Biblical Parenting (part 3)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Right here today, we have four more classes left, May 16th, 23rd, 30th, and June 6th.

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So we've been on and off again, but now today and the next four weeks, we'll meet here every Sunday to wrap the class up.

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For those of you that don't have the book, this is the book that I'd like you to read. It's not a perfect book, but it is helpful.

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Gospel -Powered Parenting, How the Gospel Shapes and Transforms Parenting by William Farley.

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So before I go any farther, are there any questions about the book? There's been questions almost every week.

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He might say something Presbyterian, he might say something that the editors didn't catch.

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I think I've told you in my heart of hearts, I actually kind of rejoice out loud when

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I read a D .A. Carson book or a John MacArthur book and find a mistake, because after my book was published,

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I thought, oh, look at that, there's a mistake in there. So once in a while you'll find mistakes, it could be theological.

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Any questions about the book? All right, let's do it this way. We have a few new people here in the class, so if you're new, you don't have to raise your hand.

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But if you've been here on a regular basis, and you knew about the book, how many people here, raise your hand so I can see, have not read the book?

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Okay, go. Anybody else going to try to be honest?

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Okay, there's a few. All right, good. So I want you to read the book. Remember, that's part of the class.

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You attend the class, you say, implicitly, I will read the book, because it's just helpful to get those things accomplished.

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Sometimes it makes for a smaller class size, but that's all right. Any other questions from three weeks ago when we talked about discipline, spanking, corporal punishment?

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Are there any follow -up questions? Yes. Okay, that's a good point.

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The question is, when you have older kids, 13 and 14 -year -old kids, sometimes those 13 and 14 -year -old kids are bigger than you are.

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And how do you use your, you know, one forearm here, and your one leg wrapped around here?

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Not that I've ever done anything like that, but what do you have to do? Well, there's probably an age where you don't need to spank anymore, and other things could probably hurt more.

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Personally, I don't think 13 or 14 is too old. I think it's too old for regular discipline, but I don't think if there's some kind of egregious disrespect, disobedience, you know, trouble with the law or something like that, you think, okay, it's not necessarily the pain that is affiliated with that kind of punishment, but it's the shame that goes along with it.

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So if you were ever to have to do it, my advice would be something like, when the tension is low, that you could say, this is what's going to happen, and you're going to just have to lay on the bed and be still and not move around, because if you do, then it's going to be worse and worse and worse, and this is how bad it's going to get for you if you're not going to just lay there and take it.

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And so, if parents get saved, now they have a 13 -year -old and they try to do something like that, it's probably going to be chaos.

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But if it's the slow, gradual teaching children self -control, sitting at the table, for instance, one of the things that you parents could do,

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I think, is, maybe this is more of a pet peeve than anything else, but you have dinner, moms spend all the time preparing dinner, dad's helping or dad does it, and then the kids eat in about six minutes, and then what's the first thing they do?

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Did you say dessert or dessert? They dessert the table or is it you eat dessert?

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I guess both could be true. Now there are times and schedules as kids get older, you've got to get to the soccer game, you've got to get here, you've got to get there, and I know it's kind of ready break and everybody goes their own way, but I really like it when, especially when they're friends over and you have somebody from the church over, some

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Sunday school teacher, some school teacher, and they're over, you get done eating and the kids should just sit at the table and learn to converse and learn to talk, and it's also teaching them self -control that they can just sit there and listen, sit and talk, here's how adults talk, here's what they do, and so if it's

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Thanksgiving and the kids gobble their food down and may I please be excused, the answer is no, you just can sit here and talk with the family.

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And so slow steps of teaching kids self -control, how to sit, sometimes we have people come to the church and they say, you know what, my kids, they just can't sit through the service.

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Well, what we do is we have a junior church for some of those kids, right? If it was up to me,

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I hope we'd never have to have junior church again because the kids need to be in the worship service to understand who

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God is. I think it was Don Kistler who said, if you want to damn kids, just send them out of the service during the service.

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But what we do is we say the oxygen comes down out of the plane and we put it on who first, on the adults first, so I want to capture the adults and have their kids away until the adults can understand, you know, we should probably practice.

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I remember Kim and I a long, long time ago in North Hollywood sitting there and she would sit by the kids in these little seats and then

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I would kind of stand up and teach and talk and the kids are antsy and, you know, wiggly and ants in the pants and can't sit there for very long, but then it's four minutes, then it's ten minutes, then it's twenty minutes and you can get a kid to sit still.

