TLP 56: The Four Children, Part 2 | Parenting a Hard-Hearted Child

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Determining which heart your child has is only part of the equation. There are three imperative questions to ask as we study the four children.

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Welcome to Truth. Love. Parents. Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents.

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Here's your host, A .M. Brewster. As many of you know, I work full time at Victory Academy for Boys in Amberg, Wisconsin.

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Our greatest goal at Victory is to reach each boy's heart with God's truth and love, and we'll never be content with just modifying behavior.

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But as we learned last time, there are a lot of different hearts, and if we want to communicate as effectively as Jesus did, we better be prepared to know who we're talking to and the best way to communicate it.

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But more on that in a minute. If you haven't already heard, we're very excited to interview Natasha Crane on May 31st.

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We'll discuss her book and her blog. We're also going to dedicate an entire episode to answering your parenting questions.

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Please post them on TLP's Facebook page or email them to teamTLP at truthloveparent .com.

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The more questions we receive, the more we can help you become intentional, premeditated parents. Last time we looked briefly at the three

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New Testament passages that record Jesus' parable of the soils. Then we learned that when it comes to responding to the gospel, there are four different hearts.

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And that's where our title for this series comes from—the four children. Each of your kids fits into at least one of these categories, but determining which heart they have is only part of the equation.

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There are three imperative questions to ask as we study the four children. One, how does my child respond to truth?

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Two, why does my child respond that way? And three, how do I respond like Jesus did?

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This last question includes not only knowing what truth to share, but how to share it. So let's get started with the first child illustrated in the parable of the soils—the hard -hearted child.

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Without even hearing the description, some of you probably believe this is your child. You know it already. But listen carefully how

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Christ describes them. For those of you who wouldn't describe any of your children's hearts as being hard,

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I encourage you to stick with us. First, we parents can often be surprised. I can't tell you how many parents

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I've counseled who sit across from me in tears and exclaim, I thought my child loved God. Second, frequently the state of our children's hearts can fluctuate between one soil and another.

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A thorny heart today may turn into a hard heart tomorrow. And third, even if the Lord allows all your children to have soft and accepting hearts, you will meet people who are hard as stone.

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Hopefully today's discussion will benefit you when the time comes. Alright, here's what Jesus said about this particular child.

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Agriculturally speaking, the ground nearest the footpaths are the most compact due to the weight of people, animals, and vehicles.

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Seeds sown there can't take root any more than they can on modern -day concrete. This makes it easy for birds to swoop in and dine on the seeds.

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Jesus says that many people respond to truth the same way hard ground receives seeds. It doesn't.

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And when Satan and his demonic forces can then easily swoop in and snatch away the truth that was sown.

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So let's start with the first of our three questions. How does my child respond to truth? Well, this particular child hears the word, but does not understand the word.

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Then we're told they experience satanic influence in some way or another that snatches the truth away. And consequently, the hard -hearted child does not believe and or is not born again.

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And I think it's extremely valuable to notice that it doesn't say anything about what the child says or how they say it.

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It doesn't say that the hard -hearted child runs away or is rebellious. It doesn't say that the hard -hearted child joins a gang and starts doing drugs.

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Don't read into this passage our cultural ideas about being, quote, hard -hearted. Yes, it is true that in Exodus we learn about Pharaoh hardening his heart and doing terrible things to the

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Jews. It's true 2 Chronicles 36 describes King Zedekiah who, quote, did what was evil in the sight of the

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Lord his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet who spoke from the mouth of the Lord. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar who had made him swear by God.

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He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel, unquote.

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But we also need to consider Mark 16, 14. Afterward, Jesus appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.

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By the way, this verse comes right before Jesus gave these same men what we call the

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Great Commission. What we learn from this is that the key indicators of a hard heart are ignorance, confusion, misunderstanding, and unbelief.

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That's it. This may be in response to the gospel or any other truth. A hard heart may exhibit itself in defiance and swearing or running away or rebellion, but it may also hide itself under a seemingly sweet and obedient exterior.

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I want to take a minute and I want to break down each of these responses. The first one we saw was ignorance. Now, keep in mind that the ignorance that a hard -hearted person experiences isn't the ignorance of someone who's never heard the truth.

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This is someone who, though she's been exposed repeatedly to truth, seems to be just as ignorant as if she was before she was exposed to it.

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The second response is confusion or a lack of understanding. 1 Corinthians 2 .14 says,

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And their last response to truth is unbelief. I think the best biblical word to sum up the hard -hearted child is really blind.

