This adult Sunday school class
was held on June 28, 1987 at the Trinity Baptist Church in
Montville, New Jersey. We're going to give you the opportunity
this morning to raise questions relative to the Word of God or
Christian practice and the Christian life. There may be a backlog
of concerns that you've just been waiting to have the opportunity
to introduce. And before we pray and ask God's
blessing on our time together, just this word of instruction
is in order. This forum is for the members
of our assembly to give them an opportunity to raise questions. And while we are certainly thankful
for the visitors who are among us, we would appreciate it if
you would give deference, show deference to the members of the
congregation. and they know who they are and
they will raise the questions and hopefully help us in resolving
them as we seek to turn to the Word of God. So let us then seek
the Lord's face together remembering especially this urgent request
that has come from Australia and then Pastor Bob and his ministry
of just being among the people of God at Livermore today and
then for God's blessing on our class. Let us pray. Our Father, we have been vividly
reminded again this morning that it is appointed unto men once
to die, and that even though we here and now as your people
enjoy the great blessings of sins forgiven, the certain knowledge
of our being with you in the glorified state in the age to
come, we know that that last enemy has not yet been fully
conquered and we thank you that our Lord Jesus now reigns and
shall continue to reign until that last enemy is put beneath
his feet in that day of his glorious appearing in triumph and in power
and we remember therefore your dear servant Dennis Shelton and
his wife And our Father, if this cancer in the lungs is to be
the means by which you will usher her into that intermediate state
of being absent from the body and present with yourself, which
is far better, then, O Lord, give grace to all of the loved
ones who must watch the horrible and the grievous effects of this
cancer take away the life of one beloved to them And we pray
that your grace will shine through the grief and the trauma and
the pain. And yet, O Lord, we know that
you are able to manifest your power, that power that will ultimately
destroy death, that you can manifest that power even now in arresting
sickness and deadly disease, and if it please you, we pray
that you would put forth the arm of your strength and minister
healing to Mrs. Shelton's body. And then, our
Father, we pray for Pastor Hogg as he seeks to be a brother born
for adversity, to stand with one who has stood with him. Oh,
may their relationship as comrades in arms and as comrades under
the yoke of Christ, may that relationship be deepened as they
pass through this veil of suffering together. Then, our Father, we
thank you for answered prayer with respect to Pastor Bob's
ministry in the Philippines, for blessing him and Pastor Dixon. And now we pray that you would
bring him safely to the West Coast and bless his day among
your people there at Livermore. May his very presence be an encouragement
to all of the saints in that place. And as he will no doubt
be asked to give a report on what he has seen and heard in
the Philippines, may their vision and their commitment to pray
for that work be deepened as a result of his time among them. And then may it please you to
bring him home safely to us tomorrow. We pray that you would bring
him home safely, full of joy and of the Holy Spirit, and full
of renewed vision that in turn will be imparted to us with respect
to your work in the Philippines. And now we look to you for your
blessing upon our time together, thanking you as we have already
done in our opening hymn and prayer for the privilege of another
Lord's Day. We thank you for your holy and
infallible words We thank you that we meet in a context of
liberty and freedom. Do guide us as we would discuss
matters of mutual concern together. So lead us that when we come
to the end of this hour, we may each of us be convinced that
all that was said was unto edification and unto your glory. Hear us
then and answer us as together we plead these mercies through
our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, as we've indicated, the
opportunity is yours to raise questions. I always come with
one or two matters up my sleeve to introduce if there are no
questions, but I think that's only happened on one occasion
over the many years. So don't feel you must, to spare
me embarrassment, raise a question even though you I wonder if it
is of any importance, but if there is a question or are questions
of concern relative to any of the ministries that you've sat
under, matters that have not been touched upon in the ministry,
feel free to raise the question and we'll attempt to answer from
the Word of God. Well, I wish I could have the
luxury of sitting where you're sitting. and have somebody up
here prepared to address many of the questions that I have. Yes, Jonathan. And one of the things that I
suppose is popular in some Christian circles is that in disciplining
children, we must seek to break the will without wounding or
crushing the spirit. And I wonder if you could comment
on that, if it's a biblical concept, and maybe to open up the two-sided
aspects of that. Alright, the question is, in
the general area of the discipline of our children, that we often
hear terminology, if not in these exact words, in words similar
to these, that we must seek to break or conquer the will without
bruising or crushing the spirit of the child. Alright? I think
the best thing for me to do then is to turn around and begin to
frame the matter in some other questions that will help us to
isolate what we are particularly concerned about. Well, first
of all, what is generally meant by the term we must conquer or
break the will of the child? What do you think is understood
by the use of that terminology? All right. All right, the innate rebellion
and desire to have one's own way. Now are you asserting then
that a child has a native, a natural, a positive inbred bias to wrong? Okay. Now, where did you learn that?
