Our Children, a Living Sacrifice to the Lord — Derek Melton

Our Children as Living Sacrifices Before the Lord

Patak, would you get me a water, please? We're going to. We'll talk about something today that you may have never thought about before the reason that I say you may have never thought about it before because I never thought about it before and We're just a sometimes a bunch of not thought about it before kind of folks.

But we're going to talk about our children as being living sacrifices before the Lord that we present our children to before God. As living sacrifices. We're going to talk about parenting. He's like, oh no not parenting.

Oh, yeah parenting. Something's very something as those very something that's very burning and passionate in the heart of God. Raising up and training up a generation in the way that they should go that whenever they are old that they'll not depart from it.

I Believe that as Christian parents we have not only the responsibility. But the biblical and God-ordained mandate that we train our children up in godliness and truth and in righteousness. I don't believe it's a suggestion unto us.

I believe it's a divine mandate that we are to raise up our children to be like Jesus Christ. And you know and the young people that are in here, you may think well, I'm a kid I don't need to hear this.

Listen, you do need to hear it soon. You're going to be a parent. You also need to know what your parents are responsible for that your parents are responsible to present you before God as a blameless Sacrifice a blameless living sacrifice and that your parents will answer to God for you.

And it's a very serious subject. You know a time and again we teach and we instruct in this local assembly about parenting. We constantly are dealing with children to obey their parents and and to act.

The way that God would have them to act and it's not simply because we don't like children. We love children because we love children and we because we love the Lord. We have a flaming and a passionate desire for our children at Pryor Creek Community Church To be upright and to be a blameless children and they can be and they're going to be.

Because we all are going to obey the Lord because we love him. Amen. Lord help me to speak With a tongue of angels and Lord, let it be seasoned with love so that it may profit Lord help me Lord God and use this mouth of mine To inscribe the oracles of your of your word upon the hearts of your people.

Father, I'm not here to condemn Lord. I'm here to exhort and to teach and to equip Lord anoint me with such grace that I may be able to do this under your glory Lord that everything be done today be done under your glory Lord give us an ability to listen to hear with a teachable heart Lord God under your glory The Lord God that we will be soft clay that is moldable and pliable that we may be vessels that you can construct into the very stature and image of Christ Lord give us attentive ears and minds and Lord.

Let us not mentally drift lest the adversary steal away the good seeds of the gospel the Word of God and Letting that we might not be robbed of an inheritance that you've provided for us. The Lord delivers from the evil one this morning in Jesus name.

Amen in Romans chapter 12 in Verse 1 the Bible says I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a Living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable unto God. Which is your reasonable service?

And I think us That are assembled together in the name of Christ in this room have enough awareness of biblical Responsibility and biblical authority concerning parenting that we can understand that our children are underneath the canopy of our authority and Being that they're underneath the canopy of our authority.

There is a certain responsibility a biblical Responsibility upon our shoulders that cannot be ignored. The Bible tells us that we are to present our bodies To the Lord as living sacrifices that are holy and pleasing unto God.

But not only do we realize though that we present ourself before the Lord. There is a divine mandate and responsibility upon me as the head of the home also to present my children before the Lord as living sacrifices before God.

That should be spotless and without blemish. I'm going to take us to some scriptures in the Old Testament today. They talk about the stringent requirements of God in the in the presenting of the sacrifices before him and I know that our minds certainly began to drift into Phraseology that we've heard before this is what we are not under law.

We're under grace and as we were discussing this morning in our pastors meeting that grace requires more than law law requires Divine in divine retribution or divine discipline if you commit adultery on your wife.

Under grace if you just look at a woman. You're judged with that same strictness under grace there is more of a responsibility and more of a divine mandate than under law and Somehow in the last century that all has turned around in this sloppy easy grace of the Word of God forbids over in the epistle of Jude.

Turning the grace of God into lasciviousness or lawlessness in this generation. We see that under grace all things are permissible when that is not the case that is alive from the pit of hell. Beloved understanding that I must present myself before God as a sacrifice.

Knowing the stringent requirements of God in the sacrifices that are given unto him beloved. I must also understand that whenever I present all that is within the whole the whole paradigm of my Responsibility and authority that my children as well must be presented before God as a living sacrifice that is blameless now think sometimes we Train our children and we impart into our children and we discipline our children so that they may do well upon the earth.

