Though I have no friend like you,
If that is not my home, then, Lord, what will I do?
The angels may feel deep,
From heaven's open floor,
And they can't feel at home,
In this world anymore.
Just not before,
Amen, we'll live eternally,
The saints on every hand,
Are shouting, Victory!
This heart of sweetest praise,
Is written at the man of stone,
And I can't feel at home,
In this world anymore.
Though I do know,
I have no friend like you,
If that is not my home,
Then, Lord, what will I do?
The angels may feel deep,
From heaven's open floor,
And they can't feel at home,
In this world anymore.
I've loved and have tested my faith,
Mountains have risen to stand in my way,
But no matter the trial,
When my path grew so hard,
I have walked hand in hand,
With an Almighty God,
With God,
All things are possible for me,
By His grace I can stand,
And I claim to be He,
And with the Lord on my side,
His assurance is mine,
Though I walk through the fire and the flood,
I will begin to ride on with God.
Life holds its truth, valleys often appear,
But His Word gives His promise,
That my God's ever near,
When my steps are uncertain,
And my strength's almost gone,
I can make the impossible,
To an unfailing God,
With God,
All things are possible for me,
By His grace I can stand,
And I claim to be He,
And with the Lord on my side,
His assurance is mine,
Though I walk through the fire and the flood,
I will begin to ride on with God.
I'd rather have Jesus,
Than silver or gold,
I'd rather be His,
Than have riches untold,
I'd rather have Jesus,
Than have to torment,
I'd rather be led,
By His name,
Let him love now,
Let him be the King,
I'll a-vast your way,
Or be held in sin's best way,
I'd rather have Jesus,
Than anything in this world,
Of course, today,
I'd rather have Jesus,
Than mends the cause,
I'd rather be faithful,
To His dear cause,
I'd rather have Jesus,
Than world wide way,
I'd rather be true,
To His holy name,
Than to be the King,
I'll a-vast your way,
Or be held in sin's best way,
I'd rather have Jesus,
Than anything in this world,
Of course, today,
He's on his throne,
Have faith in God,
He watches your resume,
He cannot fail,
He must prevail,
Have faith in God,
And your prayers are unanswered,
Your word is clear,
He will never forget,
Wait on the Lord,
Trust His word,
And be patient,
Have faith in God,
He'll answer yet,
Have faith in God,
He's on His throne,
Have faith in God,
He watches your resume,
He cannot fail,
He must prevail,
Have faith in God,
In your pain and your sorrow,
His heart is touched with your grief and despair,
Cast all your cares and your burdens upon Him,
And leave Him there,
I'll leave Him there,
Have faith in God,
He's on His throne,
Have faith in God,
He watches your resume,
He cannot fail,
He must prevail,
Have faith in God,
Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Guilt that can never be told,
Rages exhausted of mercy and grace,
Precious, more precious than gold,
Precious, more precious,
Guilt that can never be told,
Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Precious, more precious than gold,
Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Who shall their greatness declare,
Jewels whose luster our lives may adore,
Girls that the poorest may wear,
Precious, more precious,
Guilt that can never be told,
Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Precious, more precious than gold,
Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Freely, how freely they flow,
Making the souls of the faithful and true,
Happy wherever they go,
Precious, more precious,
Guilt that can never be told,
Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Precious, more precious than gold,
Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Who would not gladly endure,
Trials, afflictions, and crosses on earth,
Riches like these to secure,
Precious, more precious,
Guilt that can never be told,
Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Precious, more precious than gold.
He leadeth me, O blessed thought,
O words with heavenly comfort fraught,
Whate'er I knew, where'er I be,
Stilled is God's hand that leadeth me,
He leadeth me, He leadeth me,
By His own hand He leadeth me,
His faithful Father I would be,
Lord, by His hand He leadeth me,
Sometimes mid-semes of Heav'n's gloom,
Sometimes there in His lovers bloom,
By waters still o'er troubled sea,
Stilled is God's hand.
Everybody here this morning if we can go
and find our seats we will get started
and once we find a seat let's grab a
hymnal
and go to song number 182.
Song number 182 this morning we're going
to sing our first song is
Wonderful Story of Love, song number 182.
Song 182 let's all sing it together
let's all go astray,
Angels with rapture announce it,
Shepherds with wonder receive it,
Sailor, oh won't you believe it,
Wonderful Story of Love,
Wonderful,
Wonderful Story of Love,
Go the o'er far away,
Wonderful Story of Love,
Still enough for all today,
Calling from Calvary's mountain,
Down from the crystal bright mountain,
And from the dawn of creation,
Wonderful Story of Love,
Wonderful,
Wonderful Story of Love.
We can sing it a little louder this
morning. I know it's early but we can
all wake up.
Let's all sing that last verse as loud
as we can. Wonderful Story of Love we're
gonna sing the third verse out
on on my cue here.
Wonderful Story of Love,
Jesus provides a rest,
Wonderful Story of Love,
For all the pure in us,
Rest in those mansions above us,
With those who come before us,
Singing the rapturous chorus,
Wonderful Story of Love,
Wonderful,
Wonderful Story of Love.
Nice and loud. All right guys let's all
pray together and we'll open up the
service with a word of prayer.
Lord we love you and we thank you for
this church. Thank you for just allowing
us to gather here and
sing unto you and Lord that just the
opportunity to hear preaching from your
word Lord
and fellowship together. Lord we love you.
We just ask that you bless everything we
do and it's in Jesus name we pray.
Amen. All right for our next song let's
go to song number 98.
Song number 98, The Name of Jesus.
Song number 98.
Let's all sing it out together on the
The name of Jesus is so sweet,
I love his music to repeat,
It makes my joys full and complete,
The precious name of Jesus,
Jesus, oh how sweet the name,
Jesus, every day we'll sing,
Jesus, let all saints proclaim,
His worthy praise forever,
I love the name of him whose heart
Knows all my griefs and bears apart,
Who bids all anxious fears depart,
I love the name of Jesus,
Jesus, oh how sweet the name,
Jesus, every day they'll sing,
Jesus, let all saints proclaim,
His worthy praise forever,
I lay my fondly love to hear,
It never fails my heart to cheer,
His music drives the volunteer,
Exalt the name of Jesus,
Jesus, oh how sweet the name,
Jesus, every day they'll sing,
Jesus, let all saints proclaim,
His worthy praise forever,
No word a man can ever tell,
How sweet the name I love so well,
Oh, let its praises ever swell,
Oh, praise the name of Jesus,
Jesus, oh how sweet the name,
Jesus, every day they'll sing,
Jesus, let all saints proclaim,
His worthy praise forever.
Good morning, thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you
didn't already get a bulletin you would like one, just lift up your hand nice and
high. One of our ushers can come by and get
you guys a bulletin. On the front we have our Bible memory passage,
as well as on the inside we have our service times and our soul winning times.
Also our church stats, please make sure you're turning in your maps and
everything like that to our bin so that way we can make sure we're updating it
very accurately, and we're doing really good
as far as our soul winning so far, but we'll just keep on
pressing forward. Also on the right, please make sure
you're in prayer for our expecting ladies,
and then if you didn't receive your giving statement or have a
question you can ask Brother Fur about that.
Upcoming events, pretty soon we're going to be having our
Rayonosa Soul Winning Marathon, and so we're really excited about that.
I'll be putting together just a small chat group based on our sign-up sheet,
and I'll give you all guys the details about
lodging. I think people are going to be meeting
here around 9 a.m. for the carpool group that's going to leave on Wednesday,
so if you want to be a part of that you can. Of course you can just meet us down
there on Thursday as well, and then there's a the cruise missions
trip. I don't know if it may still be
available. If you are interested at all you need to see Evangelist Fur and ask
him about that. I'm going to be gone that Wednesday,
the February the 19th. Also our kids choir is going to be
starting in March, and so that'll be exciting, and then
we'll have a spring recital, so for those of you that are practicing
we will probably give you some more details about that recital pretty soon,
but that's just the date. There's some church reminders again.
There is a quiet time at our church from two to four on Sundays,
and so that's just here in our sanctuary area if you'd like to stick around.
We just ask that you wouldn't be talking during that time.
If you want you can use our fellowship room for some light conversation.
Also there shouldn't be any running or playing in the church. Children shouldn't
be on our stage areas in our kitchen fridge area.