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As a matter of fact, I know you can get a kid to sit still for at least five hours. You hand him an

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Xbox, right? Kids can sit still. People are like, well, you know, my kids have

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ADHD and they can't pay attention. You want to bet? Here's the Xbox and they will sit there and they won't go to the bathroom, they won't eat, they won't talk and for fifteen hours they can sit there like this.

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They have problems paying attention when they want to pay attention and when they don't want to pay attention, but it's not that they have some kind of behavioral issue, it's just they need to be trained.

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So back on point, something like that you would have to work up to so you're not going to have somebody blocking, hitting, resisting.

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It would be, this is what we're going to do and you're going to just lay down on your bed, you're going to just take it, you're not going to hit, you're not going to bite, you're not going to yell, you know, this is the thing that you've done and sadly at thirteen this is what you've earned.

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Don't get mad at me, this is what you've earned. So thirteen or fourteen, it's going to be a little more difficult if you haven't done it for a long time, but I don't think

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Barbara you should ever, I think this should still be in your vocabulary. You're not too old that you're done with spanking, how do you phrase that better?

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You're still, you're still young enough that you might get one. Is that back to that Chuck Swindoll story, you know, he's never forgotten that whip and he got it at fifteen.

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So does that answer your question? I would walk them through it. Even when the kids are little, training them ahead of time to say this is what's going to happen in there and walking through so they know when there's not a big fight.

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Show me a parent that has to fight with their kids to try to do that, there needs to be other training that goes on before that they're missing out on to get to that point.

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Okay, other questions? I guess we're not going to be able to put this one online either, so there we go.

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For those of you that weren't here last time and you want to listen, I just thought it would be wise to not have it online.

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So I did tape a No Compromise show on spanking, but it's just a general tour, like a jet tour of what the

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Bible says about spanking in Proverbs and so that will be on air in the next couple weeks so you can always listen to that as well.

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Yes Andrew? You did record it. Well, I don't know what we're going to do because if you want a copy, then we're going to have to shoot you if you listen to it and then hand it out somewhere else.

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Yes, unlabeled. Yeah, this is a bootleg copy.

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They're worth like $500. Okay, any other questions?

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Yes, Joni? Well, it's kind of like you go to a restaurant and you pray and then people come over to you and say, that was sure nice that you prayed.

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So maybe it was that particular thing where people would say that. I, Joni, probably would say as a pastor of the congregation,

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I wouldn't say it out loud and I wouldn't spank in public. I would give them the look. I think every one of you parents need to develop the look that means you're going to get it when you get home look.

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And that's all they need to know. This is the look and make sure you follow through. Several times in the last few weeks

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I've heard people say, I only had to spank my kid one time, I never had to spank him again.

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I guess the grace of God was really, you know, prominent in your life.

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I don't think once and done is probably the pattern that we looked at last time in Proverbs.

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And so I think it's a regular ongoing thing for disobedience or disrespect. Remember, let's not do a lot of this, you know,

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I'm going to count to three, one, two, two and a half, two and three quarters, two and seven eighths and all that.

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Pam? Well, it's a sad thing because when the kids are little, sometimes we just excuse it as cute.

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You know, it's kind of cute. I see lots of kids who hit their parents. Even when your kid is really little,

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I'm talking about little, and they just kind of look at you and they give you that look and then it's just a big whack on the face.

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And then I see people just excuse it, oh, that's so funny. I don't really think it's that funny.

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We have a little slogan around our house that Kim made up and it's called, hands are for loving. And so when you use your hands, you love with your hands.

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And so if the kid wants to pet or caress or twirl the hair, they can do whatever you want. They can do what they want to your face, except they can't hit.

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If your kid hits you, then I think you need to address it right away.

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Just yesterday, we went to the grocery store last night, Maddie and I, to get kind of the Mother's Day things, and I just saw the out -of -control kids.

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And you know what I thought? Isn't it good that the Lord has given us his word to tell us exactly what's right and what's wrong and so we don't have to have kids like that?

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I thought, phew. Okay, yes, a few more questions. Great question.

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Thank you, Joanna, for that question. Let's take it from a different angle. Remember, as Christians, you know, we all are pragmatic to some degree, but we don't want to operate theologically with a pragmatism.

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So here's what we do. We go meet someone and we begin to evangelize them. It's our brother, our sister, our friend.