But beloved as God's dear born children and God's called and elect. But we must train and nurture our children that God may be glorified not just so that they'll do well in society. First and foremost my job as a parent is to prepare my children for eternity and beloved it is in my hands.

It is it's in my hands as we will soon see. God requires our children as offerings and we we see that in the Old Testament. Everything is pointing towards the new. The Bible says everything that took place in the Old Testament is nothing other than an example for us that are living in this new birth that are living in the end times that are living in this covenant of hope this covenant of Grace and these things that took place are examples for us they're written in the Old Covenant as Examples to admonish and to instruct us to exhort and to encourage us and to teach us and There was a certain event.

Abraham, Isaac, and the Pattern of Sacrificial Obedience

We're all very aware of in Genesis chapter 22 to where God required That one of the great the great patriarch of the faith to present his son as a sacrifice and we all know the story of Abraham and Isaac and Isaac is the the very promised of God and We know that Abraham loved Isaac in a way that that is Unparalleled really with earthly love and it cannot really even be compared to earthly love.

He loved him with a divine love. Abraham sought and believed God for a hundred years for that child. Oh almost that long. But Abraham was a hundred years old when the promise came to fruition. He loved Isaac with Not only a natural love, but he was the very fruit of the promise of Almighty God.

And we see here as a portrait and a picture of things to come God requiring His child as a sacrifice. Think what does that got to do with us? It has everything to do with us because God still is requiring Sacrifices and our children to be that very sacrifice now above it we're not going to go and raise a Knife and put them on a on a wooden altar as I did in the Old Covenant.

But God has called us as we see here in this first verse of the of the twelfth chapter of Romans. They're living Sacrifices that are holy pleasing to God holy or set apart our children to be set apart for the glory of God.

Every child that you have Underneath your authority every child that you have in your dominion is set apart for the glory of God and as God's as God's man as God's woman that is our responsibility our divine mandate to bring them up in the nurture and the Admonition of the Lord that our children may be that living sacrifice that glorifies and pleases God.

You know, the chief end of my parental duties is not that my children may do well up on the earth. But then my children might glorify and please and honor Almighty God. Turn with me to Genesis 22 right quick.

We'll just read over that if you don't mind. In Genesis chapter 22, we start in verse 1. It says and it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham. And if you think well pastor Derek I read in the Bible that God doesn't test tempt anyone.

No God put him to the test. And God will put us to the test. Love it. We'll see what our faith is made up of whenever it does happen. Amen. And he said unto him Abraham and he said behold here am I and he said take now thy son thy only son Isaac Whom thou lovest and get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him there For a burnt offering up on one of the mountains, which I will tell of thee.

And so we see here probably something that shook Abraham to the very core of his faith. The one thing that he believed God for for all of these years God now is going to require of him. You know when we think about this and we know the story so well.

We know that Abraham had gone to the mount we see that Abraham had taken Isaac his beloved son his only son and Laid him up on that sacrificial altar and that he was raising the sword or the blade to come down and to Spill the blood of his only son as an offering in an act of divine obedience to God and God stays his hand he looks into the bush and in the bush is a ram with his horns caught and God says take the ram and we know that ram is a type of Jesus Christ the blood of another being substituted for the sins of our lives.

But that also there is a picture here that we need not ignore friend that we need to pay strict attention to because it is a Shadow for us and the new covenant and the new birth that God required Abraham to yield up his only son Isaac as a Sacrifice and we see that his blood was not required, but he was offered as a living sacrifice.

This soul correlates to Romans chapter 12 verse 1 about us giving ourselves to God as living Sacrifices and I believe it is an excellent example as parents the parental Responsibility that we have to raise and to instruct and to discipline and to teach our children that our children might be acceptable Sacrifices before God that is pleasing in the eyes of God and beloved our children's blood is required at our hands.

Holiness, Blemish, and the Responsibility of Parents

Leviticus chapter 21. Capture this moment in time when your pastor brings you to Leviticus. Leviticus chapter 21. How many I want to be a good parent? We have the examples and everything that we need in the Word of God.