Also please don't be in the mother bay rooms without their
their parents, and then also our fellowship room. Please
don't turn into a rough house or play area. Also make sure you're not using our
church supplies unnecessarily. Please make sure you're cleaning up
after yourself after the service. We do have water bottles for guests and
visitors and our soul winning. Please keep it to that. Also just make
sure you're watching your kids, and kids please if any adult or usher gives you
instruction. Please just make sure you're obeying
them as well. On the back we have a list of our prayer list, and so
please continue to pray for our church. If you have any additional prayer
requests you can email that to us, and we'd like to update. One other thing
I was going to announce is we had a baptism competition at the end
of last year, and I don't know how, but the
Urbanic tribe won, and so uh we yeah well there we go all right.
Actually it was thanks to uh the Garcia's, so they they had the most
baptisms come in, and so they got the top prize, and then
everybody in their tribe got a prize. If you didn't see it yet and you're in his
tribe, evangelist fur uh has your reward for you,
and so sometimes just being part of the team you get rewarded. There you go.
Just being on the right team. Somehow it's Urbanics. I don't I don't get it.
Okay all right I'm not bitter okay, but uh
we'll go ahead and sing our psalm psalm 148.
All right that was psalm 148 psalm chapter 148.
Let's all sing it out together on the first.
Judges of the earth.
The earth.
And we also exalted the horn of his people.
The praise of all his saints, even of children of his room.
How people near unto him.
Great singing everybody. Now as the offering plates are being passed around,
go ahead and turn in your bibles to proverbs chapter 17.
That's the book of proverbs chapter number 17.
So
so
proverbs 17 the bible reads better is a dry morsel and quietness there with
than in house full of sacrifices with strife
a wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame
and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren
the finding pot is for silver and the furnace for gold
but the lord trieth the hearts a wicked doer giveth he to false lips
and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue
who so mock at the poor reproach at this maker
and he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished
children's children are the crown of old men and the glory of children
are their fathers excellent speech become it not a fool
much less do lying lips a prince a gift is as a precious stone in the eyes
of him that hath it whithersoever return it it prosper it
he that covereth the transgression seek it love
but he that repeated the matter separated very friends
a reproof enter with more into a wise man than an hundred stripes
into a fool an evil man seeketh only rebellion
therefore a cruel messenger shall be sent against him
let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man rather than a fool in his folly
who so rewardeth evil for good evil shall not depart
from his house the beginning of strife is as when one
leadeth out water therefore leave off contention before it be meddled with
he that justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the just
even they both are abomination to the lord
wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom
seeing hath seeing he hath no heart to it
a friend loveth at all times and a brother is born for adversity
a man void of understanding strike at hands and becometh surety in the
presence of his friend he loveth transgression that loveth
strife and he that exalted this gate seek it destruction
he that hath a froward heart findeth no good and he that hath the perverse
tongue perverse tongue falleth into mischief
he that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow and the father of a fool
hath no joy a merry heart doeth good like a medicine
but a broken spirit dryeth the bones a wicked man taketh a gift
out of the bosom to pervert the ways of judgment
wisdom is before him that hath understanding but the eyes of a fool are
in the ends of the earth a foolish son is a grief to his father
and bitterness to her that bear him also to punish the just is not good nor
to strike princes for equity he that hath knowledge
spareth his words and a man of understanding is of an
excellent spirit even a fool when he holdeth his peace is
counted wise and he that shutteth his lips is esteem
the man of understanding let's fire our heads for a word of prayer
father in heaven we thank you for this day and for our church i pray that you
fill pastor shelley with the fullness and power of the holy spirit enable him
to preach the sermon you've laid on his heart with
boldness and clarity of mind and help us to apply this message
so that we can be more complete christians and glorify you in
everything we do we love you in jesus name i pray amen
amen i want to look at uh proverb 21 the bible
says i'm sorry verse 21 he that begetteth the
fool doeth it to his sorrow and the father
of a fool hath no joy and what i want to preach about this
morning is kind of a dichotomy this idea of nature versus
nurture nature versus nurture now this is just kind of a
colloquialism or some kind of a phrase that people use in the world today to
talk about upbringing children or uh essentially
parenting and talking about the influences of a child
and what really is the cause of a child's behavior
and i think that this verse kind of speaks to the nature aspect
because the bible is bringing up this idea of someone begetting
a fool and how there's something tied to the nature of this particular child
being a fool and how it's going to be very sorrowful
to the father and to the parents that they had begotten a fool
now go to proverbs 22 go to proverbs chapter 22
and i want to look at a lot of bible this morning but look at verse number
six the bible says train up a child in the way he should
go and when he is old he will not depart
from it so this is the bible bringing up the idea of nurture so
nature is kind of this idea of what the child
is going to be like on their own what is their
inherent characteristics their own free will choices
some of it even just goes through their quote hard wiring in the sense of
what kind of genetics they have what they're predisposed to be like
as far as just their intelligence and their height and their weight just
everything about them as a person including their own choices and then
nurture kind of goes into their environment
it goes into their parents it goes into all the different factors
and a lot of scientists argue about this kind of stuff they argue about
well is it really the nurturing aspect that makes us who we are or is the
nature aspect and there's always kind of this
fight in this war and i believe it's because both are very
crucial and important to the makeup of who we are
that there's not just one aspect of well everybody has the same genetics is going
to be the same and everybody has the same environment's
going to be the same no there's just a mix
and at the end of the day we all have free will and because of our own free
will well that's just going to make just all
kinds of different outcomes possible when it comes to who we are as
people and we want to make sure when we look at the bible
that we understand what the bible is emphasizing now i think when the bible
emphasizes nature it's really emphasizing the fact that
we all have free will and that we need to make sure that we take personal
responsibility for the choices that we make
and then when it comes to the nurture aspect that the bible brings up
i think that's trying to emphasize the importance of parents
and the environment that we put our kids in and how much that's going to affect
our child's upbringing because at the end of the day a
parent has the single greatest impact and
influence on their child's upbringing now parents don't necessarily
they're not going to necessarily be the most influential character
but they have the potential to be the most influential character
because many parents could potentially ship their kids off to someone else and
allow that person to be the single greatest impact or influence in their
life they could just abandon their kids they
could give their kids to someone else they could send their kid to a boarding
school they could just send their kid to the public school
or to daycare or or give them to someone else and so that person might end up
becoming the single greatest influence or impact
in that child's life but as a parent you have essentially a
gift from god to become the single greatest influencer
in your child's life and you're gonna have a great impact
on their life and so we want to make sure that we realize that the nurture
aspect is very important now i think there's a verse that kind of
summarizes both look what it says in verse 15
foolishness is bound in the heart of a child
but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him so here
the first part of the verse is talking about the nature isn't it it's saying
the nature of children is that foolishness is bound in their
heart just take it to the bank children are born foolish in a sense they
have a lot of immaturity that just inside of them just to start
but there's a way to remedy that that's where the nurture comes into play
where the rod of correction can drive out a lot of that foolishness
now what we have to understand about the bible
is no matter what proverb we're looking at there's always going to
maybe be exceptions or there's always going to be a case where
this doesn't fit but we don't want to live our lives basing anything on
exceptions we want to live our lives based on the
general wisdom and the principles taught in the bible
and what the bible is clearly saying and do what the bible says here
because obviously we could look up verses in the bible that talk about
if a man have a stubborn rebellious son which will not harken to his father and
after they've chastised him like he's still going to be rebellious
that they would put him to death that would obviously be an exception
to something like this because the rod of correction didn't work in that one
super rare circumstance but generally speaking
the bible is just telling us as a whole the rod of correction is going to drive
out the foolishness in a child and what i i really want to get across in
the sermon this is the most important part of the sermon
is just that parents are going to have the greatest impact on their child's
future parents will have the greatest impact on
their child's future and when we talk about parenting
it's a great responsibility that god has given to us
now this is just kind of my trying to explain this verse
and in kind of a practical sense i believe as a parent
if you don't really do anything with your kids if you're not really parenting
them at all if you're not giving them an attention
you basically just do basically nothing as a parent
then you're almost certain that your child's outcome is going to be a
negative outcome like it's just almost guaranteed that by
doing nothing or not being very active in the parenting
it's just going to be a failure why because foolishness is bound in the
heart of a child so when parents just don't raise their
kids don't give them attention aren't doing
anything positive for them it's almost certain failure whereas
it's possible that someone could be a bad parent
or be raised in a bad environment and still turn out good and that's where the
free will comes in and that's the exception
but we don't want to live our lives thinking well i know somebody that
turned out great and they didn't have good parents
therefore i don't have to really work hard at being a parent or try you know
that's a bad idea no we should realize that even though
Daniel Shadrach Meshach and Abednego turned out great
in their environment we do not want to put our kids in that environment
we don't want to put our kids in an environment of the babylonians we don't