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2 Corinthians 4 .4 says, Have you ever discussed a truth in amazing detail with all the

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Bible verses you know, only to have your child completely forget it all the very next day? And not only did they forget it, but they proclaimed the exact opposite to be true.

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Have the simplest biblical ideas been unnecessarily confusing to your kids? Are your children still refusing to believe the gospel?

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If any of those describe your son or daughter, you may be parenting a hard -hearted child, regardless of whether or not they are exhibiting a rebellion and defiance.

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So, the second question becomes very important. Why does my child respond that way? Well, there are two factors at play in this answer.

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The first is demonic forces, and the second is your child's unbelief. Let's deal with the scarier one first.

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Let me say that I'm not here to tell you exactly how Satan manages to steal the truth from your kids and other people, but the

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Bible provides a couple possible scenarios. One, he may use demon possession. I know this one is the most petrifying, but we can't discuss it in all the detail here for lack of time.

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But don't worry, we will talk later about what the Bible has to say about demon possession and whether or not your child is in danger of it.

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Of course, you are free to contact us at counselor at truthloveparent .com if you really want an answer now.

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And before we move on, remember that we need not fear Satan any more than we fear men. Fearful parenting is failure parenting.

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We must trust the Lord in all things and live accordingly. The second thing that Satan may do is simply distract us.

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There are three major players when it comes to temptation. The world, the flesh, and Satan. And all three tempt us in three categories.

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The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. I believe that demonic forces sometimes tempt us to get us to do the things they want us to do.

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However, I also believe they tempt us to do the things that will simply distract us from what we should be doing.

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At Victory Academy for Boys, we have morning devotions and evening chapel times. And I can't tell you how many times we've discussed heavy truths and I can see the guys really grappling with them.

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But the moment I say amen, it's as if we've just been staring at clouds and they become completely distracted by the most superficial things and the truths of God's Word are gone.

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Now, we know that God's Word is quick and powerful and convicting, but we also know God allows demonic forces to swoop in and steal

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His Word away as if it had never been there. Now, what part do our children play in this process?

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Well, at this point, we're really walking where angels fear to tread. What we know for certain from the passage is that your hard -hearted child will be ignorant despite being taught, confused despite being clarified, and unbelieving despite being called.

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And they are responsible for their own unbelief. 2 Thessalonians 2 .12 says,

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Well, we clearly do not want this for our children. So, the final question is, how do I respond like Jesus did?

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And this is where we'll spend the balance of our time. How did Jesus handle the hard -hearted? Well, in Mark 3, we read this,

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He stretched it out, and His hand was restored. We see three responses here. Another passage is

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Mark 6, and it presents an amazing account. Right after the feeding of the 5 ,000, we read, And after He had taken leave of them,

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He went up to the mountain to pray. And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and He was alone on the land.

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And He saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night,

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He came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass them by. And when they saw

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Him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out, for they all saw Him and were terrified. But immediately

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He spoke to them and said, Take heart, and His eye, do not be afraid. And He got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased.

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And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

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Here we learn that they struggled accepting who Christ was, even after a life -altering miracle, because they didn't understand the previous miracle.

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And we see a couple responses here from Jesus. Again, Jesus repeatedly filled their ears with truth. We see

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Him praying for them. We also see Him meeting them in their time of need. And again, shortly after the feeding of the 4 ,000,

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Jesus and the disciples had no bread for themselves. And Jesus said, Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread?

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Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes, do you not see?

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And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the 5 ,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?

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They said to Him, Twelve. And the seven for the 4 ,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?

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And they said to Him, Seven. And He said to them, Do you not yet understand? Here, Jesus asks more questions to engage their minds.

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He brings their current discussion back to the reality of who He was. He reminded them of what He had done. He made them rehearse what they knew to be true.

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And He called them to act on their knowledge. So, from Jesus' example alone, we see the necessity of a grieving heart, abundant prayer, repeated truth, questions,

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Christ -honoring behavior, reminders, and calls to action. Of course, Jesus always knew exactly what everyone needed.

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So how should we respond? How should we handle the hard -hearted child? There are four things

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I want you to remember. The first is this. Trust and pray. The first thing we must always do is acknowledge

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God's sovereignty. He hasn't called us to change anyone. He's commanded us to do many things, but changing people is

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His job. If we forget this, we'll be tempted to do all of our parenting in our own power. That will do nothing to build bridges with our child and everything to assist

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Satan in his work. The only way to soften hard soils is to break it up, but our job isn't to break our children's hearts.

