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 go to song number 182
Song number 182
This morning. We're gonna sing our first song is a wonderful story of love
song number
182
Song 182 let's all sing it together really loud on the first
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 or 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.
All right, for our next song,
let's go to song number 98.
Song number 98, the name of Jesus.
So I'll sing it out together on the first.
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 we're still winning so far, but we'll just keep
on pressing forward.
Also on the right, please make sure you're in prayer for expecting ladies.
Didn't receive your giving statement or have a question you can ask brother fur about that
upcoming events this
Pretty soon. We're gonna be having our rain osa 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 gonna be gone that Wednesday, the February the 19th.
Also, our kid's choir is gonna 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 asked 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 Bayrooms without their 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 a 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
We yeah, well there we go. All right
Actually, it was thanks to the Garcia. 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 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 our banix. I don't get it. Okay. All right. I'm not bitter. Okay, but
We'll go ahead and sing our Psalm Psalm 148
that was Psalm 148. Psalm chapter 148. Psalm chapter 148. Let's all sing it out
together on the first.
All his angels praise he him, all his foes praise he him.
Son and Ruth praise him, all ye stars of life.
Praise him in heavens of heavens, any waters that be above the heavens.
them forever and ever we have made a degree we shall not pass praise the
Lord from the earth he drags in there no deep spire in hails snow and paper
And all hills, fruitful trees, and all cedars, feast.
And all cattle, creeping things, and flying fountains of the earth.
And all people, princes, and all judges of the earth.
The glory is above the earth and heaven we also exultant.
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.
Proverbs 17, the Bible reads,
Better is a dry morsel and quietness therewith,
Than an 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 tryeth the hearts.
A wicked doer giveth heat to false lips,
And a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue.
whoso mocketh the poor, reproacheth his 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, becomeeth 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 it turneth, it prospereth.
He that covered the transgression seeketh love, but he that repeated the matter separated
very friends.
A reproof entereth more into a wise man than in 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 welps meet a man rather than a fool in his folly.
The beginning of strife is as when one leteth out water, therefore leave off contention before it be meddled with.
He that justifyeth 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 the fool to get wisdom, seeing 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 become its surety in the presence of his friend.
He loveth transgression that loveth strife,
and he that exalted this gate, seeketh destruction.
He that hath a fro-ward heart, findeth no good,
and he that hath a 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.
And he that shud at his lips is esteemed the man of understanding.
That's by 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 Shelly 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.
I want to look at Proverbs 21.
He that begetteth a 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.
It's the 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 essentially parenting.
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
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 to their quote, hard wiring
in the sense of what kind of genetics they have.
What 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 it the nature aspect?
And there's always kind of this fight and 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 is 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 gonna 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
influencer in your child's life and you're going to 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.
we could look up verses in the Bible that talk about
if a man have a stubborn or rebellious son,
which will not harken to his father,
and after they've chastised him,
like he's still gonna be rebellious,
that they had 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 gonna drive out
the foolishness in a child.
What I really want to get across in this sermon,
this is the most important part of the sermon,
is just that parents are gonna 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 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 gonna be a negative outcome.
Like you just almost guaranteed that by doing nothing
or not being very active in the parenting,
it's just gonna 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.
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 Unix.
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
Well, you 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 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 exists, that there really is free will and we need
to take personal responsibility.
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 five.
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 what, 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 gonna make your parents very happy.
Go to Proverbs 17,
the Bible says in Proverbs 13,
a wise son,
heareth his father's instruction,
but a scorner heareth not rebuked.
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 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 going down a bad path
and being taken advantage of the strange woman
and the guy that's a flatterer and the throwered 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 that.
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 are 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 than 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 entered more into a wise man
than a hundred stripes into a fool.
So, you know, some people are gonna 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, 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 over 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 gonna 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,
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, 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
My father and my mother shall be glad and she that bear these shall rejoice so Proverbs 23 verse 24
Says if you could get a wise child you're glad the in Proverbs chapter 17
It says if you could get a foolish child well, then you're gonna 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 wasted his father and chase of the way 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 robbered his father or his mother and say 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 rip their parents off or steal their money,
or do evil under their parents.
You know, the Bible says they were 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 the 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 seven, go back down, I guess,
Proverbs 28 verse seven,
who so keepeth the law as a wise son,
but he that is a companion of righteous men,
shameeth his father.
Look, this is someone that's making their own decisions
of what friends they're gonna have.
And as a child, you could form bad relationships.
You could hang out with the wrong people.
And what'll happen?
Well, they'll negatively offend you
and cause you to stumble.
The Bible says evil communications corrupt good manners.
The Bible's making it clear
that you can't just hang out with whoever you want.
We should stay away from the strange woman,
from the forward 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.
companion of fools are going to be destroyed.
And look, the companion of righteous men,
Shameth 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,
important and who you are is important. We need to try and teach our children to
make good decisions. Go over to Proverbs 29. Now let's kind of balance this out
with what the Bible says on the nurture. Proverbs 29, like it says in verse 15,
the rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left himself bringeth 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 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 then 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 gonna 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 our children.