Aside from having Jonathan as your son. All right, Romans chapter 3 in
that great summary statement of the condition of all mankind
by nature, all under sin, the latter part of verse 9, Romans
3, 9, and then we have the bringing together of passages, particularly
out of the Psalms and also out of the book of Isaiah, describing
the condition of mankind by nature. None righteous, none that understands,
none that seeks after God. They've turned aside, they have
together become unprofitable, none that does good, not so much
as one. Throat is an open sepulcher,
tongues they have used to seat. Mouth full of cursing and bitterness,
feet swift to shed blood. But could not that be a description
of people who've grown up and learned how to be good sinners?
Would this necessarily apply to children? The question has
to do with the disciplining of children. So is this the best passage to
use with respect to children? I'm not saying it isn't, I'm
just asking a question. All right? Alright, David's statement in
Psalm 51.5 that when he was conceived, he was conceived a sinner. And
what is the result of that being, of that reality of being conceived
as a sinner? Certainly this passage in Romans
3 describes all mankind and there's nothing in the context to indicate
that children are exempted and certainly further on in chapter
5 where Paul deals with the solidarity of the human race falling in
Adam we know that what is said here does indeed apply to all
men and women regardless of age and race and sex and all of the
rest But are there other passages that clearly indicate that in
a child, specifically, there is a positive bias to do what
is wrong? All right, Gary? All right, now you said in the
book of Proverbs, that's a pretty big book, 31 chapters. Can you
tell us where that's found? All right. I figured that's why you were
generic. We don't deal in generic medicine in this class, only
specific medicine. Alright? It's Proverbs 22 and
verse 15. And you all ought to know the
address. Proverbs 22 and verse 15. Foolishness is bound up in the
heart of a child. Now according to the book of
Proverbs, what is foolishness or folly? Does it mean the desire
to have a good time and to play games? What is folly according
to the book of Proverbs? All right, it's the bent to do
what is against the will of God, against that which is true wisdom,
which is the fear of God, doing the will of God, doing that which
is pleasing to God. And this text tells us that foolishness
is bound up in the heart of a child. So here is a clear text that
indicates that within the heart, the seat of the nature of that
child, there is bound up folly. And there is this pressure and
predisposition in the direction of what is wrong, and that will
find expression, of course, in the will setting itself to do
what is wrong, to make wrong choices. All right? Some other
passages that clearly indicate that the state of the child is
indeed that which Mr. White has described. All right? Yes, John? All right, you want to quote
that for us? All right, Psalm 58-3, the wicked
are estranged from the womb, and it speaks of their going
astray and being deceptive even from infancy. All right, any
other text that clearly teaches this? What about our Lord's clearest
statement of where all sin, in all of its forms, comes from?
Mark chapter 7, that's right, Mark chapter 7, and you have
the parallel passage in, I believe it's Matthew 15, but Mark chapter
7. Notice our Lord's words, Mark
chapter 7, and Verse 21, for from within, out
of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts,
murders, adulteries, covetings, wickedness, defeat. How is it
that children are such masters of deception? Well, for from
within, out of the heart, they have a built-in teacher, lasciviousness
and evil eye railing Oh my, how children can rail, speak abusively
to one another, about one another, and they seem to have a built-in
teaching. Pride? foolishness, all these
evil things proceed from within and defile the man. All right,
I'm sure you could bring forward many other passages, but here
we've established from the scriptures then, contrary to the modern
psychology, contrary to most modern educators and all of the
rest, the child has a positive bias to evil that is inbred,
it is there from the moment of conception, and the only answer
is theological. It is not sociological, it is
not psychological, it is theological. And we must dare to take our
stand on that issue no matter how much we're considered to
be puritanic or any of the other pejorative words that may be
used to describe us. All right? Now, that being so,
then the will, the chooser of the child will often want to
make choices in the wrong direction. Now, what are we to do with that?