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And we evangelize them and they don't repent. And so, and I know you're not doing this, by the way, because I know you know better.

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You know, it didn't work. So here's what

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I'm going to do. I'm going to tell you to just do the right thing anyway, even if he doesn't seem, he doesn't respond.

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So with evangelism, we would never say, you know what, I evangelize the guy and talk about sin, salvation, the cross, resurrection, repentance, belief, and the guy doesn't believe.

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So what do we do? Keep preaching to him, right? So we don't go, well, it didn't work, so I'll change my approach and here's a free oil change if you come to the church and, you know, that kind of stuff.

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So we just keep going. So in this particular one, Joanne, I'm glad you brought it up because people say, well,

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I spanked my kid but it doesn't work. Well, if I ask

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Andrew, would you rather be spanked by mom or dad, what would he say? Okay, hoorah.

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I was wondering why I had testosterone and, you know, have to shave every day. I think it should hurt for both mothers and fathers.

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But I think if you ask the kid, the kid should say, I'd rather be spanked by mom. So here's what

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I would say. Well, if Scott's home morning, noon, or night and Andrew disobeys in front of you, you should say, honey, and give him the honey, you spank him look and then there's all kinds of looks you can give.

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Did you notice that? And so if he's going to be home in an hour, you could always say, well, then

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I'm going to talk to your dad when he gets home and you'll know what happens. Then it's kind of agony for an hour as well as he kind of processes it.

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If the kids are too little, they don't get the timeframe in between, you just have to take care of it as a mother.

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And so by the way, if I could just encourage you fathers to lead and you mothers to follow.

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And so if your husband says, this is what the kid needs to be spanked for during the day, then that's what you should spank the kid for during the day and not say, well, you know,

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I've got kind of a different standard than my husband. So Joanna, here's what I'd do. I would walk through everything anyway, even if it doesn't seem to work or hurt.

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You know, sometimes I've even said to a kid, now you just, you were screaming like a banshee out of purgatory.

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Did it really hurt or you're just kind of faking? And this is after all said and done, please forgive me and all that, you know, how bad really was it?

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And then I've had one particular kid look at me and say, yeah, it wasn't that bad. I mean,

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I asked and so then they told me, you know, it wasn't that bad because it just didn't hurt that much.

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So I think different kids have different thresholds. And so what I would do is I would make sure you don't use the wrong instrument.

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So I don't think for a 10 -year -old, a 12 -year -old, a 6 -year -old, any of those ages, 4 -year -old, you should ever use your hands because the surface area of your hand is too big to get any kind of pain.

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And then what people do, especially dads, they've got delts, they've got traps, they've got lats, and they're hitting too hard to jar the kid because the focus is not how hard to hit the kid, you just want something to sting.

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So if you've got some kind of paint stick that you just use your wrist, it's the snap of the wrist, right?

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It's physics where the end of the stick is going faster because it's farther away and off it goes.

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And so... Well, I guess you weren't here for my last one. So let me just say since you said it and you know

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I love you. I wouldn't use the spoon because, first of all, lots of times when the kids are reading scripture,

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I don't know if spoons are ever used, but when you're reading about foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child and Mr.

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Spoon drives it far away, they don't get it. Now if you call the spoon a rod, okay, I'm closer there, but the spoon has one side that's convex and one side that's what?

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Concave. Which one's which? I have no idea, but it just sounds like I know what I'm talking about. This way there's surface area that's minimal and so you could get some kind of welt or bruise or something like that.

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This way the surface area is minimal as well, but with a paint stick or something that's flat, something that's still bendable, we're not talking about some kind of cedar mahogany kind of shillelagh.

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I'll tell you, you messed with the wrong ombre, yeah rebar.

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Something that is flat and smooth and is going to be perfect to divide that surface area out.

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Now, in a pinch, you go to somebody's house, I can't tell you never use a spatula because spatulas serve lots of purposes when you're visiting people and you forgot the rod.

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So I would probably not use that just because of the spoon. Now, maybe this is some kind of special Italian flat spoon that I don't know about, but I would probably get something distinct for that and I like to just write on there,

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ROD. So the kids go, you know, that's the special utensil that's not used for any kind of thing else except for my rear end and so, well, some things go without being said.

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So that could be one of the issues there, Joanna, where you're not spanking hard enough with the spoon.

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Oh, okay. Well, and by the way, you know, when it comes to parenting class, we are teaching our kids how to parent, aren't we?