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We can't and shouldn't want to even try. Manipulation via high emotion and propaganda will not draw him to the

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Lord. If you try to break your child's heart, you'll likely compact it harder. Satan won't have much to do, though, because no one sows while they break up the soil.

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The demons will just sit back and smile. However, God is ultimately the one, only one, who can soften your son's heart, so we must constantly beseech

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Him to do so. If you forget to pray, your child will likely be unconsciously thankful her parent isn't beseeching

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God on her behalf, and Satan will be thrilled because there's nothing he hates more than divine intervention. So pray for Christ to work.

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Pray that you sow the right seeds at the right time. Pray that God uses your pastors to help cultivate. Pray that your child's heart will eventually soften, and pray that God will receive the glory in your child's life.

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When it comes to responding to demonic forces, all I can do is persuade you to pray without ceasing. Every year as six to eight idolatrous teens fall into my house,

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I can practically feel the spiritual warfare being waged. My prayer life has grown exponentially since moving to Victory, but isn't that a sad confession?

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Why wasn't I praying for my own children as passionately? You see, it's too easy to become complacent and forget in the midst of breakfast and projects and yard work and soccer games and sweet kids about the spiritual battles being fought for my child's soul.

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The first step is to trust and pray. The second is to cultivate and sow. Since God hasn't called you to change your son's heart, what has he called you to do?

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Well, remember what Ephesians 4 .15 says, Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.

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Our job is to sow truth and water in love. Are you sowing the words of the kingdom into your child's heart?

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Man's philosophies and pithy observations cannot save your child. Even our own application of scriptures are limited in their life -changing efficacy.

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But God's perfect word is what cleanses us and lights our paths and feeds us and empowers us and changes us.

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So often I hear myself giving my children these modified versions of the Bible. They're Aaronized or Brewsterized or just completely humanized versions of what

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God has said. But I find there's so much more power when I just stop all of that, when I stop putting it into my own words and I just quote the scripture.

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And the second is love. Though not mentioned in the parable of the soils, love is like the watering, the watering can to the seed of truth.

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No seed germinates when dropped on the sun -scorched soil. It needs water for nourishment and refreshment.

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And interestingly enough, though God's the one who does the softening, he so often delights to use our love to break up the hard heart of our children.

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Like water breaking down the compacted dirt on a path, our love does so much to encourage our children to open up to us and to let down their defenses.

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So when you're called on to parents, don't get mad. Grieve like Jesus. Don't be annoyed.

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Love like Jesus. If you prefer the annoyed approach, your son will find it easier to ignore you and Satan will have an easy time of snacking on the angry truth.

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The soil of your son's mind will practically repel it. But you said, but you said Jesus got angry.

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Yeah, well, we talked about anger before. We talked about what biblical types of anger are when we talked about whether or not we should ever raise our voice to our children.

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See, so often we just get annoyed personally. Jesus' anger was not personal anger when he saw the hard hearts.

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Jesus had a righteous indignation. And we can't go into all of that right now. I encourage you to go back and to listen to the episode about whether or not we should raise our voice to get some more clarity on this.

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But the difference between Christ's anger and our just getting mad and aggravated and annoyed is very different.

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Also, don't get upset that you have to re -explain yourself. If you're so aggravated that you bark out an order and leave it at that, your child will be happy he didn't have to listen to another lecture.

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And Satan will be glad you never bothered to cast any seed in the first place. Also, don't be annoyed that you have to clarify the truth.

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If you don't have the patience to carefully explain God's word, your child won't mind because she didn't want to think about it anyway.

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And simply quoting a verse provides only one seed for Satan to steal away. And don't shy away from calling your hard -hearted child to make a choice.

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If you want your child to do right simply so your job is easier, she will likely develop an obedient facade.

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And Satan will gladly distract her from any intentional decision by convincing her that she's doing just fine.

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Remember, the hard -hearted child prefers to avoid thinking about the commands and consequences of the

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Bible. And Satan wants to rid this child's mind of all that's biblical. Both of them will gladly use work, entertainment, family vacations, and even school to keep them from thinking

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God's thoughts. But the more seed you spread, the harder Satan will have to work to pick her mind clean, and the more often your child will have to apply his mind to the truth.

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The hard -hearted child is unbelieving due to their own apathy and the fervent efforts of Satan to remove the conscious pricking truth of Scripture.