want to put them under the master of the eunuchs
we don't want to have them be abandoned by their parents and then hope that they
turn out well just like there's going to be people
that were raised in the public school system
that still have a great outcome are very educated
work really hard and it's kind of despite their environment
it's not as a result of their environment
but then the flip is going to be true as well that you're going to have in some
cases a good environment with good parents and
the child is just very stubborn it's very rebellious and again that's an
extreme as well what we wouldn't want is for
anybody to base their life on extremes and exceptions we want them to base them
on the general principles of the bible and
realize that the nurture aspect of parenting is very very important
we need to be driving the foolishness out of our child
and we need to encourage our children to make good decisions for themselves
so what's the point of nature versus nurture tell the kids hey you need to be
responsible for your actions but parents we also need to do the best
that we can in raising them and we need to work on
both of these aspects go over to proverbs 15 let's look at a
lot of proverbs here about nature now last week i preached a sermon on bad
kids and i just really wanted to showcase a
lot of places in the bible that talk about how many bad
outcomes there are in just reality and that's to show that free will really
exist that there really is free will and we need to take personal
responsibility but in this sermon i really want to
focus you know more also on the nurture aspect
but you can't ignore a lot of the nature verses that are found in the bible
look what it says in proverbs 15 verse 5 a fool
despises his father's instruction but he that regarded through proof is prudent
so as children you children you need to listen to your father
you need to obey your father's instruction and that is a choice that
you are going to have to make whether you're
going to listen to your father and whether or not you're going to
disregard the instruction that your father
gives you look at verse 20 a wise son maketh a glad father but a foolish man
despises his mother so people that are despising their
father despising their mother you know that is a bad personal choice
we should listen to our mom we should listen to our dad
and if you're wise you're going to make your parents very happy
go to proverbs 17 the bible says in proverbs 13 a wise son
hear this father's instruction but a scorner heareth not rebuke
it seems like the bible in the book of proverbs is constantly reiterating the
idea of children needing to listen to their
parents why because it's not automatic children decide whether they're going to
obey mom and dad children decide whether or not they're
going to hearken to their father and mother's instruction
and you know what we need to be encouraging our children to say
look you have a choice here but you need to choose the right thing
and we need to show them proverbs to show them when you don't choose the
right thing here's the outcomes that you have here's
you know the person losing their money and losing their health and dying young
and god being mad at them and god cursing them and god punishing them
and you're going down a bad path and being taken advantage of the strange
woman and the guy that's a flatterer and the
froward man and all the evil that's out there
and that's why the book of proverbs has so much instruction to children
because parents should be constantly giving instruction to their children
but at the end of the day the nature of the child
is going to impact how much they receive how much they implement them
and the best thing you can do as a child is learn
through the proverbs not through experience you know
everybody says experience is the best teacher i think proverbs is the best
teacher okay now some lessons obviously you might
have a little bit more understanding when you go through it physically
you might be like wow that proverb was very true but you know what it's better
to walk by faith and not by sight and just know hey the strange woman's
bad not because i know but because the bible says so all right
there's some people we just know we just know that that was the problem we know
that there's issues we know about flatters
you know i wish that i could just say i know flatters are bad
not through personal experience but just i just know
but you know what i know through both and sometimes it's nice to just
trust what the bible says and use its wisdom to guide us
proverbs 17 verse 10 a reproof entereth more into a wise man
than a hundred stripes into a fool so you know some people are going to be
more stubborn and you give them instruction over and
over and over verse 25 look at this a foolish son
is a grief to his father and bitterness to her that pair him
i mean isn't the bible kind of pointing a picture here or painting a picture
that children have to take personal responsibility for their actions i mean
isn't i mean what is the point of these verses
if it's not trying to say kids you need to be
a wise son don't be a foolish son go to proverbs 23
and let's look at verse number 22 proverbs 23 verse 22 so we're first just
tackling nature nature versus nurture i think that there's going to be
legitimacy to both of these because the bible teaches both of them
not just because of science but i i could quote for you all kinds of things
from science today and they'll even say the exact same
thing they'll say hey there's kids that have good upbringings and they just make
bad decisions and there's people that have bad
environments and bad upbringing and they make good decisions
but those are in many cases the exception not the rule
and at the end of the day we need to make sure that we are
doing the best we can to nurture them but we also have to
try to foster the right nature in our children proverbs 23 look at verse 22
hearken unto thy father that begat thee and despise not thy mother when she is
old there's i guess a tendency for men
especially to end up or even i guess ladies
having kind of a bad relationship with their mother
as they age as they get older thinking i don't need you anymore
or thinking well i you're just holding me back or
being upset with them for some reason you know we shouldn't despise our mother
we should love our mother we should take care of her as she took care of us
look at verse 24 the father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice
and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him
thy father and thy mother shall be glad and she that bear thee shall rejoice
so proverbs 23 verse 24 says if you get a wise child you're glad
the in proverbs chapter 17 it says if you get a foolish child
well then you're going to have no joy so at the end of the day the bible is
basically just kind of painting this picture of
you know a part of the nature of the child is going to have a great impact
on your feelings and emotions go to proverbs 28
the bible says in proverbs 19 he that wasteth his father and chases away his
mother is a son that causes shame and bringeth reproach
so there's children that will waste their father's instruction
they'll chase away their mother and they just cause a lot of shame
and embarrassment because they're a fool proverbs 28 verse 24
who so robeth his father or his mother and sayeth it is no transgression
the same is the companion of a destroyer what an evil child to take advantage of
their parents to get financial gain from their parents
to to rip their parents off or steal their
money or do evil under their parents you know the bible says they're supposed
to honor thy father and thy mother and of course that's respect but it's
also in the new testament when jesus christ brings it up
it's actually paying for them it's giving them money the bible talks about
honor widows that are widows indeed and the bible talks about show piety at
home it's talking about children taking care of their parents financially
the exact opposite would be ripping them off the exact opposite of being a robber
of them taking financial gain at their own
destruction or at their own detriment and you know children will do this
sometimes children when their parents are wealthy
or they have a will or it's the end of their life they'll do things that are
harmful to their parents to extract more wealth from them
you know put them in a home or or try to cause them to be on medication or
pull the plug or do all kinds of evil stuff to them just so they can get that
inheritance get the money extract wealth from their
parents you know we should not be robbers of our parents and we should not
get greedy of the inheritance and harm our parents for financial gain
the bible says you're a companion of a destroyer
look at verse uh seven go back down i guess proverbs 28 verse 7
whoso keep of the law is a wise son but he that is a companion of righteous men
shame is his father look this is someone that's
making their own decisions of what friends they're going to have
and as a child you could form bad relationships
you could hang out with the wrong people and what will happen
well they'll negatively offend offend you and cause you to stumble
the bible says evil communications corrupt good manners
the bible is making it clear that you can't just hang out with whoever you
want we should stay away from the strange
woman from the froward man from the evil people proverbs chapter one
is specifically about staying away from the wicked
and those that are trying to get you to be a companion of them
and the bible says when your companion of fools you're going to be destroyed
and look the companion of righteous men shame is his father
you know people that are going out there and partying and drinking and living
just a crazy life if you go and be friends with those people
you're going to embarrass yourself and you're going to embarrass your parents
for having made those kind of decisions okay and so
we need to make it clear to our children your decisions
are important and who you are is important
we need to try and teach our children to make good decisions
go go to proverbs 29 now let's kind of balance this out with what the bible
says on nurture proverbs 29 look it says in verse 15 the
rod and reproof give wisdom but a child left to himself bring his
mother to shame so again the rod and reproof are a way
for a parent to nurture their child and to give them the right instruction
and try and encourage them to have good behaviors
and notice that it gives wisdom so foolishness is bound on the heart of a
child but how can we take that foolish child
and make him wise it's by disciplining him
and in correcting him and instructing him but what happens if you never
instruct your child what happens if you never correct him
what if you're not spanking them what does the bible say a child left
himself bringing his mother to shame again there could always be exceptions
but we don't want to live our life on exceptions
is it possible for a parent to just not spank their kid
and not teach their kid anything and they end up having a positive outcome or
making good decisions yeah it's possible but generally speaking
it's almost always gonna be a failure and that's what the bible is saying if
you just leave your child to himself if you're not disciplining them if
you're not instructing them if you're not helping them
it's going to be almost for sure a negative outcome
that's why it's so important for parents to make sure that they're giving
instruction they're encouraging their child that
they are educating them that they're loving them they're doing all the things
that the bible is telling us as parents to do for their
our children look at verse 17 correct my son
and he shall give thee rest yea he shall give the light
unto thy soul notice if you correct him it's going to make your life easier
i can't tell you how many people i've noticed their child's being kind of
wild and foolish as expected and the parent