And we haven't forgotten Jonathan's question. We're trying to respond
to it responsibly. Shall we then take that will
and break it? Conquer it? Shall we simply try
to redirect it? Do we have the power to sanctify
it and transform it? What are we to do then when the
will of that child is determined to walk in a path that is wrong
or a path that is evil? Where in the scripture do we
learn what we are to do with respect to that child's will?
Someone had a hand raised over here. Yes. All right. All right. All right. Roberts, chapter 22
and verse 6, train up a child in the way he should go. Now, there's a problem of translation. You'll find the marginal reading
of the 1901, train up a child according to his way, and there
is a debate in terms of precisely what that means, so that's a
text we don't want to put too much weight upon because it's
one that is difficult to ascertain the precise meaning of the words. Now if the proper translation
is train up a child in the way he should go, then indeed that
would be a text that indicates that we have the responsibility
by training to move the child's will in the right direction even
when natively he desires to have it move in the wrong direction.
Alright, can you think of any other passages that address the
issue then? Alright, George? Alright, that in the whole passage
dealing with the fatherly chastening of God with reference to his
children, that God's dealings with us are to form the pattern
of our dealing with our children, and there are parallels in the
point that George is making. Verse 9, we have the fathers
of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them reverence. How much
more should we rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits and
live? For they indeed for a few days
chastened us as seemed good to them. And the inference being
that they chastened us to bring us into subjection to their will,
which will they believed was in our best interest, and chastening
was a means by which they regulated our wills. All right? Other passages. Yes, Beth, and then back on the
last row. All right, Beth? Alright, Proverbs 29 and verse
15. The rod and the reproof give
wisdom, but a child left to himself causes shame to his mother. One of the most powerful and
devastating texts on the whole philosophy of self-expression.
Modern education, modern psychology would say a child left to himself
shows forth the wonders of his potential. But the scripture
says a child left to himself causes shame to his mother. It is the rod and reproof that
give wisdom. And how do they give wisdom?
by forcing the child to take right choices and bringing punishment
when they've made wrong choices that there might be an added
incentive in the future to choose what is right in order to avoid
the certain punishment that will come if they choose the way of
wrong. All right? Yes. Another passage
then. No. All right? Yes, Paul? All right, Proverbs 19, 18. Chastened by his Son, seeing
there is hope, and set not thy heart on his destruction, indicating
that if he is not chastened, leaving him to go his own way
and follow his own inclinations, the wrong will lead to destruction
and failure then to govern his will with respect to his choices
is to result in contributing to his destruction the next text
Paul was 1324 Proverbs 1324 he that spareth
his rod hateth his son but he that loves him chasten him chastens
him betimes or diligently. So to spare the rod, to refuse
to bring the correction necessary to punish wrong, to guide the
will into the right, is a manifestation of hatred to one's child. Now, I am one that I think over
the course of all the years that he's been on television, I have
only even seen two or three times Phil Donahue But in the kind
providence of God, the other day I watched for about eight
minutes a program dealing with the whole matter of child discipline.
And that's all I could stomach. That's all I could stomach. My
wife will tell you she heard me shouting things down in the
family room and wondered what was going on. Because here we
had the professionals, the PhDs, and the so-called experts and
the way he was seeking to influence the millions that watch him was
in a way that would say that any kind of physical spanking
whatsoever was a manifestation of ill-treatment to the child
and could only result in the child's detriment and the detriment
of society. It was a horrible, aggressive,
blatant attack upon every single passage we've read this morning
out of the Word of God. Blatant, blatant, open, not even
subtle. and one poor woman who was a
teacher who believed in disciplined and restrained but principled
spanking, she was just battered and buried by Donahue and the
so-called experts to the point where that's where I just plain
got angry, the way they ganged up on that poor woman. who, without
having a biblical basis, yet in common grace, had come to
understand some of these principles. And the last passage, Paul, was
23.14 of Proverbs. We could back up
to verse 13, "...withhold not correction from the child, Now,
you see, people that say, well, correction just means redirection
and diversionary tactics. You don't necessarily have to
spank. And there are Christians who
take that position. They say there must be discipline,
there must be training, but no spanking is necessary. I don't
know how in the world they could live with a passage like this.