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Right? This is what our mom did, this is what our dad did, this is how they did it and then we're the new generation of Christians or we pick up what they do.

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So I'm just glad you're doing it and so if that's what you guys have... So then what

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I would do is I would focus, I'd do that, but I'd also focus more on what is sin and sin against mom and dad because these are the house rules, it's a sin against God and His holiness and sometimes there's no pain when we sin, right?

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You can go commit a sin and there's no pain, right? Nobody got hurt. There are some sins that we can commit that nobody gets hurt, but still we've sinned against God and so I would begin to work through teaching him that this might not hurt very much.

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You might be a rugby player in making, but still this is shameful that you have to go in there and in front of the whole family

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I have to say, go get on your bed and you have to pull your pants down and everything else. This is not something you should be proud of and it's going to hurt and if it doesn't hurt you, then we'll work through the other issues as well.

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So we spank even if it doesn't work, allegedly. Usually that means, and I don't think it's the case here, but it usually means it's not hard enough.

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We just are not going to be pragmatic and work him through all the issues of guilt, shame, forgiveness, holiness, but I would keep going if I were you.

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All right, other questions? Yes. Okay, good question.

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How soon do you kind of kiss and make up and ask for forgiveness and restore the relationship? Again, this is going to be a time that you'll work up to it, but I think this is what you should work up to.

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I like to say to people, you shouldn't be mad at dad, you should be mad at yourself.

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And so you can tell a kid afterwards, they want to turn their face, they want to get away, they've got a mean look on.

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If you do it wrongly and you're exasperating the kid, then you've earned it and I don't think you should give the kid the rod to spank you, but I think you should ask the child for forgiveness.

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And so what do you do? I think you say, you know, mommy wants to see your face and you look at the kid's eyes and they're crying and you say, you know, you did this, not me.

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And if I don't spank you, God's going to spank me. This is what God has told me to do and when you've got foolishness bound up in your heart, this is the way to remove it.

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And so you need now to work on restoring that relationship.

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And so you just say, you know, when mom and dad have this rule, when mom have this rule and you break it, that's called sin.

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And what you feel now, this lack of fellowship and communion and love and closeness and a bond and hugging and all the things that go along with it depending on how big the kid is, that's something you've broken.

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So now when we sin against someone else and fellowship is broken, what do we do? You can even feel it now because you're mad and you've got your head turned and how do we restore fellowship?

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And so see, all through this time we're preaching a message, sometimes verbally, sometimes with just the actions.

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But here now verbally, when you sin against mom and you break fellowship, what do you do?

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You don't say, I'm sorry, you don't say, I apologize, you don't say, I didn't sleep, I had a headache, you know,

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I didn't take my medicine and what you say is this, mommy, please forgive me.

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I said that and I shouldn't have and I've sinned and then you as the mom say, honey, of course

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I forgive you, I love you and cuddle and hug and now remember parents, no double jeopardy.

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You're going to spank a kid, now you can't be mad later, right? You're going to get to spanking and mad?

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No, you're going to get to spanking and then it's afterwards, it's happy, you know, you don't really strike me as the doing the nuggies kind of thing like I might, so nuggies on the head or whatever it is that you show affection, so everything is good to go.

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Wipe your tears off, compose yourself, walk through things about forgiveness when we sin now against God and there's a break in fellowship, we go to him and we say, please forgive me based on what

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Christ has done and you walk through the gospel. You can talk about justice, this is what you've earned, this is what you've received.

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Talk about mercy, you can talk about grace, there's all kinds of things now that you've got their attention and then you can restore fellowship, hugs and kisses, let's go get an ice cream, let's go get a few

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M &Ms, I don't know what you do, I can remember when the kids were little, let's go get some M &Ms or you know, whatever and off you go.

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So but if they're going to go, you know, I'm mad and I'm going to go in my room and you know, it's two hours later and they're still mad, then

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I think the parent has dropped the ball because this needs to happen all within, you know, 5 to 15 minutes that you,

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I would never leave a kid mad, I'd never get up out of the room and let the kid just, okay, you're mad, I work through it, you know, okay,

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Charlie, okay, good point since we're not necessarily going to send it out on tape,

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I don't have to repeat the question, you know, Charlie, I like that, if there's going to be 7 hours, dad doesn't get home for 7 hours, you say, well, you're going to get it, your dad's going to take care of it, then the person could learn how to manage guilt.