just doesn't correct them just doesn't spank them just doesn't discipline them
and i'm thinking like you would you'd be happier right now
if you would just get them under control it's like you're
you know some parents are like man parenting so hard and parenting so
frustrating and i'm thinking like yeah but you're kind of your own worst enemy
because you're just not correcting them if you would just take them out and
correct them they'd stop you know in our house we
kind of have this rule it's like if you're crying for no reason
then you're going to get disciplined we don't want you to cry
for no reason we'll give you a reason to cry okay if you need a reason to cry you
can have one but see then you know what that does it
discourages them for just crying for no reason
yeah and yet there's so many kids that are just crying for no reason
and then they grow up and they join the blm then they become a leftist and a
democrat and and they make a tik-tok account and
they just cry for no reason they just scream in the camera because
donald trump's president and they don't even realize he'll
probably make their life better you know in comparison to kamala i'm
just saying like if they had brought in the person that they wanted
it would have made their life worse just like kids like screaming and crying
that they want candy and ice cream and the parent says no and gives them
healthy food well that healthy food is going to be better for them
they just don't know better they're just kind of a brat
and at the end of the day brats should be corrected
punks should be put in their place and you know what children should be
corrected and you know what it gives you delight in your soul
if you say hey i'm struggling with parenting it just seems so
awful and these kids are just so terrible well sometimes you might just
need to increase the correction now look some kids are just hard some
kids are just ornery some kids are going to be
giving you a challenge and i get that and you know correction only goes so far
you can't just necessarily just beat the foolishness out of them you
need to also show them love empathy grace there's a lot of balancing
that comes to parenting but you know what if you're just not correcting them
if you're not giving them a rod you have a problem you need to implement that
you need to get them in control go if you went to proverbs 20
go to proverbs chapter 20 what does the bible
emphasize about parenting it emphasizes physical discipline
proverbs 20 look at verse number 30 the bible says the blueness of a wound
cleanseth away evil so do stripes the inward parts of the belly
now again a stripe is typically going to be on the back of someone
what does it have to do with the belly it's not going to do anything to your
belly what it's talking about is it's talking about a feeling inside
it's talking about that gut reaction you have when you do something wrong
you know when you're about to do something wrong and then all of a sudden
just your gut tightens and you kind of feel awkward and you feel nervous about
it and you think like uh that there's
something bad going on like i don't have that feeling well
you're a reprobate okay so you can just leave
all right but for the rest of us if you were to lie
or steal or cheat or do something you kind of get this tightening in the gut
and you kind of get this feeling and you realize there's something wrong
and you know when you get caught or you get punished you can sometimes have the
same feeling it's called shame yeah it's called shame we need to bring
back shame in our culture shame in america people don't feel shame
anymore why because they aren't getting punished
they're not being dealt with they're not having any kind of
public discipline or even private discipline and yet
you know it's talking about physical pain
giving you some instruction you know my boss always said this he said pain
teaches and it's just a great phrase pain
teaches because your body reacts in a certain way
when you've done something to harm it or to hurt it and you say like wow i don't
want to do that again that's a bad decision pain teaches us
not to hurt ourselves and harm ourselves and in the same way physical discipline
can do the same thing go to proverbs 13 go to proverbs chapter 13
now of course when we talk about our children we're talking about
disciplining little babies and toddlers and children and stuff like that
we're not implementing stripes and the blueness of the wound and all this
stuff that's obviously in context of much
older people and much more extreme punishment type
scenarios and of course when it comes to punishing children
our punishment should always graduate with the child in the sense that
it's very light you know when they're young and it slowly grows over time
but to some degree that you know there needs to be some level of pain
otherwise it's not really punishment you know if they're not crying if they're
not experiencing any kind of discomfort or
pain well then it's just not an effective punishment
you know the punishment has to have some level of pain in order for it to be
effective now it says here in verse 24 he that spareth his rod hated his son
but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes so again we want to chasten our
children betimes that's typically referring to something
being early you could look at this in a couple ways
early in the sense that we need to do that
at a very young age early in the sense that when you do it right away doing it
immediately and not delaying in punishment you know the bible talks
about negatively about delaying punishment
and how it can embolden the wicked it can cause people to go out and do even
more harm so when we discipline our children's we
need to do it um early we need to do it in a speedy
manner you know it's annoying how our justice
system just takes forever and it doesn't feel very just you know a justice system
should be quick i i think the worst punishment would be
uh when i was younger if i got in trouble my mom would spank me
and then she'd say oh and when your dad gets home you're getting spanked too
and then i just have to wait like all day and it was just this agonizing
tormenting thing because like i'll just kind of like have fun and then all of a
sudden that i'll just remember again that my dad's
gonna spank me when i get home like oh it's just like this is like so
depressing for the rest of the day and i'm just like can we just get it
over with you know it's just like the delay
it just makes it so much worse and so you know
we we don't want to have this kind of over the head thing where just all this
delay and punishment we want it to be speedily want it taken
care of and you know that is the best way to
punish our children but you know if you're not
if you're not spanking at all you're just wrong right and you hate your kid
if you're doing it occasionally and not very consistently
you also hate your son because it doesn't even say that he doesn't do it
if you're just sparing it meaning you're not doing it consistently
you're not doing it when it's needed when it's appropriate
the bible's saying you just don't love your child a loving parent will
discipline his children and he'll do it regularly he'll do it
consistently that's what the bible teaches
now go through a diffusions chapter number
six go to effusions chapter number six so when it comes to nurture
one aspect is giving correction and that correction can be physical and verbal
we need to be giving both obviously when they're little
i give a verbal correction but it's not it's not really meaningful
i'm not expecting to understand anything that i'm saying per se
i'm just i'm still i'm just kind of getting in the habit right hey you did
this it was wrong here's the punishment right
but you really can't expect them to fully understand until they start
you know getting to the point where they can communicate it's verbal and
everything like that but you know as they graduate of
course you want to be more clear i always want my children to know
exactly why they're being punished i don't want them to think that it's
just random or just dad has having a bad day or
anything like that it should be hey i told you to do this you didn't do
it here's the punishment and they can
basically expect it they know they're wrong
and and that's how you even can tell like whenever they're doing wrong and
you're like you just say their name and they just like get caught and they're
all like because they know they know they did
wrong and that's the important you're trying to teach them hey
when you do what's wrong there's a punishment let's not do what's wrong
when you get the instruction let's make sure you're listening and
hearkening of course when it comes to punishment
that's not the only aspect of parenting though we don't want to just only punish
our kids we're not just drill sergeants we're
not just in the military and we don't have to care about your
feelings and and everything else you know as a parent we should also care
about your feelings the bible says in ephesians chapter 6 verse 4 and you
fathers provoke not your children to wrath
but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the lord so now this is
the only time the bible used the word nurture
preachers are my nature versus nurture this is the one time you have the
nurture word used in the bible if you look up nurture in a dictionary
it says training nourishment education
upbringing so we want to make sure that we're training our child
and the lord that we're nourishing our child and lord that we're educating our
child lord that we're bringing them up in the lord
admonition so it's nurture and admonition admonition
is a gentle reproof counsel or warning so we want to make
sure that we are gentle in our correction and our
counsel warning this goes to show that as a parent you need to use discernment
and recognize you know the punishment of children should graduate with them
and it should start very gentle it should start very gentle
very loving you know light affliction and it should graduate with them as they
get older and older and that's part of the nurture aspect
when you're caring for them and thinking hey this is just a little
toddler this is a little child you know this is a young child this is
maybe a teenager you're kind of thinking about where they're at in their stages
of life and you're providing them different
punishment as they graduate and of course that's going to be to your
discretion as a parent there's no there's no checklist there's
no you know specific thing here that's for every parent to just recognize hey
am i giving them gentler proof am i am i considering their age am i considering
you know all the different factors i may punish my sons differently than my
daughters even just because of the aspect of you know
recognizing children are going to be different
that doesn't mean that like sons get spanked and daughters don't it's just i
might consider that hey the daughters might be different
and how i approach that or how much force is necessary
and i want to make sure i'm providing them gentle
encouragement or a proof
i also think though you have to understand this is not saying
that we shouldn't punish it's just saying we should think about certain
things when we come when it comes to punishment
but we also want to balance that punishment with love
with affection um educating them go go to colossians 3 i want to look at
one that's similar but it says provoke not your children to
wrath wrath would be anger intense ups you know being upset in an
intense way the bible says in colossians chapter 3
it's pretty similar verse 21 fathers provoke
not your children to anger lest they be discouraged
the word provoke is to stir up purposefully or in sight to stir up
purposefully or to incite so i think of
really the word that you could probably use is like a bully you know a bully we
don't want to bully our children you know when you go to school you could
