The Children's Role in the Family & Final Words to Spouses (12/03/2023)

Thank you, brother Paul, for taking my place there. I was going to lead music, but I appreciate you coming on up.

Good to see everyone this morning. And let's see,

Yannick, correct? My son Ben introduced me to you, but you didn't know it because I wasn't here when you guys visited.

So Charlotte and I were on our vacation, I believe. But good to have you back. And I understand you know

Dr. Stan, right? OK, super. Well, we'll get to know each other after church.

We hope you can stay for lunch. We have lunch every Sunday here. We have plenty for visitors.

So hopefully you can stay. And good to see all of our home folks today. Great Sunday school, brother

Dave. And good singing group without our leader. Our leader, brother

Matt, was gone today. And I appreciate you guys carrying on doing such a great job.

And we're going to pick right up where we left off here because I think this may be the completion of this study today on marriage and family.

And I'm pretty sure I've selected which book I want to go to. We finished the

Book of Romans, and I hadn't quite gotten a piece about which book. So we had several of you suggested that I do a topical study on marriage and family and child rearing for a little while.

So that's what we've been doing. We should finish that today, hopefully. So let's have a word of prayer. I'll do a little bit of review, and then we'll pick up right there.

Lord, thank you so much for your word. And where would we be in this day and time without it?

And yet you promised we would have it to the last generation, preserved, perfect. And we thank you for that.

Lord, bless each of us today. You have the right group here today. You're in complete control of all these things.

And we just ask that your Holy Spirit would have control of the service, would be our great teacher, and enlighten us and teach us as we go through his word, your word.

And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. I sort of believe the Holy Spirit.

I know God is the author of the Bible. The humans were just the penman. But I specifically think that the

Holy Spirit, that part of the Godhead, that person of the Godhead, is really responsible for the written word that we have and certainly for protecting it and preserving it.

And wow, where would we be, right? All right, well, let's review just a little bit.

We had talked about the role of the Father in the home on Father's Day.

And then we came back. We just talked about some general principles in the New Testament, especially

Ephesians 5 and other places where it shows us how to treat one another in church.

And we made application of that in the home because if it's important in church, it's 10 times more important in the home.

So we went through that material. And then we talked about the role of the wife and mom in the home.

And that's kind of where we finished up last Sunday. And we pretty much finished that.

So what I'm really going to cover today is the role of the children in the home. But let me just review a little bit on the role of the woman.

If you remember, we talked a lot in Ephesians 5. And we were really dealing with these types of passages in there or verses,

I should say, where it says that the woman is to submit to the husband. We have verses that say she's to obey the husband.

We have verses that say she's supposed to honor and esteem the husband, things like that.

And we were talking about those verses. But then we went and looked at the context that they're all found in.

And it kind of opens our eyes because all of a sudden, when we started looking at the context of those verses, the message really became pointed toward the men.

And the reason is because the very first verse we see before the woman is instructed to submit to the authority of the husband, which of course is the authority structure that God set up after the fall.

And because of the fall. And because we need that because of sin. And yet the verse right before all of these other verses is

Ephesians 5, 21, it says, submit yourselves one to another. And I joked about that because every time

I've ever done counseling with families, when the man talks, he never quotes that verse. Okay, but that's verse 21.

And secondly, we talked about in the context, we saw this idea that both spouses need to be born again

Christians, but also spirit filled more moments of every day if we're gonna have a strong marriage.

So that's part of the context too. And then we saw this little cool little thing called an adverbial comparative conjunction.

And it's the word as. So all through this context, it'll tell the woman, you've got to submit to the husband and then it'll say as, and then it'll show you how that works.

And that's what people miss. People just totally miss the context. And I'm not gonna preach through that again, obviously this morning, because we finished it.

But the first one was in verse 23. And it simply says, as Christ is the head of the church and gave himself for her.

So yes, the woman is to submit to the husband, but that's when he's living a life like Christ did and how he loved the church and actually gave himself for the church.

So the husband's life should be for the wife and he should be willing to die for the wife.

And that has to be in context before any of the submission part happens. And then the next one, there were about three of these where the word as was really important.

The second one would be found in verse 25, says, husbands love your wives, even exceedingly as, and I've put that in myself because in the

Greek, there's three different words for as, and they get stronger as we go through the context.

This one was exceedingly as. So love your wives exceedingly as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.

That's verse 25. And so that has to be going on in the context. And then the third thing was that Christ cleanses the church with his word.

And that's in verse 27 and following. So we talked about how important the husband's words are in the marriage.

The wife responds to the words of the husband like the church responds to the word of God. And so if the husband doesn't understand that and Dave, your lesson was great, just more than part of your lesson, just a small part of the lesson, but an important part was to guard the tongue and think about what we're gonna say before we say it.

And yeah, we think that's important in politics. It's important in business, important in church.