The Word of God has all that we need everything that pertains to life and the godliness. Every answer concerning parenting is in the Bible. We just need to dig it out and to apply it. Leviticus chapter 21 verse 17.

Speaking to Aaron saying whosoever he be of thy seed in their generation that hath any blemish. Let him not approach to offer the bread of God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish he shall not approach a blind man a lame or he that hath a flat nose or Wow or anything superfluous or a man that is broken-footed broken-handed a crookbacked a dwarf.

Or that hath a blemish in his eye or be scurvy or scabbed or hath his his stones broken. No, man, that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh or Offer to the offerings of the Lord made by fire.

He hath a blemish. He shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God. You're like wow. Like man, that's pretty strict man, man. What if your kids born with a flat nose? You won't be coming bringing the offerings before the Lord.

You know what? I think you know, it's hard for us to grasp the depths of the holiness of God until we start reading these stringent requirements in the offering of Sacrifices before God you think well, how could anyone live up to this?

And beloved I want you to think about something. This points to something else. Loving the whole sacrificial system of things dying has done away with the sacrificial system of living things has not the Bible Instruction teaches us that we're to present our children before the Lord as spotless blemishless children before the Almighty and beloved listen our children are underneath our authority and the Responsibility and the answer that's given unto God will be required at our hands.

And this needs to awaken every parent and every prospective parent and even our young people to see the requirement of Parenthood and the seriousness of it and how God is serious about this to say that God has required us.

To bring our children, but not just any kind of offering is acceptable acceptable to God and that's why he's so emphatically through the scriptures Imparts and teaches and demands that we raise our children that we give them sound discipline sound instruction.

Sound teaching that they might be accepted by God. Listen, not only will be our children that are cast out but us along with them, you know, you may be thinking know this. Your children have already raised.

And you'll go back over the time when so many mistakes were made and you may say God what do I do? You know what we turn to him for mercy in this time beloved we're talking about the now. Well, we can't go back and change anything that happened in the past.

Can we? Beloved we just cry out for the mercy of God. We cry out for the mercy and the intervention of God. God's more than able to raise up these stones. God's more than able to be to call these these These bones on the life and to breathe upon them and then to rise up and exceedingly army.

God is able. God is more than able the beloved this time of instruction is for us in this now time. That God is doing a work in our hearts in our lives to impart the very truth of the strictness of the requirements that God requires of us as parents to impart and to teach and to train and the discipline our children because our Children are going to be offerings before the Lord living offerings before the Lord and this is a very serious matter.

It's not something that should be soft off. It's not something that should be ignored. Listen I'm not I've not got anyone in mind here, but this applies to me. It applies to me. This words going out to us as the body of Christ.

I Have tremendous concern for me. I have Tremendous concern for my life and my children. I have a burning desire to present my children before God that God these are my children that by your grace and by yours.

But by your provision that I've raised up to honor and to fear you and that within the very spirit of my two children and The third one that the Lord blessed us with for a season. That there will be a reverence for God.

That there will be a love for God that there will be an unbroken commitment a faithful union that I can present my children before the Lord as living sacrifices that that can that are a Sweet incense before God because they are wholly given to the Lord Jesus Christ and their life is not their own and they're very well Aware of that and they're living not for themselves, but for the one that has given his life for them.

Children as the Lord’s Heritage

Our offerings must be without blemish Psalms 127 and I know at times Just the repetitive correction the repetitive correction the repetitive correction. It sometimes can be exhausting but beloved you must remember That we are constantly working preparing the sacrifice.

We're constantly working that the sacrifice might be done might be Preserved that the sacrifice might be presented to God in the way that God requires of us and on those adolescent years the constant training the constant impartation the constant discipline the constant constant constant oversight.

It can become so taxing it could become very wearisome. But beloved we must remember that we are working to prepare a living sacrifice Before God and it's a very serious matter that God will come requiring of us as parents.

It's all 127 verse 3. The Bible says Low children are a heritage of the Lord and The fruit of the womb is his reward. And now I somewhat Baffled the children are Inheritance of the Lord of the heritage.

Now looked up in the Hebrew word and I can't pronounce it very well. So I won't pronounce it at all. But it means something to be inherited or something that you possess through inheritance. The Bible says in 1st Samuel chapter 1 verse 27 and 8 and we see This wonderful woman of God that sought the Lord in her barrenness for a child and we see that Hannah gave birth to the Prophet Samuel and she used the word that he had been lent.