be bullied by a lot of different individuals
and that doesn't really help you in your your upbringing
that doesn't really make you a better person necessarily being bullied
being corrected can bring you a lot of benefit you know it used to be in public
school that the principals and teachers could
spank the kids so you know in this when the public
school the parent or i'm sorry the teacher
would correct them they tell them the wrong and even potentially spank them
but that spanking or discipline is going to be based on rules
like if they're skipping class or they're chewing gum or doing something
wrong and they know the rules and they break
the rules there's a difference between a teacher
that's correcting them and spanking them and a bully
right the bullies at school aren't necessarily making better they're just
picking up and giving you a swirly in the bathroom
taking your lunch money just causing you to you know they'll give you a wedgie
i'm not trying to give you ideas here okay sorry for you homeschoolers
i'm just saying they're going to just terrorize you take your things
and it's not for any just cause there's no real reason it's just they're picking
on you and being mad at you you know that would be a bad thing as a
parent if you're going around and just bullying your children
where you're just doing negative things you're just picking on them you're
attacking them you're hurting them and look there are
probably a lot of situations where children are growing up in a
household where their parents are bullying them
they're not giving them it's not we're not talking about strict discipline for
for bad behavior we're talking about just for no reason
hurting their child for no just cause for no legitimate reason
they're just simply bullying them making fun of them
ridiculing them hurting them attacking them you know we punish our children
we don't want to have an unfair punishment we want the punishments to
fit the crime you know we don't want to give them a
punishment that doesn't make sense that wasn't communicated that doesn't
you know fit with the scenario doesn't fit with the child's age when we punish
our children we want to make sure that it's warranted it fits the crime
it's not excessive it's not too harsh you know you
obviously could even using proper you know spanking or discipline
techniques go too far just because it doesn't fit the crime
just because it doesn't really fit the example and you know we don't want our
children to be confused about discipline you want
them to get that cotton deer headlights look
where they they know they know it's coming because they know they deserve it
and they know what they did is wrong and they're just being disciplined
accordingly and it's weak as a parent if they know if the child
thinks they should be punished and they're not
then it shows weakness on the parent's side if the child's getting punished and
they just they think that there's no reason why
it's legitimate it can cause them to start getting discouraged
or have some wrath or have some bitterness or having some anger
now as a parent i know that i'm never going to punish my kids perfectly
there's probably going to be some times where they might even think that it
wasn't exactly right or wasn't exactly fair or they didn't like it or something
like that because it's just never going to be
perfect but you just don't want this to be a consistent pattern
you don't want this to be the regular situation because you can cause that
bitterness to keep building up and that bitterness turns into anger and
hatred and wrath and all kinds of evil against you as a parent and so you know
as parents we don't want to do something like that
we don't want to only punish our kids we want to make sure that we're balancing
them with affirmation saying hey that you love your kid you
should be telling your kid that you love them
you should be talking positively about them and you know talking about the
things that you like about them saying hey you your son's telling your
sons that they're handsome that they're they're they're strong you
know whatever it is that's accurate about them
they're a good fighter you know your daughter's telling them that they're
beautiful telling them that they're sweet
telling you like their singing voice you know all the different things that you
like about your child you should be constantly affirming them
on a regular basis not just only punishing them
not just only bring out the criticism not only at
you know telling them what they're doing wrong but also constantly praising them
encouraging them telling them the things that you like about them
you know we want to make sure that we're balancing punishment with mercy
it's okay if your child deserves punishment that occasionally you don't
give it to them it's called mercy you just say hey i
know you did wrong i told you i was going to discipline
you but this time i feel like you you're upset about it enough and i feel
like you got it so i'm not going to punish you and then
they get to see like oh wow and then they recognize and you know you
don't want that to be all the time you want to be sometimes so you want
them to hope they say like hey last time when i was really sorry and i
told my dad i'm sorry and i got right he was merciful me maybe he'll be
merciful me this time so then they get in a habit an attitude of you know asking
for mercy that they don't deserve hoping that they might get it and they
don't always get it sometimes they get it and that's kind of
how it works with god isn't it that sometimes when we
transgress and do wrong we beg and ask for his mercy and many times
we may not even be punished as we deserve but we want to be parents that
are like god because god many times does not punish us like we deserve
so as a parent there's going to be times when we shouldn't be punishing our kids
like they always deserve so there should be a healthy balance of
you're regularly punished it's happening it's communicated but then occasionally
we're even giving mercy and you know that'll sometimes win over the heart of
your child when you show mercy in some cases when
you you don't always give them everything
that they always deserve you're not just the law but you're also
extending grace above what they deserve sometimes
not only do we need to punish them but we need to give them affection
giving them hugs giving them kisses telling that you love them you know that
it's never going to be wrong it's never going to harm anything jesus christ put
the little children in his lap you should put children in your lap and
you should play with them and you should you know i love my kids love to be
tickled i don't know why they tell me that they don't but but then
but then they're like but will you tickle me and i'm like yeah you know
they're like don't tickle me and then you don't do it they're like come on
why aren't you tickling me and it's it's just kind of that thing
they just like to wrestle they like to be tickled they like to play
and you know we should have a lot of interactions with our children like this
we should bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the lord hey we need
to discipline them we tell them that they do things that are wrong but we
want to balance that with lots of affection
and you know we need to make sure that we're having a lot of positive
interactions with our children and this would just be a you know my
personal opinion but i just think if you're struggling with a specific child
if there's a child you feel like you're disciplining a lot
just just go out of your way to start having some positive interactions with
them just try to give them maybe a little bit
of positive attention that you weren't normally going to give them
just to try and help balance that out now again you know
parenting is not a science it's an art there's there's no
real way to know exactly what all the right things are to do
every child's different every circumstance is different every
environment's different everybody wants to give you all kinds of
parenting advice i think you should trust your instincts
and your heart because you know your children very well
and trust what the bible says about these things making sure that hey i'm
disciplining them i'm giving them attention infection and
i'm just going to trust the process and know
you know that's what the bible wants me to do as a parent go to genesis chapter
18. i think the scariest thing about
parenting though is the fact that in many cases you can't really know how
well you did until it's over and and that's got to be very difficult
it's got to be really challenging as a parent myself it terrifies me
it terrifies me to think about what's going to happen what the outcome
could be and if i made good decisions and you know
there's so many different things i think about like
my sons i you know i hope my sons will play sports like i did and
we can you know have fun doing those things together and i hope that my
children are you know smart and i hope that we can
have good conversations and i hope they love have a love for the
king james bible and i hope that they love church and and going there and they
have a desire to see people saved and i hope that they desire to marry someone
that's going to be a good person for them
and i hope that they make all kinds of good decisions in their life
i hope that they pick a good career and they stick with it i hope that they
stay away from the bad influences that are out there
i hope when i'm not looking that they're not going to go down dark paths there's
all these different things that i'm i'm hoping for them but at the end of
the day you know i can't know and i don't think
that anybody can know but what we should do is our best we
should do our best to try and help them and encourage them go down the right
path and we need to give them the instruction
that they need i think if anything i i want to make sure i
constantly am communicating to my children what they need to do
now genesis 18 look at verse 19 for i know i'm just talking about god
talking about abraham that he will command his children
and his household after him and they shall keep the way of the lord
to do justice and judgment that the lord may bring upon abraham that which he has
spoken of him so god commends abraham because he says
he's going to do something he's going to tell his family
tell his children tells what this is what you need to do you need to follow
my instruction and they do it and of course that's one
of the reasons why i believe god picked abraham
is because he could command his children his children would follow after him and
follow his instruction go over to ecclesiastes chapter number
eight go to ecclesiastes chapter number eight
ax 21 another great example in the bible of a parent
is philip the bible says and the next day when that i'm sorry when
and the next day we that were paul's company departed and came
unto cesarea and we entered the house of philip the evangelist
which is one of the seven in a boat with him this and the same man had four
daughters virgins which did prophesy so paul's just talking about
just kind of matter of fact hey we visited philip the evangelist and we
noticed this guy has four daughters they're all still virgin and they preach
they preach the word of god and so you know philip's a good example of
someone in the bible who is on the right path
now something we'd have to understand about philip is if they're daughters and
virgins and prophesying and they're at his house
they're probably not married yet right they're probably pretty young
and they just haven't gone under some other person's influence
and one thing i've kind of just noticed from my own personal experience
is that many cases daughters and women end up start to reflect their husband
after time like at first they're pretty much like
their father and they're following their father's footsteps but then
once they either start dating or get married or following another man
they end up often just kind of reflecting that individual and being