And you know what? We totally forget about it in the home because we're so familiar with each other. And yet we never forget what the spouse says to us ever.

We don't forget it. So once you say it, it's a done deal. They're gonna remember it. So we ought to guard the tongue in our marriage as well and be really careful what we say and how we say things.

And so we talked about all that. So I like that material. I don't know. Maybe we should write a booklet or a book on that someday.

All I need to do is live to be 105 and I'll get these books done that I wanna write. But anyway, we finished that.

So now today, let's start this. What is the role of the children in the home? And children, I hope you're paying really good attention because this is for you.

All right. So first verse I'm gonna give you is actually in Exodus.

So you might wanna turn to Exodus 20, verse 12. And we're talking about the 10 commandments here.

So really important, right? Really important.

Okay. And I'm gonna give you the two places we see the 10 commandments. Exodus 20, 12 in the same verse in Deuteronomy 5, 16.

Of course, the first mention is in Exodus 20, 12. And this is part of the 10 commandments.

Like thou shall not kill. Thou shall not steal those. Okay. And here it is, kids.

The most important. This is the most important verse for children. Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the

Lord thy God giveth thee. All right. Now, first of all, that was spoken by God to the

Jews, right? The Hebrews. And yet he put them in the world and chose them to be the witness of him to the world.

So it's for all of us. But it's interesting when it talked about the land in that exact verse, what land are we talking about?

What's the context? What land is it? Promised land. So if we go over on the other side of the

Bible to the New Testament, especially if we go past the day of Pentecost, where we're in the church age, then the

Bible teaches us in two different verses that all the things that were written in the Old Testament were written as in samples for those of us who live in the last days.

That's us. In sample is a stronger word than example. It literally means if you had a die with an insignia on it and put it on a piece of leather and you hit it with a hammer, it puts that and prints it on the leather.

It imprints it on us. So when you want to understand the New Testament doctrines, concepts, teachings, if you can go to the

Old Testament, God is going to show you object lessons in the life of human being, people that he talks about in the

Old Testament. And as you study their life, you're going to see pictures of that New Testament principle in samples of it that makes you see more colors and depth of meaning in all of the doctrines of the

New Testament. So we could not properly understand the New Testament if we didn't have the Old Testament. And a lot of people don't know that.

Oh, we're a New Testament church. Why are we preaching so much in the Old Testament? Well, because we want to understand the New Testament.

That's why. So when you look at Exodus, what is the end sample that's taught there?

Because I've got to ask you this question, and many, many Christians across this country in particular would miss the answer.

And hopefully you guys won't. And that is, are we under the

Ten Commandments today? Do you have to keep the

Ten Commandments to be saved today? Let me make it easier for you. Oh, you changed.

No, because I phrased it better, didn't I? It was almost a trick question. It actually was a trick question the first time.

Okay, so you're not really under the Ten Commandments, are we? Because if we were, we'd be worshiping yesterday.

Because what day is the Sabbath? It's Saturday. But we didn't. Why didn't we?

Because we're not under the Ten Commandments. It was given to the Hebrew nation. All right.

So now Jesus kept the law and propitiated

God when he died on the cross for our sins. And we're saved by grace. So we're in the age of grace.

We're not under the Ten Commandments. But let me ask you this. Would there be a secondary application to any of those

Ten Commandments for us? How many of you think maybe one or two of them would apply? Okay.

How many of you think it hurt our nation when they took the Ten Commandments off the walls of the public classrooms, right?

Because the secondary application to us is that we should not be killing people.

You look at all of those. And even the concept behind the

Sabbath is still valid. That if you work, I know this. If you work a horse on a ranch seven days a week, he'll be sorry after about three months.

But if you give him a day of rest, he'll be fine. One day of rest. And it's certainly true for humans.

How many people do we have now working from home and they work all seven days a week? Because they can.

And they're not going to church anymore. Seven days a week. How long do you think they'll last before they burn out and end up in the hospital?

Not long. Because the secondary application to that is that even though we don't worship on Saturday, we need to take one day a week and not work.

And Sunday is a great choice for that. The Lord's Day. The Resurrection Day is a great choice. So we see they do apply.

Now, when you talk about this one, children, I'm sorry, where it says to honor thy mother and thy father.

So let's go back to the idea of it being an example or a picture. What do you think it pictures when we talk about the promised land for us today?

If you're going to teach this to your children, say, you know, and by the way, this commandment

I began teaching my five children when they were like one day old. I think

I quoted it when they were in your tummy still, maybe, and taught it all the way up a lot, mentioned it many times every year, all the way till they went off to college if they chose to go to college.

And it is the most important thing, parents, that you can teach your children in the whole Bible. Now, I know you're going to teach them the gospel, so I'll say it's the second most important thing.