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The best tools we have to cultivate the compacted darkness of their minds and fertilize the soil of their heart are those that pierce to dividing asunder of soul and spirit and cause the devils to flee.

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There is nothing more vital for the hard -hearted child than pure, unadulterated Bible. It's powerful, and Satan hates it.

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So be consistent and loving and patient and clear and prayerful. And did I mention loving?

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I think it's amazing that when Jesus was confronted with the most hard -hearted individual in the entire universe,

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Satan himself, he lovingly quoted Scripture. And if that's how

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Jesus is going to approach Satan, how much more should we, parents, approach our children?

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If we're not lovingly giving them truth constantly, repeatedly, we can't expect our hard -hearted child to ever believe because Satan is so actively at work and their minds are so disinterested in belief and understanding that everything about them just rejects truth.

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And so we need to keep it flowing into their lives as much as we can. But you might be thinking, what exact verses should

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I use? Okay, Erin, you said that you're going to help us be really specific to know exactly what truth we should share.

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And that's a great question, but the answer isn't simple. Back in episode 44, my wife and I role -played a disrespectful daughter with her father.

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And I acknowledged in that show that the purpose was to present an example of the parenting tools being used.

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But since each situation is so unique, the actual verses you use with your child may be different.

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But because I want so badly to be practical, here's what I'm going to include for you. I'm going to put an extensive list of verses that my family uses on a daily or weekly basis right into our

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PDF notes. I encourage you to repeat these passages of Scripture as often as possible. Let them ring so clearly in your home that even the hardest hearts can't help but memorize them.

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I'm going to include a bunch of verses in four different categories. One of them is motivation training. So when your child is struggling with doing the right thing in the right way for the right reason, these are the verses you can use.

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Also in gospel training, for those of you who are trying to do evangelism parenting where you're trying to draw your child back to the truth of the gospel and everything,

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I encourage you to use the verses I'll put on the PDF. There's also behavior training. Whether it's how the child thinks or their obedience or how they're acting with each other,

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I encourage you to use verses from this category of behavior training. And the last is relationship training, which just, you know, can apply to their brother -sister relationships, parents with their children, with their friends.

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And these verses are something that your kids should be hearing repeated, quoted so often in their homes.

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And before we conclude, I do need to admonish you. See, God designed our spiritual maturity to work like this.

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Number one, we learn who God wants us to be directly from his word. Two, we learn who

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God wants us to be as members of the body of Christ interact with us. And three, we learn who God wants us to be as we interact with the body of Christ through podcasts and books and videos.

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The sad reality is that too many Christians default to the third option before the second or first. We believe with all of our hearts that truth of parent can and should be a vital part of your parental maturing.

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And I'm in no way encouraging you to stop listening. But I do want to encourage you. I want to plead with you.

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I want to beg you to delve into God's word first. And there will come times when you may need clarification.

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In those situations, you need a counselor. You need someone you can relate to. That's how God created the body of Christ to work.

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And lastly, feel free to enjoy the books and videos and podcasts that are so prevalent here in America.

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They are awesome. They're amazing. They can often equip you with information your counselors and pastors can't.

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But just remember, they lack specific knowledge about you. They lack a relationship with you.

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They lack the precise details that allow them to get really nitty -gritty in their application. All this to say, if the truth you encounter in God's word in this podcast leave you with questions,

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I believe you need to personally interact with another member of the body of Christ. A pastor, a counselor, or a friend.

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We want to help you as much as we can. Our counseling staff is standing by to answer your emails. But even we can only do so much.

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The best counselors will be the ones who know God's word and who know you. When it comes to responding to the hard -hearted ignorance, confusion, and unbelief of your children, all you can do is be an ever -flowing spring of effervescent truth.

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I hope today's episode notes will be a blessing. Obviously, you can find them linked in the description. Next time, we're going to discuss parenting a rocky -hearted child.

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This is very different than parenting the hard -hearted child, so I hope you'll join us. Don't forget, we are here to help.

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Never hesitate to reach out to us at counselor at truthloveparent .com. We will do our best to answer your questions, to get to know you as well as we can, to provide you with the best truth, or to introduce you to someone in your area who can do a better job than we can.

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One of your children likely has a very hard heart. But take courage. Our Lord is a

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God of growth and change. He delights in softening hearts, and He enjoys using us to do it.

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Truth. Love. Parents. is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent.

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Join us next time as we search God's word for the truth your family needs today.