very much like that individual and so it's very important that we pick
you know help our daughters to pick good men men that they would want to
follow you know and a lot of times it's like
okay well i just want a guy that is really good looking but perhaps that
guy that's the only thing going for him and
he's just really a vain person and all he really cares about is his looks
and so if you're just following guy that only cares about his looks then you're
going to start becoming someone that only cares about your looks
and at the end of the day life isn't fair because as a young woman
you're usually already at your peak and for men they start getting
you know more attractive over time for some stupid reason i don't know how that
works but it's not a fair game and you don't
want to chase that you don't want to chase a man that's chasing looks
because then he might trade up later he may not really that be
interested in you he's only interested for one reason right now you know you
want a man that wants to marry you when you're young not
only because of your looks it should be because of your looks but it should also
be for other reasons too and we need to be very careful who we
follow and we need to teach our daughters
to look for a man that has good characteristics
that is good character that is you know going to be someone that's
going to be worth following and we want to have those kind of men
in our lives so our daughter can have someone to marry
i want to just quote another verse but the apostle paul also talks about
timothy and he says in philippians 2 you know
the proof of him that as a son with the father he has served with me in the
gospel there's also a tendency for sons to
follow their father now daughters i i'm just saying daughters
typically they end up becoming more different than their father
because they start kind of following the man if they follow a better man
they usually end up being better if they follow kind of a worse man they end up
kind of being worse where it comes with a son in many cases
the son is going to be a lot like his father a lot more like his father
and so as fathers sometimes you need to ask yourself this question
do i want my son to be me
that's a sobering question isn't it do i want my son to be me
and and say like no like there was a time in my life where i asked myself
this question i said no i said wow i want him to be a lot better
than me i want him to be a lot different than me
so then i thought you know i need to work on becoming the person that i want
my son to be so that i could try to encourage him
and be an example into him so that hopefully god willing he would
follow in my steps and be a better person
so in many cases we need to be a good person not just for ourselves
but for the people that are following us and looking up to our example
so they would be like us and timothy as a son with the father he was following
paul so he was becoming like paul you know it'd be funny i'm sure the haters
are like oh timothy's just trying to be like paul
and paul's like right you know he's just like that's a good thing
you know it's supposed you're supposed to be
you're supposed to be like the people you're following okay
otherwise you wouldn't be following them right the point is obviously you're
following someone to be like them now this is this is an important verse
not necessarily for all of us but for some of us because
you may say like all this sounds great but i i know i've known a situation or
i've been in this situation where it doesn't seem like it worked out
but i don't want you to lose i don't want you to lose
faith in the word of god or in the system just because of an exception and
this is what the bible says in ecclesiastes chapter 8 verse 12
though a sinner do evil a hundred times and his days be prolonged
yet surely i know that it should be well with them that fear god which fear
before him she's saying hey even though i know
there's exceptions even though i know there's people that
are just super evil and super wicked and they just seem to have
everything go good for them and live a long life i realize that it's still
right to serve god and he's saying verse 13 but it shall
not be well with the wicked neither shall he prolong his days which
are as a shadow because he fears not before god
verse 12 and verse 13 are contradictory did you realize that
he's saying in verse number 12 his days be prolonged
verse 13 neither shall his days be prolonged what is he saying
he's just trying to help you understand there are exceptions to the rule
the rule is if you're wicked if you're a bloody and deceitful man you should not
live out half your days the exception is someone like the
clintons and the clintons exist so that your fate
is tested but the vast majority of bloody and
deceitful men they died young they had horrible outcomes negative situations
bad things happening and of course joe's three's friends
they don't understand the exception thing at all
so they always come and they just accuse well obviously you must be wicked because
look at all the bad things are happening to you
and we just want to be careful that we don't
make exceptions for ourselves in every single situation
that we're not living by exceptions we want to live by the rules
okay well i know this wicked person and everything's going good for them so i'm
going to be like them no don't be like them and even if you
end up finding yourself in an exception situation
don't say like well now i don't think that the bible is right on parenting
because here's an exception or it didn't work
out in this one scenario for me or someone else or something no no the
bible's still right right okay verse 14 there is a vanity
which is done upon the earth that there be just men unto whom it
happened according to the work of the wicked
again there be wicked men to whom it happened according to the work of the
righteous i said that this also is vanity what is
the bible saying there's some people that are just good people
righteous people and then their life looks like they're a wicked person
just because like really bad things happen to them you're just like what in
the world and then the opposite there's people
that are wicked and then everything good seems to just happen for
them and it just doesn't make sense but you know that's because god doesn't
want to make it just so simple that everybody that's prosperous in the
world was doing everything right and everybody that's bad everything's
negative because then there's no more faith anymore then it's just like
okay but what people do is they find that one celebrity
that one lotto winner and they think like
oh look how great their life is but if you play the lottery
you will lose oh yeah but look at this person that won
yeah but they're the exception what about the
the millions of people that played and lost and lost all their money
and are just ruining their life by gambling and making all these bad
decisions and then the guy that won let's look at
his life five years after the fact and realize it wasn't even better
anyways so you know it's easy to just look at
some celebrity some athlete some actor and actress
and think oh wow look at their life i want to be like them
but they're the exception not the rule in many cases if you were them you
wouldn't want to be them anyways you just don't even realize what's going
on behind closed doors most of the people that are actually
praised in our society have the worst lives imaginable they're
on all kinds of drugs they're surrounded by pedophiles they're
surrounded by tiny hats that don't fit and you know that's just frustrating
when you're trying to put a hat on it doesn't fit
they're just surrounded by all kinds of inconveniences and you just don't
realize you don't know what their life's really
going like and so you just don't want to live your life on the exception
go to proverbs 19 go to proverbs chapter 19 we need to make sure that we're doing
everything that we can in our parenting and
you know as children you also need to make sure that you're taking
responsibility for your actions look at what it says in
verse 18 the bible says chasten thy son while
there is hope and let not thy soul spare for his
crying that if you have young children this is
your opportunity to discipline them because at some point it will no longer
work that's what the bible says chasten thy
son while there is hope notice the while
while means there's a point in which it's too late
there's a point in which it's not effective anymore
also notice this word hope it does not say
chasten thy son while there is guarantee it says while there is hope now here's
the thing i believe that if you are following the
bible if you're doing what we've read in
these scriptures that you're almost going to have a good outcome almost every
single time i mean it's pretty much like the rule but could there be an
exception sure and then the opposite is true too if
you do virtually nothing you're almost guaranteed a bad outcome
but is it possible there could be an exception
yeah it's possible there's an exception but let's not live our lives on the
exception let us live our lives on the rule what's
the rule chasten thy son while there's hope
and you know we get on our knees and we pray and we ask god to help and guide
our children and we want good for them but you know we have to do our part we
have to nurture them because if you don't nurture them
it's almost certain failure and if you do right
it's almost certain guarantee it's not certain but it's almost so you might as
well do it why would you not want to do it
you'd have to hate your child to not give them every opportunity
to be the best child that they could possibly be you have to understand that
everything we do is going to affect our children
go to first corinthians chapter seven what's going to affect your children
whether you put them in public school or you homeschool them
now here's the thing if you put them in public schools i mean they're doomed no
but i think that homeschooling is going to give them the best possible outcome
that's why i encourage it that's why our family does it
i think it gives you the best opportunity does it mean that children
could not thrive in a public school setting or not be well educated no of
course they could and in some cases homeschooling might
even be worse because if you're doing homeschooling
but it's just they're at home and there's no schooling
that's not homeschooling just being home is not homeschooling
okay homeschooling is where you're actually educating them you're reading
with them and let me tell you something it is
difficult is it can be frustrating it's time consuming there's a lot of effort
there's a lot of energy you know and i but i think that it can
be superior if done properly if done with a lot of
attention and a lot of dedication but that is going to affect your
kids what school what education what time you give them are they reading
do they know how to read are they good at math are they learning history
you know what history are they learning we have them we have like
textbooks that say like american history with a christian perspective it's like
that's like the subtitle and i like it and it's still not i need
to have like a new ib perspective okay because sometimes we went through like
the presidents and i was like there's some more information here
okay you get to you know bush and then you get to
barack and you're like all right let's get some let's this is off the page
instruction time okay
we need some other instruction here but you know
it's important to still educate your kids have them read a lot have them
study a lot learning foreign languages that's going
to really affect them you know what's going to really affect
kids divorced parents
and look i'm not trying to beat up on anybody i'm just saying it's going to
have an impact on the child single parents you know you look at the
serial killers like the list it's pretty much like