But really, if you don't get this one right, they're not going to listen to you when you tell them the gospel anyway, because they're going to be running your house.

If they don't learn the importance of honoring you, they're not going to listen to you or respect you or listen to anything you say anyway.

So maybe it is the most important. And you teach them, OK, if you don't honor mommy and daddy, then you have to teach them what honor means.

And I like to broaden the definition of that. It means obey.

Do we know what that means? And then you talk that through. OK, it means to not be rebellious.

And then we talk that through about what that means. It means not to lie to mommy and daddy. We'll talk that through.

What does that mean? You know, which ones, if you're going to get a spanking in our home, is it going to be because you accidentally knock the milk over?

Well, hopefully not, unless it hits daddy's lap. But no, it's not going to be for that.

It's going to be when you willfully rebel against mom or dad or when you lie about if I say, did you knock that milk over and say, no,

I didn't do it. Then you're going to get a spanking because you lied. Right. And you teach them these things that all of this is encompassed in honoring mom and dad.

And then you teach them the object lesson that it may go, well, let's just read it exactly because I didn't read the other one.

Let me let me read it. I'm going to read it out of Deuteronomy. It broadens it a little bit.

Deuteronomy 516, the Lord brings it to us twice. And the second time he brings it to us, you know how the great principle is to let the

Bible interpret the Bible. So here we see the Deuteronomy interpreting the Exodus for us and helping with it.

It says, honor thy father and thy mother as the

Lord thy God has commanded you. When did he command that? In Exodus chapter 20, verse 12.

OK, that the day that thy days may be prolonged.

And that it may go well with thee in the land which the Lord thy God have given thee.

Now it's got some commas in there in the English that are not there in the Hebrew, but it does help with the

English. But remember, that's the translator telling you where you think where he thinks the commas should be.

So sometimes it's better for you to let the Holy Spirit tell you where to put the commas when you're studying. Say, Lord, how do

I interpret this verse? Because the commas make a difference on how you interpret it.

I used to think it meant, and the good thing is I may have been wrong, but it's what

I taught my kids and it worked because I said what that means is kids, if you don't obey me and mom, you're not going to live long.

Really worked well. So, Katie, I'm going to use you with your permission. I don't know why

I pick on her, but there was a young man, she was thinking about Dayton Wright when she first went to college and I didn't like him because he had an earring.

Now, do you want me to preach on that? Then you'll call me a legalist, right? So I'm not going to preach on the earring thing that the young man should not have had.

I'm not going to preach on that. But anyway, so I didn't like him just because for several reasons.

So now she's in college by now and we have this talk on the phone and I reminded her of guess which verse?

Two verses. Let's see, Exodus chapter 20, verse 12 in Deuteronomy 5, 16.

I said, if you do, because I'm not there, but if you talk to him on the phone,

I don't even know if we had smartphones yet at that point, but if you date him, if you do anything, you cannot do that and be honoring your mother and father.

What did that say to that college young person? I'm going to die if I'm going to God might kill me, right?

Because I had implanted that in all five of my children from the time that they could talk again and again and again.

It's probably the greatest child rearing advice I can give to any parent in the room because this is the real deal.

OK, because when God says something, he means it. All right. So when God says, honor your father and your mother as the

Lord thy God has commanded you to do so, it's not mom and dad telling you to obey me.

It's God telling you to obey mom and dad. And then it says, why should you do this so that your days may be prolonged?

And if you put the comma there, it kind of sounds like I got it right when I was young and I said, you're going to die young if you don't.

But if you could interpret it this way, that your days may be prolonged and it would go well with you when you get to the land.

So it may not be talking about your life being prolonged in general, but that you will live a long life in the promised land.

And that's how I interpret it now. It's not that different because it still has to deal with living a long life, but also in the promised land.

So now I got to ask you, what is the picture, the end sample of the promised land for the Christian on this side of the cross?

What does it represent? What does it picture for us? Most people would think that, but it does not picture heaven.

It's picturing something on this earth, not Star Trek.

No, no, not at all. It's not live long and prosper. What else? Say it again.

Yeah. How do I say it, mom? I've said it all my life. There's a word, an adjective

I put in that. Victorious Christian living. Thank you, though, because I was getting it wrong.

It's victorious Christian living. So now you think about the Israelis out there in the desert because they disobeyed

God, right? That's one way you could live. Or you could cross the river into the promised land because you obeyed him and you're walking with him.

You could be like Joshua, you know, or you could be like the ones who died in the wilderness, which you want to pick.

So it is a picture of crossing the Jordan River, going into the land and living prosperously in obedience to God.

That's what it pictures. So for children to obey their parents,

God says to do it. So that's the first reason you do it. But secondly, he says, OK, I'm going to give you some more information.

If you don't do it, you won't live long and it won't go well for you while you're trying to live your life on Earth as a

Christian. That is very now how you lay that out for a child. You've got to pray about that, how to say that the right way for a child to understand it.