And that simply means to borrow. If you look that up in the Hebrew word It means to borrow and I wrote something else down here. Oh, yeah borrowed on request. Borrowed on request is what that means and it's Intent and Beloved it's imperative that we recognize that these children the Lord has entrusted into you care.

They are the heritage of the Lord. They belong unto the Lord and they are yours in your hands. But they're just simply being lent to you and we must be faithful stewards over what God has entrusted into our care that we will impart that we will teach that we will Discipline that we will nurture that will bring up and train and impart our children our children might become a pleasing incense to Almighty God a living sacrifice without any wrinkle or defilement that our children will be acceptable in the eyes of Almighty God.

Teachability, Correction, and the Danger of Permissive Parenting

I Sometimes question how teachable we are as people. I don't make mention of something, but I don't want you to get angry with me but For years and years and years my wife and I have taught and taught and taught upon biblical parenting.

There's always a few That seems that it never sinks in. Because there's never any adjustment made to the parenting techniques. The children are completely out of control and unruly even in the house of Almighty God, there's such an irreverence and such a parental permissiveness about it.

Such children out of out of order being Undisciplined and we warn and we teach from the Bible what God says. And the very same people that lift their hands up and shout the praises of God. Their children are headed towards hell and they're not even aware of it.

And I wonder how teachable we are when we come and we listen to the divine precepts of God. About parenting and teaching and child raising and the importance and the eternality of it and how we take it was such a passive reception and I read a passage in Proverbs chapter 14 verse 6 in the Amplified Bible and it says a a Scoffer seeks wisdom in vain for his very attitude blinds and deafens him to it.

But knowledge is easy to him who being teachable understands a scoffer seeks wisdom. But it's in vain. This is what a scoffer does. Listen to me friend a scoffer will hear the good sound exhortation on the Word of God.

And it but it won't modify his lifestyle. It won't modify the actions. We might assent that the word is good, but it's not good enough to change the practices that we now embrace and you may not see yourself as a scoffer that a scoffing a Scoffer seeks wisdom yeah, we want to hear it, but it's all in vain because we deny the practicality of it or We come up with a gospel according to me or a gospel according to need but you don't understand my children.

Beloved they're all cut out of the same stamp rebellious and wicked. I Know they're cute and cuddly and coolie in the first couple years, but they turn sour after that. The Bible says very clearly that foolishness and that word foolish there correctly Revealed to us is wickedness is Bound in the heart of a child.

The Bible says a scoffer seeks wisdom in vain for his very attitude. Sometimes what we do we make excuses we begin to defend ourselves. We begin to defend our children even when they're wrong. I know parents that have their children their 20s and 30s that are living in sin that are bound by narcotics bound by drugs.

They're abusive. They're devilish. They're they're filled with every demonic spirit and their parents are still to the very day defending their actions. With ice cream man back when they were seven years old.

Wouldn't sell them an ice all they had was a nickel and the ice cream had gone up to six cents and they denied them an Ice cream and ever since then he's just been this way and it's not his fault. You know, I'd say that parents not his fault.

It's your fault for permitting it and that movie a few good men as Nicholson so eloquently stated it you can't handle the truth. You know what we've done. We've turned God into a big old sweet marshmallow.

That doesn't come requiring that has no strict ordinances that has no statute. That must be obeyed. We see God's love is something that constantly waivers depending on our mood depending on what we want at the moment.

Beloved there is a word that comes underneath the banner of love and it's called discipline. Whoever the Lord loves he chastens. He disciplines and without discipline. There is no love. Isn't it amazing that whenever children are obedient and orderly how pleasing and sweet that is?

And whenever they're irreverent and vile. And completely out of control how distasteful that is why because God put his law upon our hearts and it is wrong in the eyes of Almighty God for children to be out underneath that on out from underneath that umbrella of obedience.

Into lawlessness and rebellion and it leads to a totality of a lifestyle that ends in the very depths of hell. And Christian people just ignore it. Knowledge is easy to those who are teachable. Knowledge are easy to those that are teachable and beloved.