Look at verse 17.
Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest, yea, he shall give delight 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 be happier right now
if you would just get them under control.
It's like some parents are like,
man, parenting's so hard and parenting's 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 gonna 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 from 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 they make a TikTok 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 is 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 gonna be better for them. They just don't know better
They're just kind of a brat and at the end of the day brat 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 and 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 honoree.
Some kids are gonna be giving you a challenge,
and I get that.
And 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 over 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
the way 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 gonna 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
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 moat 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, wow, I don't wanna 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 when they're young
and it slowly grows over time.
But to some degree, 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 spareeth his rod, hated his son,
but he that loveeth him, chasteneth him, but times.
So again, we want to chasten our children, but times,
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 we need to do it right away doing it immediately and not delaying and 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
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 think the worst punishment would be 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 have fun,
and then all of a sudden, I'll just remember again
that my dad's gonna spank me, and I get on like, oh.
It's just like so depressing for the rest of the day.
And I was just like, can we just get it over with, you know?
It's just like the delay, it just makes it so much worse.
We don't want to have this kind of over-the-head thing
where it's just all this delay in punishment.
We want it to be speedily, want it to be taken care of,
and that is the best way to punish our children.
But if you're not spanking at all, you're just wrong.
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 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 defesions chapter number six go to Ephesians 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 a point where they can communicate
and 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 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, you get caught and they're all like.
Cause 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 everything else.
You know, as a parent,
we should also care about your feelings.
The Bible says in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4,
I'm preaching a sermon on 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 and 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 gonna be to your discretion as a parent.
There's no checklist, there's no specific thing here.
That's for every parent to just recognize,
hey, am I giving them gentler proof?
Am I considering their age?
Am I considering all the different factors?
I may punish my sons differently than my daughters even,
just because of the aspect of
recognizing children are gonna 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 it comes to punishment.
But we also want to balance that punishment with love, with affection,
educating them. Go over to Colossians 3. I want to look at one that's similar.
But it says, provoke not your children to wrath. Rath would be anger, intense,
you know, being upset in an intense way.
The Bible says in Colossians chapter 3, it's pretty similar in verse 21,
Father's 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 in sight.
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 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 they're 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 they're 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. Free home schoolers. 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 bump 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, when 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 head lights look where they know they know it's coming because they know they deserved it and they know what they did was 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 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.
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
You know talking about the things that you like about them saying hey you your sons 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 me like their singing voice
You know all the different things that you like about your job. You should be constantly affirming them on a regular basis
not just only punishing them,
not just only bring out the criticism,
not only, 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,
I feel like you, you're upset about it enough,
and I feel like you got it, so I'm not gonna punish you.
And then they get to see like, oh wow.
And then they recognize, and you know,
you don't want them to be all the time.
You want to be some time.
So you want them to hope.
They say like, hey, last time when I was really sorry
and I told my dad I was sorry and I got right,
he was merciful to me.
Maybe he'll be merciful to me this time.
So then they get in a habit and 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 gonna 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 what?
That'll sometimes win over the heart of your child.
When you show mercy in some cases, when 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 them that you love them, you know, that it's
never going to be wrong, it's never going to harm anything.
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 and 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 when you 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, you know, my personal opinion,
but I just think if you're struggling with a specific child,
if there's a child that you feel like you're disciplining a lot,
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 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 that 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 and affection.
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 over 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 that's got to be very difficult.
That'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.
If I made good decisions and you know, there's so many different things I think about like my sons
And...
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 gonna 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 hoping for there.
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 to go down the right path.
And we need to give them the instruction that they need.
I think, if anything, 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 in this talk 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
So God commends Abraham because he says he's gonna do something
He's gonna 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 8, go to Ecclesiastes chapter number 8.
Acts 21, another great example in the Bible of a parent is Philip.
The Bible says, and the next day when that...
I'm sorry, and the next day, we,
that where Paul's company departed and came
unto Caesarea, and we entered in the house
of Philip the Evangelist, which was one of the seven
in a boat of them, and the same man had four daughters,
virgins, which did prophesy.
So Paul's just talking about, just kind of a 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 that we'd have to understand about Philip is if their daughters and virgins
and prophesying they're at his house, they're probably not married yet, right?
They're probably pretty young and they just haven't gone into 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.
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,
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 gonna 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 be that 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 has good character,
that is gonna be someone that's gonna be worth following,
and we wanna have those kind of men in our lives
so our daughters 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 me in the gospel.
There's also a tendency for sons to follow their father.
Now daughters, 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?
and say like, no, like there was a time in my life
where I asked myself this question and I said, no.
And 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 unto 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, 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 3 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.
So 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 in verse 13,
but it shall not be well with the wicked,
neither shall he prolong his days,
which eras a shadow, because he feareth not before the 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.
Yeah, right, yeah.
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 Job's three friends. They don't understand the exception thing at all
So they always come and they just accused 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 gonna 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, no, the Bible's still right. Okay
Verse 14 there is a vanity which is done upon the earth
That there be just men under whom it happened of the according to the work of the wicked
Again, there'll be wicked men to whom it happened that according to the work of the righteous.