But and if Otis were up here, he'd do it right now where the kid he could he could teach adults and kids at the same time, which he told me he was one of my mentors, by the way.

He used to sit right over there. He said, Brother David, if you can't teach a class where the kids would understand it, you're not a good teacher.

So I'm not, but I'm not a good teacher. I'm better with adults. But but you can do that.

You can translate that to your kids right now. So that's the first lesson. Everything where, listen, there are even things in your life they're going to come to you someday and you're going to say,

Dad doesn't want you to do that. They're going to say, well, show me in the Bible when they get to a certain age. They're going to they're going to do that.

They show me in the Bible where it says I can't do that. And you know where I take them. I say, hold on, I'll show you.

Let me flip over here. Honey, get your Bible and go to Exodus 2012.

It says, honor thy father and a mother that days may be long upon the land which the

Lord gives you. And Dad doesn't want you to do that. So if you do it, you're not honoring me.

You're going to die. Works every time. All right.

So I think that's the best lesson. Now, here's the next one. Let's turn to the New Testament, to Ephesians chapter six, verse one.

Oh, sorry, baby. Well, the end of the story is sitting next to her.

The end of the story is sitting next to Katie, because I asked her not to date this certain person, and she obeyed me.

She obeyed me. And how long was it after that that y 'all started dating? Later that same year.

Isn't that cool? So good biblical child rearing is so important, and it really works.

Ephesians six, one. And so therefore, Dave Huber Sr., he's my son too now.

Because Katie made a really good choice. But you got the daughter and the grandkids and all my other grandkids that don't come from Katie and Dave too.

So I know. Well, you know, we were talking this morning. Dave was preaching about, no, it was me and Charlotte in the car talking about bitterness and forgiving and all that.

I've never had any bitterness toward you because you're a great grandfather. I just try to learn from you, seriously.

Charlotte will tell you that. We love your influence on all these kids. It's unbelievable. And you do get the prize for best grandpa in the world.

You are the winner of that. I am a close second, and I'm still chasing you.

So don't stop. Don't stop. OK. All right. Ephesians six, one.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Now, honor thy mother and father, which is the first commandment with the promise.

Now, I always felt that that was a bit humorous. Jesus has a sense of humor. I don't think he means it to be funny, but it's funny how it's written, because here he quotes the

Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul writes this in the New Testament. Children, obey your parents in the

Lord, for this is right. So that's very biblical Christian doctrine to be in Christ, right?

That means when you're old enough, well, you may, who knows? It's not a particular age.

It's just whenever you get to the point where you feel Jesus tugging at your heart and saying,

I want you to be mine. I want you to be mine. I want you to walk with me. Children, when you feel

Jesus on your innermost heart, in your mind, in your heart, tugging on you and saying,

I want you to follow me and be a Christian, then right there, that's when you just say, okay, that's what I want to do.

And we call that being born again, being saved. And the Holy Spirit actually changes you and makes you different.

It makes you a new person, even if you're free, even if you're four years old, five or six, whatever.

So that's what it means to be in the Lord, right? So saved. All right. Secondly, obey your parents.

You're walking in the Lord, obey your parents because you're walking in the Lord for this is right if you're walking in the

Lord, that you be obedient to your parents and you honor them. But then it quotes the Old Testament, honor thy mother and father, which is the first commandment with a promise.

And it doesn't tell you the promise right there anyway. And so what do you think the promise is?

You won't die so early. You won't die so young.

Yeah, I think that's it. But I think it's interesting that you tend to pull that out and stop there.

We tend to not take things in context. But really, if you look at Ephesians chapter six, verse three, guess what it says?

That it may go well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth. Now, I want you to think about this.

We have this principle and I call them the ten rules of correct Bible interpretation.

Which one do you think that one exhibits? Verse three. I mentioned it once already.

That's a hint today. Let the Bible interpret the Bible. Let the scripture interpret the scripture is one of the rules.

It's a marvelous rule because the Bible will help you interpret the Bible. So if you were looking at the

Exodus passage and the Deuteronomy passage, and the Deuteronomy sheds more light on the

Exodus. And it says a little bit extra about, you know, prospering, living long and prospering in the land.

And you say, OK, how do I interpret that? Is it really saying they might die young? Or is it just saying that, you know, they will live well in the promised land, have a victorious

Christian life while they are living? And you say, well, I'm not sure. So then you come to the New Testament, which the

Holy Spirit writes even later. And so now he's still going to be able to use scripture in the

New Testament to help you interpret other scriptures in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Look what it says.

That it may go well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth. Now it's very clear.

Maybe I got it better, stronger when I was a young man, right? Stronger as a young man, because I said, you're going to die if you don't obey your parents.