Withhold not correction from the child, for though thou beat
him with the rod, he shall not die. Though thou beat him with
the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the
rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." Now how in the world, by any
stretch of imagination, someone can say that the rod has no place
in the biblical doctrine of training and discipline is beyond me. One must completely twist the
scriptures and deprive them of any meaningful communication
of the mind and will of God. Now I am not saying, nor does
the Bible say, that the only form of discipline and training
is the rod. The Bible clearly teaches, and
God is the great pattern in this, there are other forms of discipline.
God withdraws the light of His countenance as a form of discipline
of His children. God withdraws privileges. He says, if you don't obey me,
I'll shut up the heavens. I'll take away your crops, I'll
withhold the early and latter rains. There are other forms
of discipline, granted, but to say that other forms can be a
substitute for and a negation of the necessity of the disciplinary
action of the rod is to go beyond the scriptures. Alright, I think
we've had enough of the scriptures now to demonstrate two fundamental
building blocks excuse me, that must be laid if we're going to
deal with this question. Number one, the nature of the
child, that there is a positive bent toward evil, and that in
dealing with that positive bent to evil, for the development
of the child, even for the salvation of the child's soul, there must
be discipline and discipline in terms of the application of
the rod of correction. Now, the question is, if the
discipline is to be effective, obviously then it must conquer
the child's will. Let's put it in a very specific
situation. Well, you give me an example
from your own parental experience. One in which the child's will
was set upon doing something that you knew it shouldn't do,
and you had to conquer its will so that the child did not do
it. Can you think of some examples
of this? sense? When your parents were last visiting,
they told me a story about your sister. Oh, about my sister?
Oh, that's fine. Just as long as it wasn't about
me. All right, good. You have leave to continue. He
said he was such a good little boy, but your sister, it took
her one time two and a half hours that she dropped a button or
something and she will not pick it up and she said she had to
stand there for two and a half hours till she picked it up.
Yes, that's right. My sister Joyce, my older sister
had... I love to tell on my own relatives. I believe she had dropped a...
I don't remember that it was a button. I thought, at least
in the story as I remember it, that it was a Kleenex that she
had deliberately thrown on the floor. And my mother said to
her, Joyce, pick it up. And she stood there and said,
no. All right, here was a conflict
of wills. She knew what the will of my mother was with respect
to picking up that Kleenex. Her will was saying, no way,
Jose. And my mother's will was saying, yes. She was saying,
no. Two and a half hours, and I don't
know how many spankings later, the little chubby hand of my
sister Joyce picked up that handkerchief. Now there was a clash of wills.
Now in that instance, there are many parents who would have said,
oh, that's a silly, stupid little thing. Don't. I mean, just. Diversionary. Uh-uh. The testimony of my own
parents is that with all ten of their children, with most
of us, there were about a half a dozen issues in the first two
years of our development where we planted our flag And our wills
came into a head-on collision with their will, and had they
not seen those issues through to a resolution, they doubt that
our wills would ever have been conquered. But our wills were
conquered as children. I no more would dream of saying
the word no to my mother or father when a directive had been given
than I would have dared to give out a string of ten four-letter
words. It never entered my mind to dare
to do it. Now, I never had bruises on my
body. I never was beaten in a way that
anyone could see that I was an object of child abuse. I never
felt insecure. I always knew I was loved, but
I knew in my home there was one will and it wasn't mine. Somebody else was calling the
shots. You see? and this instance that St. Paulius
mentioned and I thank God for this because I know many of you
don't have that legacy you don't have it but I pray God you'll
pass it on to your kids I pray God you'll pass it on to your
kids but our wills were conquered not diverted but conquered even
up until teenage years I can remember and I'll tell an incident
about myself now in this context of the more intimate nature of
our class. I was old enough to know that
in one year's time I'd be playing football up in the high school
and we didn't go to high school until the 10th grade. We had
junior high school 7th, 8th and 9th and you could only play junior
varsity football in the 10th. I don't care if you were O.J.