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The other thing though that I just thought of, if that person says to their mother, mom, please forgive me, and the mom says,

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I forgive you, everything's fine and good, but you know what, there are consequences to your sin, just like for us, sometimes we sin, no consequences till later, so you could deal with the guilt early and just say, you know what, but consequences, you are forgiven, but they're still there, the consequences, so you might get those when you get home, when your dad gets home, if the dad's going to be home 7 hours later,

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I think the mom should just probably do it, just take care of it then, if it's going to be a couple of hours, and you know, once in a while, you just go, all right, you need to just think through what you've done, and the other point that you talked about was the severity,

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I think if you spank a kid because they're rebellious, and then you spank a kid and they're just not, they haven't given in, they haven't said uncle, they haven't said, you know, you've just checkmated me, then you probably have done it the wrong way, you haven't talked through, you've been mad, you've done it retaliatorily, you have said things that you shouldn't have, shouldn't have, and you've probably spanked improperly, because the kid, you want them to just say,

28:55

I give up, I'm ready, I'm pliable, I'm all yours. Okay, today wasn't going to be on spanking, but this is an important topic, because you're not going to hear this probably from, certainly the psychologist, or WTAG, they probably won't have anything.

29:16

Yes, oh, you know what, before I go back to Tiffany, Stephanie had a question. Okay, great question.

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What I would do is if you're going to have a little kind of download time and update and add time, I'd only say the good things that the kids did, because if they're going to get disciplined, then why say that in some public kind of thing?

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So same thing, I wouldn't spank the kids in front of other kids, unless they've all got it and then just there's little four sardines lined up on the bed, not that I've ever done that, but I just imagine how that would all work out.

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Now if you want to tell Wes privately, you know, Child A has been doing this,

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I need help, or could you watch out for such and such, we need to attend to this, I think that's fine, but in a public setting, if they've already been disciplined, then

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I wouldn't say it. If they have not been disciplined and you want to talk as a family, this is what we do as a family, don't do that anymore, then

30:33

I think that would be okay. Tiffany? Okay, great, well let's say you thought you did it right and you're not mad and we walked through all the things that we talked about last time and so you're doing it the right way, but you say, you know what, the kids still seem super rebellious.

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So what you can say is you can say you're still acting very rebelliously and I'll see you real soon.

31:20

Back in the same situation, because I've seen kids before that are just off, have you ever seen a kid that's just kind of off, just left to themselves and they're just doing things and you go, it's only a matter of time before you're just going to do something and I'm going to catch you, because there's a funny thing in the universe, sin actually does what?

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Sin finds you out. And so if you're a parent and you say, so I'll just be patient and the next time

31:46

I see my sweet little innocent daughter pick up that block and grind it into the face of that other sweet little innocent girl in the nursery and I've told her not to do it,

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I'll be there to see. I used to love, by the way, to just have the door open just a little bit in the kid's room and then

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I'd just sneak and just kind of peer in there, especially when you know they've been naughty lately and you go,

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I'm going to catch them. You don't want to discipline a kid for, you know, I know you need one so I'm just going to do it and you haven't done anything, let's just get it out of the way now.

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So you just watch and if you've ever done something you're not supposed to be doing and then somebody says, hi, how are you?

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You're just like, whoa, and you go, guilty conscience. So you're just peeking in the room and they're doing something.

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Don't do that. I've told you before not to do it and now you're peeking in and you can just see the kid almost kind of go and then they do it and then you're watching.

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It does two things. It takes care of the problem and it makes them think mom is omniscient and I like both of those.

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I like to be known as an omniscient dad. So that's a couple things that you could do and so you go, well, we'll just get it next time.

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If you think, you know, the kid, I ask you to lay there, I ask you to be still, I ask you not to block,

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I ask you not to scream, I ask you to put your head down on the pillow, I ask you not to back talk and so now let's just try it again.

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You didn't do what I asked and so now that's more disobedience or you can wait a little bit and you know what the next one is soon to come.

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Now for you older folks that are here today and you have kids that are too old to be spanked, we live together in a church and so one of the things we want to do as church members is to encourage them, other people to do the right thing and we're going to be in a culture soon enough.

33:41

I mean, why am I even afraid to talk this way about spanking because you know who will one day try to teach us lessons like they do in Sweden but we're going to just do what the

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Bible says and I want to try to encourage you to do the right thing. It's never too late to start doing the right thing.

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If you say, well, you know what, I never really spanked my kids and they turned out all right, what kind of argument is that?