And the New Testament tends to emphasize that a little bit more. And as I studied the

Old Testament passages, it wasn't as strong on the long life as it was on the prospering and living well in the promised land.

But this one makes it, wow, it's even more clear. All right.

Now look at Colossians chapter three, verse 20. It says, children obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the

Lord. Very strong, very clear. You know, don't obey just the stuff you like.

Just say, hey, go get some candy and you obey that. But also obey the stuff you don't like.

You obey all things that your parents are teaching you to do in the home is what the verse says very clearly.

And when you do that, it pleases the Lord. Now, it's interesting in Ephesians chapter six, verse one, two, and three, when you get down to verse four, it says, and ye fathers provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the

Lord. And I spent a couple of Sundays on that one when I was teaching on the role of the father. If you guys remember that around Father's Day and the

Sunday after. I'm not going to do that this morning, but there's a lot, there's a lot to what that means.

If you do a word study on every word in verse four, there's a lot there. I've got that if anybody needs it and you weren't here for that,

I'd provide it for you, but I don't want to take the time on that. But very, very important though. One of the big problems in child rearing is that as the children grow older, we still treat them like they're three or four in how we discipline.

And that doesn't work. Uh, when a child gets to be about 11 or 12, they're starting to be part adult and part kid.

They're not just a kid. So you can't treat them like just a kid. You've got to treat them as a thing that no one knows what it is.

It's called a teenager. All right. And, um, every teenager's different, but they're definitely not just a kid.

So when it says fathers don't provoke your children to wrath, it's very, a very fine line to walk there when they, then when that teenager disobeys you or mom, especially if it's mom, because that'll make the dad more angry than it.

They disobeyed the dad. Usually, um, how are you going to treat them when you did, you are going to discipline them, but how are you going to do it?

And how do you treat them? And you know how we joke about how the modern world wants you to reason with a child, you know, reason with the child.

And the Bible says, no spank the child, right? Well, that's true. When they're, when they're, you know, old enough to sit in the high chairs about where that starts, believe it or not, that's pretty, pretty little.

Uh, when they get old enough to take that cup and slap it across the table, when you told them not to, that's about the right time to start toddlers.

It's good to start. And, uh, all the way on up, we do the spanking, but when they get to around 12 ish, 11, really 12, 13, you still can, but I want to tell you this, you better have done it right between the age of one and four.

If you're going to try that when they're 12, because they don't respect you. And you try that, you just created a devastating problem.

So you better have done it right already. And, but then there is a reasoning that starts to take place with the 12 year old and somewhere, even a little younger than that, depending on the child.

Some of them are just grown mature, right? So it starts earlier where you literally can sense when a spanking is needed or when reasoning is even better, but you gotta be wise.

So how do you handle that? You pray, even while you're discipling them is why you're in the midst of it.

You're saying, Holy spirit, give me wisdom. Teach me to give me exactly the right words, actions to do.

That is the only way you'll make it through it successfully. And that's how it works. All right.

So the children should never rule the home. I cannot stand it. When I walk into a Walmart, I see a big dude that's been lifting weights and he's all fit and everything.

He's got this little girl dragging him around by the finger and yelling. I want that. I want that. I want that. I want that. Totally controlling this dude.

I just don't like it. And it's terrible. It's not of God. It's, it's just as out of order as some of the other things.

Our society does it. I'm not preaching on today and the children should never rule the home either directly through demanding their way and getting it from one spouse, turning that spouse against the other or indirectly through bad behavior.

We will inherit the land, maintain a strong country, a strong church and strong families.

Only if the children learn to obey, obey, obey, respect, respect, respect, and honor, honor, honor.

If they cannot honor their parents who they can see with their eyes, how are they going to honor God who they cannot see?

How are they going to obey God whom they cannot see? So it starts in the home and the parents need to be strong.

And the dad needs to be the strongest, not the mom. The dad needs to be the strongest. And if you're not, you need to get on your knees and pray,

God, help me. God, help me be strong, but help me not bring them to wrath.

Now, does that mean don't make them cry? No, it does not mean that when you're in the younger ages and you're spanking, you spank them till you break their will.

Now you won't read that in any of the modern publications on child rearing. Then you can stop and then you hug them and you pray with them and you make them pray before you even did the spanking, you made them tell you why they're getting it.

Well, because I spilled the milk. No, it's not because you spilled the milk. That's an accident. Why are you getting a spanking? Well, because I told you

I didn't spill it right. That's it. You lied to daddy. That's why you're getting spanking. So I'm going to give you a spanking.

I want you to put your hands on the couch, bend over, put your hands on the couch. Don't move them. You may cry, but you may not scream.

And then you start spanking and you're praying to Lord, help them give in quickly because I hate spanking. So like Lord, you know, help them to yield.

And then when they do, you pick them up, put them on your lap and you tell them that dad's going to pray first or mom, whoever, like if dad's at work, mom has to do this.