A question is are we a teachable people or. Are we obstinate or as our hearts become hardened as granite to where we hear the word we assent to the Word of God but the but the whether it be the the blindness or the or the laziness whatever it is the unwillingness on our part to change to where we might bring our children to a place of obedience that God might be glorified and that their souls might be saved and rescued from hell.

Love we got the Word of God shake us. We've got the Word of God form us and instruct us. I made mention while ago that they're all born broken. Proverbs chapter 22 verse 15 says this foolishness is Bound in the heart of a child.

Go ahead and turn over with me to Proverbs. You say pastor already know that scripture. Do you really I? Remember a citation from the Lord. The people that says Lord, we know you and Lord says depart from you.

I don't know you there's a difference between knowing and knowing. Blood we didn't know in the way that where we're changing so much to where there is a an absolute turning away from. Everything that is unbiblical in our parenting to everything that God requires of us as parents and that we do so hastily.

Oh pastor, we got to implement a little by little. Remember that part about being teachable. Listen to me if you're riding your horse towards the edge of the Grand Canyon at 3 in the morning. Do you want?

Someone to step out incrementally and tell you that the Cairn Canyon is awaiting you with it with a 5 ,000 foot drop-off. Or do you want them to stop you abruptly? Let's just veer the horse off at about 7 degrees.

Yeah, 7 degrees and the 30 ,000 feet down and you better hope your horse has wings or a parachute. Proverbs 22 15. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction Shall drive it Far from him.

I was reading about one of the Puritans making comment on this passage and he says Foolishness is not only found within their heart, but it's bound within their heart interwoven into the very the very corruption of their nature foolishness sinfulness inward corruption.

This commentator said it's a lovers not. Y 'all know what a lovers not has anybody ever fall in love before. That's ushi-gushi good. Isn't it a lovers not where you just can't be away from one another.

With all of your drive and all that you have and all that you are you want to be with the other? Come on, y 'all know what it's like to be in love. I hope you still are. But it's a lovers not in a child's life tied between the soul and sin.

The soul in the sin become one flesh and then the Puritan commentator said this and our parents listen to me. This is so imperative that we grab hold of this. It will not be got out. This love union between sin and soul will not be broken.

This bound corruption will not be got out by fair and gentle methods. He says there must be strictness and there must be severity and it must cause grief. The Word of God says and in the in the 12th chapter of Hebrews if you want to turn there about correction and discipline.

Hebrews. Who brews? All right. So all you husbands will be brewing the coffee for your wives in the morning. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 9. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence.

We gave them reverence. But is there not a mandate on the on the behalf of God towards the children of God that we that we give what that We give discipline correction to our children that they might be reverent.

They might be respectful. That they might learn. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits and live. For they verily after a few days Chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness.

No chastening for the present seems to be joyous. Mom and dad look at me. If your children are delighting in your discipline We need to have a talk with you. There's something about the old Puritan that made sense that struck a Bell of harmonic rhythm within me that discipline must be severe.

That this yoke that children have with sin. With wickedness this love between the soul and and the evil. He's not going to respond to a nonchalant passivity and in correction. Your Lou and I are living in a generation that's being taught to be liberal left-wing that we're all to be to be quasi tree huggers and.

That you can't you cannot correct the child in an aggressive way and be loving beloved. That is new age that is that is rubbish. That is refuse. The Word of God says that we are to discipline them with severity.

So Oh pastor, you don't know you don't I don't want my child taken away by DHS. I've never seen in 25 years of law enforcement DHS take away a child from a parent because a parent discipline their child with severity.

The Bible nowhere forbids beatings. You know, well pastor I read my Bible says this if you beat your child. They won't die if you go and look that up and and it's correct form. It doesn't mean beat like you think beat the blood if you're not getting their attention.

You're wasting your time. And I know sometimes culturally that we've not grown up in the home with biblical parenting and Sometimes we base the way that we train our children upon the way that we were trained as children.

But as listen to me friend, but as believers in Jesus Christ, aren't we to abandon our culture and to follow Christ? Aren't we called to abandon those practices and follow Christ. And I was blessed to grow up in a home to where we had a very stringent discipline.

And I thank God for that now. I was begging God about it years ago that it may cease. Oh God make you stop. You know, it produced a reverence in me. And I remember my mom and dad we were little children were four of us.