fatherless homes almost every single time
you look at the people that are being arrested in our country
in the highest percentages fatherless homes
you you look at the home life and you see problems
and again what is what did i teach earlier when you're not really doing
anything we're not educating it's almost a certain negative outcome
and we see that in the world today we see people that are not doing much with
their kids not educating them not putting much
energy not putting much discipline that they're just almost certainly going
to be a bad outcome and just so many negative outcomes
coming out of this world from parents not doing anything not
being there not educating not training not helping
them you know allowing your daughters to dress like whores
is going to be a negative outcome that's right
i mean if you if you realize hey my daughter is going to end up reflecting
her husband then you don't want to dress like a whore
to attract a terrible guy to attract a vain guy
that doesn't have good intentions that doesn't want to marry your daughter and
look in 2025 america marriage is kind of like
at an all-time low in the minds of men today
and i'm not saying that's right i think that's wrong i think that men should
desire marriage they should seek for marriage marriage is a great institution
but let me tell you something in the world today many men are afraid of
marriage they're terrified of commitment they're
scared to tie the knot because of what our government has
done to marriage and done to men and so as a young lady the worst thing
you can do is dress like a whore you should dress like a godly
conservative woman and try to attract a man that's still
interested in marriage and interested in a woman that wants to be an actual wife
and as as dads you should have control over your daughters and you should not
let them dress like whores you should not let your daughters date
sketchy dudes i've seen people not in this church probably in this
church but i'm just saying the person i'm thinking of is not in this church
okay i've seen people let their daughter date somebody and i'm thinking like
that guy would have been kicked off my porch by me physically
before i would let him come in my house looking like some effeminate queer punk
i'm thinking like this guy are you kidding me
and you say like are you allowed to do that yes i am
yeah i mean i would i would rather i mean i don't want to be
too crass but i'm like i'd rather become a striker than let my daughter date one
of those guys being a pastor is important to me it's
not that important so let my daughter be around some punk
i'll make sure that they can't date physically okay
it's sad i mean it's sad how many parents it doesn't even seem like they
care at all just thinking like do not allow that to
happen you know not going soul winnings in
effect your kids
not taking them out soul winning occasionally or regularly
not reading them the bible taking them to a lame church is going to affect them
not disciplining them and you know of course having a single parent
household or maybe maybe it's a joint but one saved and the one that's the
other one's not you know even though it's a negative
situation you can still overcome bad environmental factors you can still
overcome things look what it says in first corinthians
chapter seven i want to give you a little bit of hope
the bible says for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife
and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband else were your children
unclean but now are they holy so the bible says hey even if you don't
have a spouse that's gonna raise your children right you
could still do it and you could still have a good outcome
look at eunice lois and timothy you don't really see the mention of the
father it's it's likely i can't i don't want to
say something negative about his dad because i don't know
but it seems likely that his dad just wasn't very spiritual
he wasn't really into things of god and yet
we see the mother and the grandmother being brought up and it seems like they
were the ones that really influenced their children to
serve god and they do right and timothy's a great young man
so even if you're in a negative situation even if you have you're kind
of behind the eight ball when it comes to some of these
environmental factors you can still have a positive outcome
go if you went to ephishians chapter number five now i just want to draw on
the board a few things just to kind of help you
and i just want to kind of give you my parable of of
of the nature versus nurture and the parenting okay sorry if you
guys over here all right but i think that when it comes to
parenting one analogy that's kind of used in the
bible often is just seed when we think about it and the bible
even talks about the sower sowing the seed
which is the word of god and it's a parable used to talk about preaching the
gospel and getting people saved but i think that that particular parable
can also be used to help parenting even though that's not what the bible
is mentioning in the parable of the sower but if you kind of just think of
you know a man as a husbandman or the sower he's going
to sow seed okay now ladies don't get too offended
all right but in my parable the ground
or the soil is like the wife okay and you have the seed if a man never
sows seed never gonna have any children but where he
sows that seed is going to have a big impact on how
well that fruit tree is going to produce okay
and so you want to put it in good soil and the reality is
the woman you choose to to marry and have children with
is going to be arguably the one of the most important factors ever in your
child's upbringing you know if you say like what's one of
the reasons why you married your wife because i knew she'd be a great mother
and a lot of the other girls that were whores that i talked to briefly
i knew they would not be a good mother okay i didn't want anything to do with
them and so you know we need to think about
what soil we're putting in here's another thing
maybe the soil wasn't that great to start with but you can break up the
fallow ground and you can actually make that soil good
soil again so you know as a husband you should you
know work on your wife and make sure she's staying as fertile soil
that she's going to have a lot of nutrients because the soil is going to
feed the seed okay so you want to plant your seed in
good soil and that's going to have a big impact on your child's upbringing
now obviously in order for this to germinate
you need something
forgive me my crude drawing here we're playing pictionary you need
some water right you need to you need to
sprinkle the water and the bible brings up the water
as the word of god in many cases doesn't it i want to turn it i'll turn these
visions chapter 5 with you real quick but the bible likens the word of god
unto water says in verse 25 husbands love your
wives he's in his christ also loved the church and gave himself for it that he
might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word
that he might present it to himself a glorious church not having spot or
wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without
blemish swap men to love their wives as their own bodies he that loveth his wife
loveth himself now of course this is talking about husbands and wives
but it's talking about literally in the relationship giving her the
water of the word to help her and of course that water with
the soil is what's going to give this seed germination
and it's going to cause it to sprout okay and when it comes to
the in the outcome of your children you know
you want them to end up sprouting as a tree
and again that's not the only goal the goal is to eventually get fruit
but we need to water because without water it's not going to do anything
without the soil it's not going to do anything so let's think about a prayer
bowl if you marry a bad woman or you're
sowing your seed with bad women if you're just going around scatting
your seed to whoever whenever it's pretty much just a guaranteed bad
outcome think about it men that just go out and just scatter their seed and do
whatever they're not marrying they're just
girlfriend it's just pretty much negative outcome after negative outcome
after negative outcome very rare very rare exceptions to that
if you are with a god like they say a good mother
but you're never giving her any christianity any of the word of god
it's probably going to be another negative outcome how many people in this
world today they have a loving mother but they're not christian they don't
have the word of god or they don't go to a good church
or they don't care about the things of god they're not producing great kids
they're not producing children that are producing fruit
okay so we need the water then we also need
another thing
you need pruning shears all right and what do pruning shears do well when
you have a bad branch coming off of this tree or something
the pruning shears are there to basically cut off of that particular
branch and in order to produce good fruit in
order to have the tree be successful it needs to be
pruned and so if you think about a lot of the things that are important to
parenting that we're reading in the bible that we're thinking about
is you want the fertile soil you want the soil to be
giving nutrients and and all kinds of nourishment to the seed you need to be
constantly watering it with the word of god
but then you also need to have discipline and these are going to be
some of the most important factors when it comes to
raising your children and without these you're almost guaranteed to not have a
successful outcome is it possible that you could plant
seed in good soil and not be doing this and have an outcome
yes because couldn't it just rain so maybe
a grandparent or maybe a random person comes in their life and starts giving
in the water and giving the word of god and they end up growing and then maybe
someone else in their life comes and ends up pruning some of the branches for
them and so they can end up producing fruit
but the reality is that's very rare so you know who needs to be doing that
dad and the parents need to be making sure
that they're watering their children with the word of god
they're taking to a good church they're teaching the word of god they're
correcting with the word of god and then they're also pruning some of
those branches on a regular basis with discipline and of course then
you know god willing that tree will produce some fruit
now in a in a parable again nothing's going to be perfect especially mine
but obviously we're also trees too and we're going to produce fruit hopefully
god willing your child at some point you're going to
be pretty much done your little water can and pruning
shears are going to be done they're kind of on their own
they're a mature tree you're moving on to the next
you're you're doing your own thing that mature tree is then going to now
basically responsible what's going to happen afterwards it can end up
producing fruit becoming better than you it could be worse
than you of course our children can do the same thing
we can give them all the tools we can give them all the attention we can help
get them in the right place but at the end of the day we don't know
what decisions they're going we don't know exactly where they go and when it
comes to seed specifically any seed is going to have certain
limiting factors based on its own nature right some seeds
it doesn't matter how much water and soil and whatever it got
it was only going to be a certain height it was only going to produce a certain
kind of fruit right apples or something or oranges or whatever it's not going to
be able to get where it's going to create apples and
oranges so there's certain things that is inherent in the child
and that's with our child all of our children have different you know
characteristics about them they're gonna you know they're gonna be one's
gonna be male or one's gonna be female it's only options okay based on that you
