now. It's
never too late, as long as children are under our... Some of us,
you know, the Lord saved us later in life. Our children are older.
If they're under our roof, it's not too late. Go to Deuteronomy 4. As I said, all I'm going to do
in this first lesson is just read God's Word to you so that
it will be established in our hearts and minds. This is not
up for debate. This is not a matter of opinion.
This is what God says about the subject. God's Word is very plain,
with promise of reward. to the obedient. Chapter 4, verses
5 and 6, he says, ìBehold, I have taught you statutes and judgment,
as the Lord my God commanded me. But you should do in the
land whither you go to possess it. Keep, therefore, and do them.î
Retain it, remember it, do it. This is your wisdom and your
understanding in the sight of the nation. And they will say,
ìSurely this great nation is wise and understanding people.î
That son or that daughter, they'd been raised well, hadn't they? Who did you listen to? Who did
you talk to when you were raising your children? My Father. My Heavenly Father. That's it. See that? Verse 9. Look at verse 9. He
says, Take heed to thyself. Keep thy soul diligent. lest
thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen." We've
learned some things, haven't we? We've been taught some things,
haven't we? We need to teach it. Verse 9. And, "...teach them
thy sons, and thy sons' sons." That means grandparents, grandchildren. Teach them. Teach them. Chapter 6. Go over chapter 6. He says this over and over and
over throughout Deuteronomy, teach them to your children.
Verses 1 and following, these are the commandments, statutes,
judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you that
you might do them in the land, that thou mightest hear the Lord
to keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command
thee, thou, thy son, thy son's son, all the days of thy life
that thy days may be prolonged. Verse 3, observe to do. Hear, O Israel, the Lord. Verse
4, our God is one Lord. Verse 6, these words which I
command thee shall be in thine heart. Thou shalt teach them
diligently unto thy children. Talk of them when you sit in
thine house, when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down.
I'm glad many of our young people are in here this morning, because
what you're hearing is not what the pastor thinks or what the
preacher says, and so don't get mad at me. This is what God said. Teach
our children. Teach them. Now, here's to the
young people. Every one of you young people,
look at this. Chapter 5, verse 16. Deuteronomy 5, verse 16. Honor thy father and thy mother
as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee, that thy days may be prolonged. that it may go well with thee.
It will go well with you in the land. There's just a plain old
down-to-earth principle. You're respectful, polite, considerate. It will go well with you. You'll
be the first to get the job when you're older. These impudent, rebellious, in-your-face
people, It's not going to go well with
them. Paul quoted this over in Ephesians
6. He said, this is the first commandment
with promise. He said, children obey your parent,
for this is right. He said it's right. Meaning,
it's right by God. Whatever God says, it's right.
It will be right by us as parents. to our children. It's right,
and it's the first commandment with promise, Scripture says,
Paul says, the first commandment with promise, that your days
may be prolonged, that it will go well with you. Not of eternal life, but... And young people, let me say
this, and you're going to hear it over and over again, as far
as you're concerned, your parents are always right. Uh-huh. Always. And what you'll find out is the
older you get, the more you realize, you know, they were right. There
were things that I thought they were wrong about, and the older
I get, I think they were dead right. Dead right. And in our text, in closing, As we said before, parenting
is a day-to-day thing. Different things will be faced
with, different things that come up that require wisdom to deal
with. And children are different, males
and females. I've often said, I'm glad I didn't
have a boy. But the Lord would have given
me grace to deal with that, as he has you, who did. Children are different, different
personalities. Sexes are different, different
personalities. But the same basic principles
and truth apply to them all. They're all still, here's a verse
of scripture for you. Foolishness is bound up in the
heart of a child. They're born that way. Wild-ass
is called. They're not good little, sweet
little kind thing. You ought to know that. They're
yours. It says, foolishness is bound
up in the heart of the child. What will get it out of them?
What does God decide? Time out. The rod will drive it from them. And there are principles that
apply to everything, in every situation. Foundational truths. And the thing I'm trying to do,
we're trying to do in this first lesson, is establish in our hearts
and mind, if we'll be established, that God's Word is the first
and last word on this subject. To be believed, obeyed, acted
upon. That God's Word is true, it's
trustworthy. Proving. Prove him. It's right. He said, train up
a child. Train, what does that mean? Teach,
catechize, it means mold, shape. Oh, I don't want to mold my child.
You'd better. A child, here's another scripture,
left to himself will be a grief to his parents. Oh no, this is
your whole responsibility as a parent. mold and shape this
young person into a productive human being. And we raise them
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord in the hope, under
the word of God, in hope that God will use the scripture which
is able to make them wise unto salvation. The only wisdom we
can impart by God's grace is these day-to-day principles.
And that's what this is talking about. Train them up in the way
they should go. And when they're old, it will
not depart from them. And even spiritual truths. I think back, you know, now,
well, my parents told me that. My parents did this and that
and the other, and it had a profound effect on me spiritually. Not only the practical things
I learned, And as we say, it's never too late, never too late. And may it be said of us, as
we read about old Abram, I know him. He'll command his children. He'll command his children, what
I said. Now, next Sunday, we really begin
in depth. The first thing we're going to
deal with is Authority. Respect for authority. We're going to look at what the
word no means. You know, surprisingly, a lot of people don't know what
no means. Can you smile? We're going to see respect for
authority, the word of authority. What God says, what does it mean?
Barnard would say, he doesn't say what you think it means,
he says what he says. God's word is not yea and nay,
it's yea and amen, certain. No, we're going to look at the
Ten Commandments, the majority of them are no. Aren't they? Thou shalt not, thou shalt not,
thou shalt not. Why? Why does it do that way? Because foolishness is bound
up in the heart of a child. The rod of thy word and the staff
of thy word corrects this. The first thing.