And mom, don't get in the habit of saying when your dad gets home, I'm going to have a word with him. You need to handle it.

You need to handle it, you know, when they're little. And then when dad goes home, tell him, let him deal with it too.

That's the best way. Because if they think you'll never do it, then you're going to have H -E -L -L at home till he gets home every day.

So you take him right back there and you do it the same way that I'm talking about right now. And then you say, okay,

I'm going to pray first. And then I want you to pray out loud to the Lord and ask him to forgive you for what you did.

And then after that, you know, so you do that, you pray and then they pray and make sure that they pray loud enough for you to hear them and understand their words.

I have a funny example of a grandbaby that didn't quite do that, but it was until I made sure they did it. It was really funny, but I made sure

I didn't laugh when it was happening. And then when you've both prayed, you get up and you say, now it's behind us.

Don't do it again, but it's behind us. Let's go play. And that teaches them that they're forgiven, like God forgives you.

Now, when you say, now let's go play, it teaches them they're in fellowship with you. Now, if you don't do all those steps, you're not doing it right, but it's not rocket science, is it?

Okay, so that's how that works. Charlotte, would you add anything? I think, did I leave anything out? Did I leave that out?

No, I said you, oh, I did leave that out. Well, they're on my lap. I mean, if you know me, I'm hugging them, right?

You're hugging them on your lap and you pray, they pray. Yeah. I'm glad you emphasized that.

Ben, in the adult, yeah.

Right. You're just going to say, now

I'm not going to mess with it. Yeah.

And another thing, I will add this though. Your child, they're all different, but you can, and it's different when this happens, what age, but sometimes it'll be a year.

It'll seem like a year where they just seem to get a lot of spanking. Some children, some don't, but some do. When you get in that mode where you're feeling like, golly, it's like I'm spanking them every day.

How many of you ever had that feeling and you didn't like, okay, you did not like it, right? Well, let me say this.

There can be cases, you're going to laugh when I say it, but it works. There can be cases where you've already given them two spankings today.

And you see them over there and they're doing something that you probably would spank them for. And you just don't sense that the

Lord would have you spank them right now because you don't think it's just overdoing it. Don't let them know you see it.

I'm serious. Just don't let them know you saw it. Now, if they know you saw it, what do you need to do?

You need to be consistent. And if it's rebellion, rebellion or lying or blatant disobedience, which is rebellion, then you need to let them know, you know what, that doesn't happen in this home.

Now, some other things. Don't ever let your siblings argue or fight verbally or physically.

And when they do and they get caught, they get spanking every time. Every time.

You don't say, next time you do that, you're getting spanked. No, you don't say that general anyway. You don't tell a child, well, next time, blah, blah, blah.

No, it's now. It's now. It's consistent. And it's now. Now, Ben is right. That's not rocket science, but you better be walking with the

Lord. You won't do that because you just read because one reason we're lazy. And we just don't want to do it.

You can't be that way. If you have been that way, go home, apologize to your child of whatever age and say, mom and dad have not done this right.

We're starting tomorrow. We're going to do it right. Because God said, do it this way. And just look, if you don't know where the verses are, look up the word rod in the

King James, like don't spare the rod. You'll find the verses in Proverbs and other places on spanking.

And by the way, it says, if you don't do it, you will send your kid to hell. Now you say, well,

I'm a Calvinist. That doesn't happen that way. Well, in this case, you better pay attention. You know what?

Because every time I find a verse that talks about the sovereignty of God and election and predestination in the same sentence or the next sentence

I say, but you're responsible and you're going to be held responsible for your actions and thoughts in this life. They're both together all the time.

So in a Bible verse literally tells me if I spare the rod, I will send the child to hell.

Do you think I'm going to pay attention to God when he wrote that? Okay.

You can say, well, now if he's elect, he's not going to hell. Well, you can play that game if you want to. But if you're a smart Calvinist, you're a person who says, okay,

I believe God's in control. I don't believe there's any accidents. But I believe I'm supposed to live the best I can with the equipment

God gave me today and every day of my life. And I better do that because I'm responsible for it.

You got to live that way. And knowing that God is in control of all things though, and that he is, if he weren't, where would we be?

Right. But you'd never use that as a cop out to not do what you're responsible to do.

And it all works together at the same time. So there we can see from scripture, how these consistent discipline is important.

Even in the old Testament, it talks about sparing, not the rod. Modern society will tell you that if we see you doing that, we'll put you in jail and take your kids away.

So sadly enough, you have to be careful and wise in this society. But if your kid thinks they can use that against you, they're not honoring you at all.

And that's a real problem. And you need to make sure they understand. Look, you can think that if you want to, but the government is not your dad and mom.

We are. God put you under us, not the government. And we will raise you the right way and make sure the child understands that you will.