I said that this also is vanity.
What is the Bible saying?
There are 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 one. 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 the many ways.
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 and 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 wanna live your life on the exception.
Go over what 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 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 chasing my 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 chase in my 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 chase in my 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's true, too.
If you do virtually nothing, you're almost guaranteed a bad outcome.
But is it possible there could be an exception?
Yeah, there'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?
Chasing 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
and we have to nurture them.
Because if you don't nurture them,
it's almost certain failure.
And if you do write, it's almost certain guarantee.
It's not certain, but it's almost.
So you might as well 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 1 Corinthians chapter 7, 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, that mean they're doomed?
No.
But I think that homeschooling is gonna 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 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 it 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 it
I need to have like a new IV perspective, okay
Because sometimes we went through like the presidents and I was like mmm. There's some more information here, okay?
You get to you know bush and then you get to Brock 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 chids have them read a lot
Have them study a lot learning foreign languages. That's gonna really affect them
You know, what's gonna really affect kids divorced parents
And look, I'm not trying to beat up on anybody. I'm just saying it's gonna 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 and the highest percentages, fatherless
homes. You look at the home life and you see problems and again, 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 of their kids,
not educating them, not putting much energy,
not putting much discipline,
that they're just almost certainly
gonna 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 gonna be a negative outcome.
That's right.
I mean, if you realize, hey, my daughter
is gonna end up reflecting her husband,
then you don't want her 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 that problem 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 have 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 when 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 that 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 winning is going to affect 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.
That's right.
Not disciplining them.
And you know, of course, having a single parent household
or maybe it's a joint but one saved and the other one's not.
Even though it's a negative situation,
you can still overcome bad environmental factors.
You can still overcome things.
Like what it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 7,
I wanna 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 where your children are 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 likely, 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 to do right.
And Timothy's a great young man.
So even if you're in a negative situation, even if 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 view it to Ephesians 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 the nature versus nurture in the parenting. Okay, sorry for you guys over here, right?
But I think that when it comes to parenting
You know, 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 husband man or the sower,
he's gonna 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 gonna 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 horrors
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.
It says in verse 25,
husbands love your wives,
he's in his Christ also love 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.
Swat men to love their wives as their own bodies,
he that loveeth his wife, loveeth 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 gonna give this seed germination
and it's gonna cause it to sprout, okay?
And when it comes to 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 parable.
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
There's girlfriend every girl. It's just pretty much negative outcome after negative outcome after negative outcome
Very rare very rare exceptions to that if you aren't 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 them water and giving them 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 parable, again, nothing's gonna be perfect,
especially mine, but obviously we're also trees too,
and we're gonna produce fruit, hopefully God willing.
Your child,
At some point, you're gonna be pretty much done.
Your little water can and pretty shears
are gonna be done.
They're kind of on their own.
They're a mature tree.
You're moving on to the next.
You're doing your own thing.
That mature tree is then gonna now basically be responsible
of what's gonna 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.
What decisions are gonna we don't know exactly where they go and when it comes to seed specifically?
Any seed is gonna have certain limiting factors
Based on its own nature right some seeds. It doesn't matter how much water and soil and whatever got it was only gonna be a certain height
It's only gonna produce a certain kind of fruit right apples or something or oranges or whatever
It's not gonna be able to get
Where it's gonna create apples and oranges
So there's certain things that are just 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 of me female
It's only options. Okay
Based on that, you know, they're gonna have certain limiting factors, but 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 it's 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, though, 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 or 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?
It 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 reach my full potential.
I like this plan, okay?
But we live in a society where you know this 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 so there's 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 their 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 Job in some scenario.
You know, my first instinct is never that I'm Job.
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 Job situation's frustrating.
It's not like Job 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 taking advantage of people and being sinful.
And he's just thinking like, I haven't done that.
I haven't done that.
I don't get it.
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 he's 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 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 over to 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 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've done differently?
Because I think that that's a good,
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 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 had just told them
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 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,
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 I can defect 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 verse,
look at third John one, verse three.
For I rejoice greatly when the brethren came
and testified of the truth that was in thee,
even as thou walkest 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 been thinking a lot about the parenting side and that's good
You know think about how God's our parent and he was a perfect parent
What of our outcome
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 gonna 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 gonna 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 into my marriage
It won't be successful. I have no guarantee in my children
You know I'm gonna put every effort and energy in my children having 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 rate it, you know, whatever some weird thing can happen,
your boss can just get mad, fire you. I mean, there's no guarantee you're going to 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 reproof 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 gonna give you the tools to succeed.
We're gonna 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'd realize the importance of love and nurture and affection and attention.
I pray that you would help us as husbands to love our wives and to nourish them and cause them to be good mothers.
I pray that you would 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. I 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,
All right, in closing, let's go to song number 173.
Song number 173.
Love Lifted Me.
Song number 173.
Song 173, let's sing it out together first.
That was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore.
Very deeply stained with ink, sinking to rise no more.
But the master of the sea, her mind is very proud.