And it didn't matter if there were four two or forty four Of us we would have acted properly. Because there were strict rules and if they were violated there were there were dire consequences to follow.

And my parents thank God loved me so much that they held me To accountability and to a standard of obedience that my parents could have taken us for children into the president's home and We would have been respectful.

We would have sat there on the floor with our little hands in our lap our little legs crossed and we wouldn't have spoke a word. Unless we were spoken to unless our parents gave us permission to do something else.

I Remember as children and my mom my dad will remember this. I remember as children Them taking us to places and that we would get comments constantly on how well-behaved we were. Is that right? Constantly.

But if I'm not mistaken, I don't think that there was any other choice for us. It was fill-in-the-blank and not multiple choice. But love it. That's godly parenting. It's godly parenting. Beloved and when our children are out of line We have a divine mandate through through a strict and severe discipline to bring them into obedience.

I see kids that are wearing their mommy's and daddy's out. But the severity needs a step up. The severity of the child's action is overriding the severity of the parents response and beloved. It needs to turn right set up.

You are the parent get them under control. Don't let them wear you up you wear them out. You've got the anointing of the Holy Spirit for it. DHS is not going to take your kids away. Mike and Brandy called me.

Can I tell the story, please? You still love me. I'm telling us in a good light. Okay Brandy called me on the phone freaking out because Michelle has kind of progressed from the cooey cooey gooey gooey into that Proverbs Child with folly bound in her little heart.

And she was raising Holy Hades at home causing a grief for her mommy and her daddy. And that happens. There's nothing wrong with that child other than she just normally a normal child born in sin. And Brandy's is what do we do?

You know timeouts don't work because that's not biblical. It's more of a bot. It's more of a paddle out. And so. That's right. And so Brandy called and said, you know, what's the godly thing? What's the Bible say that we should we should do?

That's a brandy. You need you need to get a paddle and spank her. And she was worried about the DHS thing and I gave her some instruction the same instruction. I've given to many of you. And she's like, I'm afraid Michael beat her death.

And I talked to Mike and they didn't call back so I got a little curious. So I called back. I said who won. Brandy said we won. There was no screaming in the background when she called me. I mean, I Mean it was it was war.

It was war and I knew that these two young parents Were at their breaking point. They had had it the timeouts weren't working, you know. Listen to me a timeout will not fix. The the the binding of foolishness or wickedness in the heart of a child.

The other said they're in timeout whenever you let him up then it's back to the same old wickedness. The Bible says the rod of correction will drive that from a heart of a child. That's what God says.

So it doesn't work for us. Are you saying God's a liar? The problem is with you not with God. The problem is with me and not with God. When God says the power of sin is broken in my life. The problem is not with God if I'm still struggling with sin.

It's with me. We got to quit blaming God for our misconduct. And for our inappropriate Inappropriation of his word. She was she was a new child. She was pleasant. She did in fact that the punishment was severe.

Brandy was a little concerned. It was too severe. She but was still red. Well, I can tell you I remember from the public schools that two weeks later. My butt was still purple and green. Amen. Proverbs 23, please.

Church are you teachable? Church are you teachable? You know, I must give some practical advice. You can make Discipline severe. You can make a paddling in the Bible or Danes the use of corporal punishment.

The Bible says use a rod a rod and you strike. That's why God put that back there. You put it back there because that's where you put the paddle. And it must hurt. And I've gone out on many many cases of child abuse as I was a child crimes Investigator for years and years and years not one time have I ever seen DHS take children into custody because they got a spanking.

I've seen children taken into custody for sexual abuse physical abuse bloody noses and broken lips and that's not appropriate. The rod not the hand. Let's tell me parents never ever strike a child with your hand.

These are for love. The instrument is for discipline. The child will associate the aggression with the instrument. If you use your hand, they'll associate it with you. Use a use a rod and there must be severity.

If you look in your bulletin You'll see something. I think that is just so powerful. In fact, I'll just read it to you right quick. I've got a bulletin right here. It says God calls his children to be obedient and respectful.

Obedience is the act honor is the attitude and both must come into compliance. The act and the attitude. A Lot of parents fail in that they stop at the act. The act comes from the attitude. There must be a change in the attitude.