You're not fearful. You'll do it. All right. So God gives order to the family, which in turn gives order to the whole community, whether it be churches or nations.

God's order is simply God is over all. The father is over the wife with regard to authority.

And the wife and the father are over the children with regard to authority. And any change in God's order of authority can and will destroy families, communities, and nations.

The church is nothing if its families are out of God's divine order. A country is dying when it undermines the family,

God's basic unit. All right. Done with that. There's a lot more, but that's what we can teach in this amount of time.

And then I'm going to end with this because I want to be done with this topical study. So let me briefly talk about the last

Roman numeral in this study, by the way. And I provide this study to young couples that are about to get married, by the way.

Same exact material that I've been teaching from for a few weeks. This one's called the emotional needs of men and women and understanding the differences in response during intimacy.

I think I can put it that way. All right. So let me get you to turn to John chapter 21.

We'll be done pretty quick. I'm going to do this part quickly. This is so important in the marriage, though.

Okay. John 21, verse 15. Check this out. If you got it on your phone, you can check out the word studies, but you don't need to, because I'm going to give it to you.

It says, so when they had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?

And if you look, the word love in Greek is Greek has three words for it. That English only has one word love.

Now we do have a second word that can be used, which is friendship, friendship and love.

But this one is the word agape where Jesus asked Simon Peter, do you have agape for me?

And agape love is the highest. It's only can be had by a human being who is born again, because it's one of the 33 things

God gives you when he saves you at the moment of salvation. One of the things he puts in you in a nanosecond.

My favorite word is he puts his love in you because agape love is

God's love, because this love does not depend upon the object of the love. It only depends on the lover comes from the heart of the lover.

The person you're loving can be treating you bad or treating you good. And that love doesn't change. So you see, that's not human, is it?

That's not natural. But if you're born again, you have that because that's God's love. And that's how he loves us.

And he gives you the ability to love your spouse that way. So there is that. And it's really probably the most important thing, especially, gentlemen, if you want your wife to respect you and honor you and the things we talked about last couple of Sundays, then you have to love her with this kind of love consistently, a

God -like love where it doesn't even matter if she's treating you bad. You still love her and you let her see that.

That's really important, right? So there's that. And then he saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest.

Now, Peter answers back and he says to Jesus, he said, You know that I love you. But guess what? If you look that word up, it's not agape.

It's phileo, which means friendship love. So it's almost like this. Jesus asked Peter, Do you love me with the strongest kind of love there is

God's love? And in answering the question, Peter says, Well, I like you, Lord. Now, how would you like it if someone answered you that way?

That's how he answered him. I mean, Peter was, of all things, honest, usually, at least at this time, a little too honest.

And well, Jesus said to him, OK, then feed my lambs, feed my sheep, feed my lambs if you like me.

Can you even, you know, you talk about how sometimes these little ones, when you're disciplining them, you can barely not laugh because the stuff they say and do, you know.

Anyway, don't you think the Lord's that way with us sometimes? He says, Peter, do you love me?

I like you, Lord. And he just probably said, OK, feed my sheep because you like me.

Feed my sheep. All right. So then he says to him again the second time, Do you agape me with this strong Godlike love?

And he said to him, Yeah, Lord, thou knowest that I like you a lot. Isn't that something?

And he said to him, Feed my sheep a second time. And he said to him a third time, Simon, do you baleo me?

Do you like me? Jesus switched it. He came down to Peter's level and he switched it.

Do you like me? And Peter was grieved because he said to him a third time,

Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I like you a lot.

Jesus said to him, Feed my sheep. Now, I bring that up because it teaches two of the

Greek words for love. And there is a third one, and it's called Eros. And I'm going to leave that up to the adults to figure out what that probably means, what type of love that's talking about.

So you have these three types of love that exist in our lives and in the universe that God created.

All three of them are important in a good marriage. OK, so you do to have the agape.

You must be born again and your spouse must be as well. At least they would have to be to have that for you.

But for you, because if you marry an unsaved person, your whole marriage until they do get born again, and there is no guarantee that they will because you can't control it.

God does control that. He knows from the beginning of time who's going to be saved, who's not.

He's in complete control of that. You need to act like he's not, though. And you need to witness to them with wisdom and give them the scriptures and always continually ask the

Holy Spirit to draw them to Jesus. That is our responsibility and our role to give out the gospel.

But there's no guarantee that spouse will get saved. So it's best to marry one that's already saved. Would you agree with that? OK, but if you don't and you marry one that's not saved, you will have agape love for them and you'll be saying, do you love me?

And they're going to be coming back to you and saying, yeah, I like you a lot. How would you like to have that your whole marriage? So what happens the first time you say something a little bit wrong or they think you did or you treat them wrong?

Do they say, oh, I like you a lot? Or do they say, I don't like you as much as I did yesterday? Which is it?