Simpson. No sophomore ever played varsity
only juniors and seniors, and we were state champs about every
third, second, third year. If we weren't, the coach got
threatened with getting fired, and it stirred him up, and he
was there for some 25 years, so it showed that they produced
good football teams year after year after year. But anyway,
I was old enough to be looking forward to that, and I had all
my heroes of the varsity team, and Saturday was the day I had
to scrub both the kitchen floor and the bathroom floor. During
the week I had to scrub the kitchen floor as well. That's back before
Armstrong's no-care was invented. And they had to be scrubbed and
waxed. And I can remember a given Saturday thinking I'd go off
to the football game and get away without scrubbing the kitchen
floor. And I started out the door and my father said, where
are you going? I said, I'm going to the football game, Dad. He
says, oh no, you aren't. I said, why not? He says, you
haven't scrubbed the floor. I said, oh, but dad, I can do
it later. I cried. And he said, look son, you can
cry till your tears wet the floor, but until you scrub it, there's
no football game. End of discussion. He said, that's
humiliating. No, it wasn't. I bless God for
that kind of consistent determination to conquer my will. Right up until I went off to
college. There was no magical idea that
at age 18, suddenly, now, if I was under the roof, they no
longer had control over my will. Where do you find that in the
Bible? Where in the Bible does it say at age 16, 17, or 18,
suddenly, you lose your responsibility to conquer the will of your children
if they're still under your roof? I'd like to see proof of that
from the Bible. I've yet to see it. I don't see it in the Bible.
So this whole concept then of the conquering of the will is
a biblical concept and it's one that must be implemented. It
must be implemented with untiring consistency. There are times
when you'd love to have somebody else take over the job. It's
wearisome, but it must be done. It must be done. And with some
kids, it takes this amount of pressure to conquer their will.
With some, It's that much. And so there's
no standard little formula that you can have. Some of the kids
just don't look. I've met people that have every
reason to believe them when they say their will was conquered
by their parents who said they never, never once even had to
be spanked. God so put them together psychologically,
emotionally, and in common grace that just the thought of being
spanked was enough and all the father and mother had to do was
snap a finger and look at them and they were pliable and I had
no reason to doubt them because their subsequent life history
manifested that they had a will that was conquered. Others They
maybe have to be spanked once, twice, ten, fifteen times on
a given issue. The issue itself may be as inconsequential
as picking up that little piece of Kleenex. But there's a clash
of wills and the will must be conquered. Alright? Any question
now on these two points before we come now to the point that
Jonathan's question really terminates on? If this is our duty and we
are to conquer the will, then Is it right to talk in terms
of conquering the will without breaking the spirit, and if so,
what is the basis for that and how do we do it? But any question
on what we've established thus far? Any additional comments?
Yes, Chuck? Very good point. Luke 2.52, that
after the incident in the temple, it says he went down to Nazareth,
and the only description given of those 18 silent years is these
words, and he was subject unto them. He was subject unto them. So for that period into his teenage
years, right up into manhood, because then in the next chapter
we find him age 30 coming forth for his public ministry. Alright,
so our Lord then is the great pattern of one who was subject
unto parental authority. And here, of course, they never
had to spank him. He had no positive bias to wrong,
and yet he is the great pattern of the child being in submission
to the parent. All right, any other comment
on these first two building blocks before we come to this next part
of the question? All right, let me throw out this
question then. What do you think is meant when
people say we must conquer the will by discipline, but we must
not break the spirit. What do you think is meant by
that terminology? We must not break or crush the
spirit. Anybody got any idea what's meant
by that terminology? Yes, Cynthia? Pardon? Alright, Ephesians 6.4. And ye fathers, provoke not your
children to wrath. And I imagine, Cynthia, you're
bringing forward this verse as an illustration of what it would
mean to break the spirit, would be so to discipline and chasten
the children with unreasonable or unexplained or wrathful forms
of discipline that we would provoke them unnecessarily to wrath. Someone else, what do we mean
when we use the terminology, we don't want to break their
spirits? Alright, Dan? Alright. Parallel passage in
Colossians 3.21. Alright? In Colossians 3.21,
and I only repeat it so it's picked up on the tape, Fathers,
provoke not your children that they be not discouraged, that
they be not disheartened. There's the picture of someone
who's in a disciplinary framework that takes the heart out of them.
that takes all of the natural, what we might say, spunk and
initiative out of the child and so disciplines him as to batter
him into a little glob of inert childhood. Afraid to look, afraid
to speak, afraid to act, withdrawn from people, that kind of a horrible
situation that some of us have seen with our own eyes, even
with animals. You see that, don't you? Do you
know the difference between a disciplined animal and a crushed animal?