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That's the grace of God over rode your lack of obedience and God often does that, doesn't he?

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I think he does it in my life, I think he does it in yours. The question is, does the Bible teach us about spanking?

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The answer is yes. Now we're going to do it, aren't we? Say, well,

34:29

I haven't done it for five years. Okay, any other questions about that? I have all these notes,

34:36

I have all these notes on all these other different topics. Yes, Deb. Well, I think it's a good point.

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Well, it's true and the main thing we want here is not well -behaved children, well -mannered children, although that's a good byproduct of training a child in a disciplined fashion, in an orderly fashion and they'll probably be orderly, you know, saved or unsaved.

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But we know that what we're doing is asking God to save them because without that, and that's coming up later in the lessons, that's the ultimate priority and we can't do it.

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Can you imagine the biggest need that our children have, the most important need that they have, we can't grant them.

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We can't give them eternal life and rescue them from hell. That is not something we can do. But we can do what

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God has told us that he uses to break children. Instruction, I was going to talk today about exasperating kids.

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Discipline, Ephesians chapter 6 stuff, we can do and God uses those secondary means and causes to save kids when he feels like it, at his free will.

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There's a little cassette, I don't know if I should give the advice but I'll give it anyway.

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There's a cassette called The Rod of Discipline by Denny Keniston, is that right? Denny Keniston is a

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Mennonite and he's down in Lancaster, Pennsylvania someplace.

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We used to listen to that tape as a family. Even listening to the tape about the rod in the car as a family, do you know how it helped the behavior of the kids?

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Just listening to sermons about the rod in the car, man our kids were shaping up big time, just listening.

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And it's a good motivator because everybody else says don't, the Bible says do and guys like Denny Keniston, although I don't want you to buy into his

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Arminian theology, his Mennonite theology, this kind of romance that people have with, if we could just be

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Amish, they don't understand what the Bible teaches about sanctification. But he's got the

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Rod of Discipline for the most part right. Denny Keniston would be a good, I date myself, 8 track to listen to because it would be helpful to be encouraged to stay on course, be smart, be private, be secure, but to do what

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God says. Because again, spanking is not illegal in Massachusetts as of today. I'm sure it will be.

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Okay, Pam, I totally agree.

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We can teach so many lessons, repentance, what their heart's like. How does a kid know how bad his heart is?

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Comparing it to the other kids at school? Listen to what J .C. Ryle says, the mother cannot tell what her tender infant may grow up to be, tall or short, weak or strong, wise or foolish.

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But one thing the mother can say with certainty, that her son will have a corrupt and sinful heart.

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I don't know what you're going to grow up to be, little Johnny, but I know you've got a corrupt heart. How about this one?

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Most parents have a natural affection for their children. They do not like to see their cute little ones suffer pain and cry.

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Therefore, God warns us that the proper, merciful, and loving thing for a parent to do is to inflict the pain of discipline at the proper time, in the here and now, rather than raise up undisciplined rebels who will burn in hell for eternity.

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When you spank, you teach people, there is a consequence for your behavior. I think

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Farley did a good job when he talked about that. Man isn't an animal that loves and hates like Freud would say.

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Man isn't a blank slate like Skinner would say. We don't motivate children like Rogers would say by their internal goodness.

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It shouldn't take very long for us to realize that we as sinners procreate and reproduce what kind of children?

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Sinful people. I like this quote, Lewis Law's. Problem children come from problem parents. All right, well

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I'm not going to start a new topic today, but I have a few new topics. So let's just have any more questions that you're thinking about.

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Yes, Grandma. Is it okay ever to have Grandma spank?

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Rats! Tiffany! I was wondering. Yeah, well maybe you can't discipline them anymore.

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You can just give them advice and tell them, listen, if I had to do it all over again, I would have done a lot of things differently.

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I can't go back. Can you imagine when you get to heaven, by the way? I don't think you'll say, oh, you know, if I could live my life over again

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I would. Certainly you'd say, I wish I wouldn't have done those sins. But you'll get to heaven and you'll say, I can't believe that even the sins that I committed, the evil that I've done,

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God has used all that for his perfect plan and for my good and for his glory. And look at how

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God can weave the tapestry of sin and flip it upside down and turn it into something good.

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So if you said to your kids, if I could go back in time, I would spank you, I would discipline you more,

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I would teach you the Bible more, I would give you greater consequences to your rebellion. I can't do it now. I feel like I've dropped the ball as a mother, but God has forgiven me.