know they're gonna have certain limiting factors
you know what if i don't water and i don't give them attention they'll never
reach their full potential so every child might have a different
level of potential okay and it may be that
this tree its max potential was this height okay
and for me as a parent like i don't care if my child is this tall or this tall
in their maturity and then they're producing a fruit as long as they're
just reaching their potential you know i just want them to reach
whatever their potential is and whatever god's plan has for them
what i don't want them to do though is not reach their full potential
and that would be me not watering not pruning doing whatever
you could theoretically don't have a tree
that you keep watering and you keep pruning and it just keeps doing this
and it's not that you're not watering it it's not that you're not pruning it
it's just it's a stubborn rebellious son which the bible says
and then what does the bible actually say you would have to get rid of it
you'd have to get rid of that and you know in society it used to be even in
the laws of connecticut of 1673 i could show you the exact reprint of
the laws it said if you had a stubborn rebellious son which is 15 years or
older and he looked like this that society
would get rid of it and we live in a society where we don't
get rid of these and you know what that causes a lot of
extra problems in society okay and i guarantee if this little tree
saw this one and then it got plucked up and removed
it'd be like okay i'm gonna get i'm gonna reach my full potential
i like this plan okay but we live in a society where you know
this is kind of happening and obviously you know it could be a bad outcome
because the parents not there right obviously you're gonna have lots of
people there maybe they're not even they're just sewing it on the
the wayside and whatever and just kind of like sprouting up here and it's just
kind of i mean this is a lot of people and if we
come along with our watering can and we water them maybe they might end
up sprouting at some point and having a little bit of potential
and actually producing something eventually
okay even if they're not our kid we could influence our grandchildren we
could influence our cousins and our nieces and our nephews
and our neighbors and this whole world at the end of the day even though i
can't guarantee this and this could happen i'm still motivated
to do as much this and this as i possibly can
we should do as much water and as much pruning as we can
we should do as much energy and effort because they won't reach their full
potential if we don't now the potential could be greater than
ours it could be a little bit less than ours
we don't know all we know is that this works and this works
and when you do a lot of it hey you might have a couple of these every once
in a while but you'll never have this if you don't do this
you'll never have a great outcome if you're not giving the water the word
if you're not pruning them if you're not doing what's right and so
you know i think that some people could use the nature versus nurture argument
as a cope to say like oh well my kids aren't good just because they're
a bad seed you know obviously we should take
personal responsibility for our kids and try to make sure that we can make
improvements or do the right thing but it is possible okay and this is how
i live my life you know it's possible that someday i
could be a joeb in some scenario you know my first instinct is never
that i'm joeb my first instinct is what am i doing
wrong what could i improve what could i change
what are areas that i should do something different in
and you know that's where the joeb situation is frustrating
it's not like joe just day one's like yeah i'm perfect you know
he's just kind of like i can't figure this out i've thought about it
i haven't been doing all these things people are accusing me i mean his
friends are accusing him of hanging out with wicked people and
and taking advantage of people and being sinful and he's just thinking like i
haven't done that i haven't done that i haven't done that i haven't done that
i don't get it seems like and they're saying yeah but every wicked person's
punished he's like what about these wicked people that aren't punished
and just constantly refuting them and he's just like man
if you guys could convince me i did something wrong then i would believe it
but you can't but at the end of the day he's still at least thinking about it
isn't he he's thinking like is there an area in my life that i can improve
is there an area that i need to make a change is there something i'm not doing
right and you know as parents we should always
be challenging ourselves hey am i taking church seriously
hey am i reading my bible hey am i being a good example and then when it comes
to our parenting we need to make sure that we're really
checking a lot of things go into third john chapter one we'll
finish go to third john chapter one thinking about the education that we're
giving our children thinking about how we're allowing our
children to dress and talk and act who they're hanging out with who their
friends are who they're dating if we're encouraging them to serve the
lord we need to be thinking about all of these
different things are we pruning and disciplining our
children are we educating them and
because of the fact that in many cases we can't really know
how things are going to work out until they're done i think a good idea
is to sometimes just ask people that are there
so you know i a few months ago or a little while ago i asked my dad
i just asked him i said hey in your personal opinion because we have a close
relationship and and we talk a lot and i just said what do you think if you
were to judge yourself and say like what are some things that you wish you'd done
differently as a parent what would you what would you have
done differently because i think that that's a good part like let's ask
somebody that has several adult children raise
them what would you do differently and my dad
said his number one advice the most the thing that he wished he
could change the most is he said he wished he told his children he loved
them more
he said i wish i just told him that i love them on a more regular basis and
been more verbally affectionate and i think that's
a good advice i think that's a pretty good wisdom now
here's the thing my dad was very verbally affectionate i feel like not
always okay on the golf course but um there was
plenty of there was plenty of good moments
and i knew that my dad loved me i have never questioned that i've never even
thought contrary to that but you know just his own personal
conviction he felt like maybe you know he could have he could have done some
things differently i don't want to sit here and judge my
own father i think that he was a good father
i think no one's perfect but at the end of the day
you know i've seen in my personal family and i've seen in
many people that i know closely some really different outcomes
in the same family children becoming way different and
that is a lot of their nature okay so we have to understand that there is a
nature aspect there is a nurture aspect but as a parent
only thing i can affect is the nurture and
at the end of the day there's nothing that's going to give me more joy than my
children doing right that's what it says in first look at
third john uh one verse three for i rejoice greatly when the brethren
came and testified of the truth that was in thee
even as i walk us in the truth i have no greater joy
than to hear that my children walk in truth you know if you really want to
make your parents happy be a good child
be a good christian you know this works for god too you know what makes god
really happy being a good child of god serving god
you know we've been thinking a lot about the parenting side
and and that's good but you know think about how god's our parent
and he was a perfect parent what of our outcome
and and realize you know we need to make good decisions
to make god happy we want our children to be happy with us
we need to be good children of god too and of course nothing
is ever going to be guaranteed but that's okay because i don't have any
guarantees in life i'm not guaranteed the next breath i'm
not guaranteed you know i got married with no guarantee
but i'm going to put every effort and energy i can in my marriage for it to be
successful and i know if i don't put any effort
energy in my marriage it won't be successful
i have no guarantee in my children but you know i'm going to put every effort
and energy in my children having a good outcome
you know i have no guarantee in my job i guarantee all of our jobs
our companies get sold bought the irs could
raid it you know whatever some weird thing could happen your boss could just
get mad fire you i mean there's no guarantee
you're gonna have your job for the rest of your life
but you know what if you want to keep that job you're probably gonna do a
really good job aren't you you're probably gonna show up and put in
the effort put in the energy i mean we're not guaranteed anything in
this life okay but that doesn't stop me from then
motivating myself to do right the only guarantee i have is eternal life
but you know what that doesn't cause me to not want to serve god
i do want to serve god and i do want to have good children and i want to have a
good wife and i want us to raise one of the
greatest generations to ever live but the only way for our children to
reach their potential is if we go ahead and provide them the
best nurture that we possibly can the best admonition the best of proof
the best correction the best wisdom and so let us put a lot of effort and
energy into our children let us set them up for success in the
future and let us encourage them and warn them
your success is dependent upon you we're going to give you the tools to
succeed we're going to help you we want you to be successful
but you have to make good decisions for yourself
please make your choices carefully let's close in prayer thank you heavenly
father so much for giving us all these different warnings and instructions and
wisdom i pray that you would just help all of us
as we're raising our children to have just be filled with the holy
spirit and be reminded of your instructions that we'd realize
the importance of physical discipline we realize the importance of love and
nurture and affection and attention i pray that you would help us to as
husbands to love our wives and to nourish them and
cause them to be good mothers i pray that you'd help us
to be good examples as husbands and as fathers i pray that
you would help us to motivate and encourage our children
to have a zeal for the things of god pray that you would help the mothers
to have patience with their children and to invest
to have energy and have hope for their children's outcome and i pray
that you would help a lot of these children and all
these children to be motivated to want to serve you and to be a good
example for the next generation in jesus name we pray
amen
all right in closing let's go to song number 173
song number 173 love lifted me
song number 173
so song 173
let's sing it out together
i was singing deep in sin far from the peaceful shore
very deeply stained with men seeking to rise for war
but the master of the sea hurt my despairing cry
from the waters lifted me
me
nothing else
me
love lifted me, love lifted me.
When nothing else could help, love lifted me,
love lifted me, love lifted me.
When nothing else could help, love lifted me.
Souls in danger look upon, Jesus completely saves.
He will lift you by His love out of the angry ways.
He's the Master of the sea, billows His will obey.
He, your Savior, was to be saved today.
Love lifted me, love lifted me.
When nothing else could help, love lifted me.
Love lifted me, love lifted me.
When nothing else could help, love lifted me.
Great singing everybody. You were all dismissed.