You've seen those dogs, and mainly dogs. Cats are such weird creatures,
I can't figure them out. But they are. Well, I won't give you my theories
about cats. You've seen those dogs that when
they see a stranger, you come into the house, they immediately,
their eyes are bright and they come up to you and they lick
your hand. They just think you exist to pat their head and all
the rest. But all the master of the house needs to say is,
Heido, sit! Down on his haunches he goes.
You see the will is conquered, but the spirit of that dog is
not broken. Loves people. Figures that people's hands are
to stroke his head and to tickle him under the chin and scratch
his ears. His spirit is not broken, but his will is conquered. Now
you see that same thing with children, don't you? You're around
children, if they get in the presence of adults, and they
draw back, and you sense that they look upon adults as those
who batter them, who bring nothing but harm, and bruising, and negative
things to them, and their spirits are broken. whereas children
who are properly disciplined feel comfortable with adults. They've learned to relate to
adults as those who give them positive direction, who keep
them in line, but who are affectionate with them, who love them, who
show their love, who manifest their love to them. And so this
whole matter of the broken spirit, we see it illustrated in animals,
and I think it's better seen and and observed and probably
formally described, though the Colossians 3.21 passage certainly
does point in that direction. Can you think of another passage,
another disciplinary passage that gives us at least some hints
about what a broken spirit is? All right, go to the Hebrews
passage again, all right? Because here under God's discipline,
remember what we're exhorted not to do? Two things we can do when God
disciplines us. We can regard God's chastening
too lightly, verse 5 of Hebrews 12, or we can be cast down by
it, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou
art reproved of him. And so then he gives the picture
in verse 11. Though chastening is not presently joyous, but
grievous, it afterwards yields fruit." So here's the person
whose spirit is being broken by the chastening, verse 12.
His hands are hanging down, his knees are palsied, and he's not
even able to walk in a straight line. There's the picture of
the man who's being broken excessively by his discipline and God says
no lift up the hands that hang down and the palsied knees make
straight paths for your feet so perhaps it's easier to talk
around and illustrate and show analogies of the broken spirit
than it is to give a formal definition unless someone has one floating
around in his head and would like to share it with us we'd
welcome it Yes, Ron? Yes, where they just lose all
heart and become totally passive. They lose all heart and become
totally passive. Alright? Now, the question is,
Is this then a biblical concept that we are in our discipline
to conquer the wills of our children but not break their spirits?
Is that a biblical concept? That was Jonathan's question
raised about 40 minutes ago. Is that a biblical concept? Anyone
willing to stick his neck out and affirm that it is? Alright, Paul? A glad heart makes a cheerful
countenance, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is broken. And whenever the Bible speaks
of the condition of a broken spirit, apart from the broken
spirit that's attendant upon true repentance, a broken and
a contrite heart thou wilt not despise, it doesn't speak of
it as a condition to be desired. It speaks of who can bear a broken
spirit. It says a man can take all kinds
of physical pain. But if his spirit is cheerful,
he can ride it through. But once his spirit is broken,
then he's had it. So the whole teaching of Scripture
is that the breaking of the spirit, in the sense of the crushing
of the human spirit to the place where it loses all hope, where
it loses all sense of expectancy, of all looking forward to the
next hour, to the next day, that that is not a condition to be
desired, and therefore a condition to be avoided in the discipline
of our children. For again, we are to be like
God, and in God's discipline of us, he does not discipline
us to break our spirits, that is, to take away from us all
bright hopes for the future, but rather to even increase those
hopes by bringing our wills into line with his will, our perspectives
into line with his perspectives. All right, other verses or concepts
or comments that you want to make on this matter? Yes, Pastor Nichols? First of all, with reference
to the breaking of the spirit and what it means, there are
various other passages in the Old Testament and the New Testament,
which I think are helpful in understanding it. It's not exactly
talking about dealing with children, but it is talking about excessive
punishment in one of the places in the Pentateuch. I don't remember
the reference either. I've written my strongs for that. Well, it's talking about a limitation
of 40 stripes, which was in the Jewish law, that when a person
was being punished, you couldn't beat him with more than 40 stripes. The reason being, lest your brother
become odious unto you, and lest he be despised in your eyes.