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He's a good and gracious God and I'm forgiven. But when I see you do X, Y, and Z, it grieves me because I know what you reap you sow, excuse me, what you sow you reap.

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And there are going to be consequences. And so I can't discipline you now, but I can warn you. Proverbs says the way of the transgressor is what?

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Hard. And so I'm warning you, don't do that. I can't take away your car keys, but I can tell you, you're going to be in big trouble because you've lived your life thinking that there's no

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God. And then there's going to be judgment. And as a mother, what do I want to see? I want to see you repent and believe.

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So there's no discipline. I mean, if they're smart aleck to you at your house, I think you can say, don't talk to me that way, young man.

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That's discipline. Well, what if you sit down in a nice, comfortable spot and say, when

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I ask you to do things, you're 25 years old and I ask you to do things and you won't do it. And I think that's dishonoring to you, it's dishonoring to me.

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You don't have to be a Christian to honor your mother. Can't there be people, young men and women all across the world who can be upstanding, honorable students, honorable citizens, successful?

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I don't mean you worldly success, but just do the right thing and honor their mother? The answer is they can.

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And so you're welcome. I haven't got to say

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I don't know yet today, so I should probably just say I don't know. It sounds like it could be logical when you're going to say now you're going to be an adult child and everything else at 13.

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You know, the bad news, thinking about that, at 13, you know, would that mean a parent wouldn't discipline anymore in the

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Jewish system because now they've been bar mitzvahed? I don't know what they would do. And they'd be stoned at 10 if they were disobedient.

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You know, public caning would serve our country quite well because there's the shame part.

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And that goes back to Joanna's point. Sometimes it's not necessarily the pain because some people have rawhide skin in certain spots, but it's the shame.

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You've hurt me. You've hurt God. You've broken fellowship. And so I'd probably focus on that.

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All right. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

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Well, that's exactly right. What I said last time when you weren't here is you should just go get yourself three paint sticks down at Lowe's or Home Depot.

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It's the only thing in the store they give out for free because they want to encourage Proverbs kind of spanking. And you go there and you tape three of them together for the older kids, younger kids.

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Weren't you here last time? I mean, everything you have to pay for at Home Depot, but those you get for free. So take the kids and say, if you take anything else from the store, it's stealing.

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We have to call the police. But those paint sticks say, sir, could I have a few paint sticks, please? And the guy will say, sure. How many would you like?

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And put them all around the house in strategic spots. And then what you need to do is you need to roll up your,

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Carla, what you need to do is roll up your pants leg and use your thigh, your open thigh right here, and then you can practice because that will tell you how it stings.

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Because the typical problem is parents who have enough nerve to do what the Bible says don't spank hard enough.

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And they use a hand or something that has got the wrong shape. But if you use paint sticks and you use your wrist only, you're not going to get welts and black and blue marks and things that, you know,

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DSS would have a big problem with. But you can use your snap of the wrist. And I believe me, if you do that to your thigh, you will go out.

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And if the kids say, Dad, what are you doing? There's a look for that for response. Yes, it is.

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It's not supposed to feel good. And by the way, if you're a parent, remember you, my dad, you say this is going to hurt me a lot more.

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It's going to hurt you. It's probably. Well, Charlie just says it's a lie. Can you believe he edits

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No Compromise radio show? It should hurt our feelings.

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But you know what? We aren't feeling driven people. That's the problem with society.

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That's the problem with churches. That's the problem with people who go, you know what? I just don't feel that I should do that.

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Well, friends, we aren't supposed to be motivated by feelings. We're supposed to be motivated by the revealed word of God, because if we are motivated by feelings, who needs revelation?

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So God says, I know that I've given you this, especially for a mother, this kind of love for a child.

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But I have to tell you, this is what you do. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. You want to do the right thing?

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This is the right thing. Listen to what Devinbaugh said. Child training must, therefore, begin with the premise that a child who is left to himself will only become more proficient at sinning.

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Our children, before the biggest problem of immaturity, lack of knowledge, no self -control, the biggest problem is they have a wicked heart.

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And God says, how do you show the wickedness in their heart? And that is initially discipline. So I want to try to encourage you to discipline your kids.

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If you don't have kids yet, just say ahead of time, we will go against our natural desire and we will discipline.

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I don't want to get into this very much, because time's gone. But if you don't discipline on a regular basis, and you give your kids over to shrinks that will drug them with Prozac, Ritalin, and a bunch of other things, you ought to repent from that.