It changes what you do will change like it will change the filet. It'll go down or up.

And there's a fascinating book that I'm going to give you a handout here in a moment. There's a fascinating book that the young man wrote.

I don't advise people to read it because it's got some material in it that I think could be harmful to marriages.

It's like, I don't know, it's like information that counselors should read maybe.

But, you know, professional counselors, but not laymen. There's some information like that in it.

So I pull this good stuff out and put it in this study for you. But one thing I really love about it when he talks about the filet love, which he doesn't call it that he just he just thinks it's just love, but he's not because he's not a theologian.

But after I read his book, I said, how does that relate to the Bible? And I said, wow, this is how it relates because his whole book is about the filet part, not the agape part and not and it can be on the arrows part, too, but not the agape.

But on the filet part, he looked at it this way that picture it like you have a vault in your heart and you can fill it with love points or love units.

And when it's this kind of love, the I like you, Lord, you know, the friendship that goes up and down depending on how you're treating the spouse at any given time.

So you can lose love points in their heart or you can gain them back. Now, if you just put some thought in it, you can figure out, ladies, how you could gain some back for your man and men, you could figure out how you could gain some love points back in her heart.

Right. You can put some thought into that, figure that out. And it's kind of like child rearing. You need to be walking with the

Lord and not being lazy about it. It takes effort to build those love points up when they need when they when they've been hit and they're hit by words that are used incorrectly, are hurtful and not edifying in actions, because the woman, the man's words affect the woman more than just about anything.

And you can damage that in those love points. You go down, down, down. You don't even know you're doing it. You will sense it in a few days, though.

So figure out how do I build them back up? It goes up and down. Are you with me? Do you see how that works?

OK, so. I think you understand more about agape than you do filet -o, actually, and that this study talks a lot about it.

So one thing I want to do, Abby, would you help me now? And you guys pass these out.

If you are a married couple or you're about to get married, raise your hand and we're going to give you a handout.

Just all right, go ahead. Let's pass them out. And what I need you to hand two of them to each married person,

Abby. So give each person two, because I want each spouse to have one in the marriage.

So did you get two copies? All right, very good, Abby. She was listening to me, her grandpa.

All right, who else? You might want to give four of those to your parents,

Abby. All right, we're in a couple right up here.

And then Grammy wants one. You don't have to give Grammy one. She's got my computer at home.

She'd probably like to have one, though. And then I think Mr. Music back there didn't get one yet.

He needs two, actually. Oh, you got them. You were hidden behind that pew right there.

I couldn't see you, sorry. Does anyone else need one? Did we not get one? All right, how many you need, one or two?

All right, right on the back. And then Bobby needs a couple. Thank you so much.

And Abby and Gemma helped me staple these together this morning. So appreciate you guys, like my administrative assistance.

Abby, Bobby wants a couple. All right, very good. So here's what

I want you to do. There are 10 emotional needs that every human being has, male or female.

And they're the same. And it lists them in the handout that I just gave you. But the reason I gave you two of them is

I want you to separate into different rooms in your house today or tomorrow and take a little test.

Because what I want you to do is each of you have a copy of this where it lists all 10 of them. And right after that, after it gives you the 10, it'll tell you the top five for the male and it'll tell you the top five for the female.

And I don't want you to read that part yet. Okay, raise your hand. I solemnly swear not to read that part yet.

Okay, you're sworn in. Okay, so you don't read that part yet. Because I want you to just take the top part with the 10 emotional needs in separate rooms and have a blank piece of paper and a pen.

And I want you to put them in order to you of importance. Not for your spouse, for yourself.

What order do I put these in, in importance? And then I want the wife to do that, right? And then

I want the man in a different room to put the importance, the top priority first. This is more important than anything to me.

This is the second most important, third. And come back together and swap them and read them.

Okay, it's a great exercise for your marriage. And then discuss it. It's really interesting.

Let's just put it that way. It will be fascinating for you to do it. And so when you, if we show up next

Sunday and no one's here, I'll know you didn't like it. If you're all here, I'm going to ask you if you did your homework. All right, let's stand and have prayer together.

Lord, we thank you so much for your word and how it answers every issue of life for us.

Tells us about you. It tells about us. It tells us about how to live in this world.

And thank you that you've given it to us, that your Holy Spirit interprets it for us.

That we also have rules we can use to properly interpret scripture. And as your

Holy Spirit moves in our hearts to glean the understanding of what you mean when you say what you're saying.

And Lord, thank you that it's powerful in our lives. And we ask you to use this study in the life of each couple here for both themselves and their children.

And Lord, we know you'll bless it because it's your word. And Lord, we just ask you to help us to be salt and light to the community.

And that can start by them seeing really good marriages in this church. I ask you to go with us into our time of fellowship.

Bless the meal we're about to have. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You are dismissed.