Yes, Deuteronomy 25 and verse 3, right? Deuteronomy 25 and verse 3. 40 stripes he may give him, he shall
not exceed, lest that he should exceed, and beat him above these
with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee. That this creates an unnecessary
negative attitude to the one who's imposing the discipline.
Well, the impression I got was that the one who was being disciplined
would seem vile unto you. That's the way I understand the
text. That his work is destroyed. He's a vile thing. You beat him
into the ground. You hit him again and again and
again and again. That this excessive punishment
destroys the work of the person punished. And what it does is it destroys
a person's proper sense of their own wholesomeness and dignity.
as creatures made in God's image and this is why they go around
constantly discouraged is because they have no proper wholesome
sense of their own self-worth they're worthless creatures that
are good for nothing yet to be beaten I think that's one of
the fruits of it of a broken spirit is it destroys your own
self-worth along with that it destroys a sense of your own
value where the Lord Jesus says you are of more value than many
sparrows. You're not worthless. And you're
not worthless in God's eyes. You may be unworthy and sinful,
but you're not worthless to God. And a child should never have
the sense that he's worthless to his parents, valueless, and
yet excessive punishment will do that. Good point. The other
thing is it'll destroy initiative, will destroy any legitimate willingness
to to launch out on your own with thought and creativity and
ideas that comes out of this. The other thing I will destroy
is a sense of independent judgment, which apparently is noble according
to Acts 17, the Berean spirit. But these are more noble than
those of Thessalonica. They received the word with all
readiness of mind, examining the scriptures daily, whether
these things were so. And that can also tend to, you
know, don't you ever question anything I say. I'm a parent,
therefore I'm always right. Everything I say is correct.
Don't you ever dare question or you're a rebel. then I'll
spank you. I mean that kind of stuff destroys
a proper independent judgment and an initiative and a sense
of self-worth. Those are the proofs that I think
are so conspiring. All right, I think one of the
things that we can see that grows out of that is that whenever
we are engaging in discipline it must never, never be in any
other context than one of self-control done in the fear of God, and
as the child is able to receive it with explanatory comments
from the Word of God. Why must Daddy spank you for
this? Because I disobey. And why must
Daddy spank? Because God says you must. Do
you think Daddy enjoys spanking you? No. Why? Because you love
me. You think it hurts Daddy to hurt
you? Yes. But why must daddy hurt
you? Because God says you must, you
see? And you explain that this is not a matter of attacking
their worth. And never then must you say,
you dummy! And you strike out with your
hand while you use language like that. I pity the child who's
been brought up in that context. Some of us pastorally have had
to sort out the people who were called dummy, dummy, dummy every
time they were beaten. And no wonder then, they have
no sense of their own worth, no sense of initiative, and then
as Pastor Nichols has indicated, and some of you, many of you
have not yet faced this, and yet you're going to, it'll be
all together too soon, that as your children are growing, you
must more and more give verbal explanation and enter into reasonable
interchanges with your child as you're guiding them to know
why this path is wrong. It's enough for a ten-month-old
who's begun to walk around simply to know that they are not to
touch a fragile object in the living room. And you don't need
to go through a three-hour explanation as to the difference between
fragile and non-fragile objects. But as the child gets older,
you have a responsibility to teach them the processes by which
you discern right and wrong. That's a part of maturity according
to Hebrews chapter 5. Full-grown men are those who,
by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern good
and evil. And you should then encourage
in the child that there is a difference, as Pastor Nichols has indicated,
between a legitimate question Daddy, I'm prepared to do what
you've told me because God's put you as the daddy and I'm
to obey. But may I ask why such and such? And if you just simply respond
to that by saying you're never to ask that question around here,
you're discouraging that critical, proper development of a critical
spirit. Now there may be times when you
will have to say, There is not time and this is not the place,
but as soon as it's convenient, I'll be glad to, but for now,
you do what daddy's told you, you see? And you let them know
that this is not the time and the place, the same way in a
good husband-wife relationship. I hope you don't just bark orders
to your wife and think that that's what it means to be head of your
wife. You talk matters through, you
take her through the process of decision making, include her
perspectives, her feelings on the matter, and then you arrive
at a decision and you administratively implement it. But there may be
times when you're not able to go through all of that. And you'll
just have to say, dear, as soon as I'm able to, I'll explain
why, but this is what we're doing. Yes, but honey, this is what
we're doing before God. This is a decision I'm responsible
to make. I'll explain later. And God will
see to it, I'm convinced, in any good marriage, no matter
how good the marriage is, that once in a while you'll have an
issue like that just to make sure that the wife really understands
the principle of submission. Because the principle of submission
is not tested. if your decision is by mutual
consent. Right? It's only when there's
not consent or enough understanding for consent that she demonstrates,
I'm prepared to submit even though I don't understand the reasons.