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You ought to say to yourself, I won't do it God's way, and now I have problem children.

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And I want their behavior to be not so chaotic around the house and around the school, so I think

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I will medicate them. I think you made a tragic decision to medicate kids.

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And I think if anybody here has their kids on medication, before you yank them off, I'd like to talk to you. But if you look up on the prescription itself, the filling prescription background, if you look up the

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DSM -IV, you will find no long -term studies with Prozac and Ritalin past six weeks in your kids.

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And you're just going to give the kids that stuff over and over and over. Be very, very careful about psychosomatic drugs for you and for your children.

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I'd probably give you more of a pass if you said, we really spank, we do this, we do that, and then we don't know what else to do.

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We just kind of follow the advice of the shrink. But if you have been disobedient in this area, the good news is repentance, forgiveness.

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Today's a good day to start. But you don't need drugs first, you need a will to obey the

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Bible. By the way, as a pastor here, as I go around to different churches, hopefully it's a two -fold.

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I hope when I'm gone for a while, you say, you know, I'm glad to have Christian preach, I'm glad to have Steve preach, I'm glad to have the other guys preach, but I kind of miss

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Mike, you know, just kind of. Because when I go out of town, I go to other churches, we all kind of get stuck here, we're living with each other as sinful people.

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I go out of town, I think, you know, those are some nice people of the church, but I love Bethlehem Bible Church. I don't mean the building,

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I mean you. I couldn't believe I got back from the Beltway last Sunday and I said to Kim something I haven't probably said for ten years.

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I'm not kidding either, it's going to sound funny, but I said, I'm glad to be back in New England. I was actually glad.

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I must have been dehydrated, yeah. Because I'm not from here, my family's not here,

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I mean, this isn't, you know, this isn't my place or anything, but I thought, I love this church.

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You guys love the Word of God. You want to do the right thing, you have a desire for the truth of God, and I get to be your pastor.

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So I love that. I love to be your pastor because, you know what, we don't have to say, we've done it the wrong way and then that's just it.

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We get to say, God forgives us, God cleanses us, we can do the right thing. And you know what we can do?

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Because of the Gospel, tying it all back, because of the Gospel we can say, I'm sinful and I've done the wrong thing, but I stand in the stead of another.

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He stands in my place. I have Christ Jesus, the one to forgive me, to buy me, to cleanse me, and I don't have to somehow tell you all the reasons why

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I've done the things I have. I can just say, I'm wrong, I'm sinful, I've done the wrong thing.

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I've asked God to forgive me and I need help and I'm learning to do the right thing from here on. That's good for marriages, that's good for child raising, that's good for everything in the church life.

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Anyway, I'm glad to be here and I'm glad to preach to folks like you. See one other hand?

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Okay, I hope you have a hot week. I hope you have a wonderful week.

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I hope you have a week of sitting down saying, I probably just need to revisit what I do here with my sinful children, because I want to help them.

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All right, let's pray and then we'll be dismissed. Brian, we're not going to put this up online either today, okay?

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So don't send it to whoever you're supposed to send it to. Belay that order. Father, thank you that you're a

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God of grace and you override all kinds of things. Would you help our children?

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Father, the biggest problems in life, we realize, are not kids don't have to save parents, kids are in public school, kids have bad friends in the neighborhood.

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Father, we realize the biggest problem is our children are rebellious at heart. They followed after our sins.

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They are in Adam. And Lord, we know that you save children. We know that you save them through the gospel.

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We know that you've brought them to a church that teaches the truth for a reason. And so now

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I'd ask for all those children here, not just represented by the parents, but the children that come today, that they'd hear about free grace found in Christ Jesus at Sunday school.

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They'd hear about your holiness and your justice. Yet how, because of Christ and your eternal plan, you love sinners.

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Father, I just pray that we'd be a group of folks here that are moldable, shapeable, and parents that want to do the right thing for your glory.

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I pray for the grandparents here, that they'd be good encouragers to their children regarding the grandchildren and discipline.

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I pray for those parents today who have lots of children and don't know what to do. I think it's

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Stephanie especially, and extra rules and DSS and adoption and everything. Give her wisdom along with Wes.

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I pray for parents here who are childless now. Maybe they'd love to have kids but don't have them yet.

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I pray that you'd bless them and grant them children. And we ask these for Jesus' sake. Amen.