So I'm convinced that in any healthy marriage there will be
periodically little test along the way so a wife can be honest
before God because a godly wife wants to know whether or not
she's really submissive and the Lord will engineer things enough
so that she'll know whether she has the principle in her but
that does not mean that it is not the husband's responsibility
to cultivate in her a creative and inquisitive mind suppose
God takes him out of the picture by death Suppose he has to be
away in Australia for two weeks in meetings and little kids are
still at home. If he has not trained her how to make decisions
and to guide her into decision making, she'll be utterly paralyzed
to carry on the administration of that home. Well, likewise,
there are children who were brought up very well behaved, but when
they got into the years of discretion where parents should have begun
to explain to them The process by which they arrived at the
decision that this was wrong and this was right, they never
did it. So once they get out of the home, anything they face
that is not on the list of things that were right and wrong, they've
become legalist in a sense, who only have their checklist of
right and wrong. And they're not armed with the
tools to make intelligent, mature, moral and ethical decisions.
And that's a tragedy. and then you have to try to build
into those people after the fact so coming all around full circle
because our time has gone to Jonathan's question I think there's
a general consensus that the statement to the effect that
we need to conquer the will of our children and not break the
spirit does indeed reflect Jonathan biblical concepts many biblical
concepts and hopefully we've given enough materials to illustrate
the difference between a mere conquering of the will or I mean
a proper conquering of the will without breaking of the spirit
and even in the conquering of the will the manner in which
that is done and the directing of the will varies with the development
of the child with the particular temperament of the child and
a host of other things that we don't deal with these things
in any kind of a wooden mechanical way and that's why you want to
be very very careful of books on child training and child discipline
that are primarily anecdotal and do not deal with the fundamental
biblical principles which must be worked out in a tailor-made
way in terms of all of these variables. Okay? Well, our time
is gone. Let's pray that God will give
to every parent grace and wisdom to know how, by the strength
of God, to conquer the wills of their children without breaking
their spirits. And surely this is enough to
keep many of us busy at the throne of grace on behalf of one another. Father, we're so thankful that
we have your word as a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway. And again this morning we stand
amazed that there is no question that we can raise with regard
to life and practice But what your word is indeed a lamp unto
our feet and a light to our pathway. And we who are parents are conscious
that there are times in our past when we have not been what we
ought to have been as parents. We have either been overly indulgent
or excessively harsh in our discipline. We have either gone too far in
explaining matters that needed no explanation or in failing
to give a rational and reasonable explanation for our judgment.
Oh Lord, forgive us of all of our parental sins. And then we
pray for grace, particularly for the many parents sitting
here this morning who are still in the process of molding their
children. Gracious God, give them wisdom. Oh, give them that wisdom that
you have promised to those who, conscious that they lack it,
seek it from you. Together we seek that wisdom
from you. And then, Lord, give us the moral
fortitude and the sheer emotional strength We think especially
of those with many little ones, how days seem to come and go
in which there's been nothing but one succession of challenge
to our wills as parents, and we grow weary in well-doing.
O Lord, give help to every such parent that they may not grow
weary in well-doing, knowing that in due season they shall
reap if they think not. Hear then our prayers and answer
us. For the sake of your dear son
we plead. Amen.