Good morning everybody and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If we can go ahead and find our seats, we'll get started.
And once we've found a seat, let's grab a hymnal.
Let's go together to song number 23.
We'll start this morning's service off
with There is Power in the Blood, song number 23.
There is power in the blood.
Let's all sing that out together.
Lord, we love you and we thank you so much for this church.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to gather here
and sing unto you.
We love you and we just ask that you fill this room
with your spirit and help us to sing out to you this morning
and send Jesus' name, we pray.
All right, for our next song, we're going to song number 85.
Song number 85.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
We are joined out in this veil of tears, till we reach the homeland and the eternal years.
Good morning. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you did not already get a bulletin, you would like one.
I 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, Jude 15.
If you can quote the entire passage of Jude,
there's a special prize.
If you can quote the verse of the week
and you're 18 and under, you can get an ice cream treat
on our Wednesday night service.
I'm just kind of curious, who's already quoted Jude?
Has anybody already quoted,
I know somebody quoted it to me.
Liam already did that.
So, we got several. Who's gonna get this thing finished? Who's? Alright, we got a lot more.
So, keep up working on Jude, and you gotta earnestly contend for that verse, you know, for that chapter.
On the inside, we have our service times, our soul winning times, also church stats.
Please make sure you're updating.
you're soul-winning and anything into the group chats.
I wanted to make another mention about just soul-winning as a whole for our church.
We have...
soul-winning tribes and basically just anybody that's a member of our church
Should be in a tribe. Obviously, we have new people joining our church or coming to our church and sometimes
Maybe they get missed or they're not quite in one
And so if you if you're not sure or if you have a question about that
You can always ask me or brother West or we've been one of our ushers and we could probably point you in the right direction
but we have
these tribe divisions basically as an opportunity just empower some different
soul-winning captains and the main goal of our soul-winning captains is just to kind of help
facilitate some of the responsibilities with soul-winning help me just kind of encourage a lot
of people also go soul-winning a lot of people and then they're just like a really good example for
We have the West tribe
We have the fur tribe, which was originally the awe tribe Oz tribe and transition to me and him and things change
We have brother Milstead's tribe and then we have the urbanic tribe and we're just gonna make a minor change there
Actually Marcel Lugo is gonna actually take on this tribe and just start being the lead just for now
and so if you were in that tribe, you're still in the same tribe. It's just brother Marcel is gonna help leading that and
If you have any questions, you can always ask one of these guys,
Brother West, Brother Furr, Brother Milstead, Brother Lugo, me,
and we'll point you in the right direction and we'll help you understand.
Hopefully, you know, if you're in that tribe, they'll occasionally approach you.
Ask questions about soul winning, try to go soul winning with you and just try to encourage you.
Occasionally we try to have like a once a year tribe party where people kind of just
get together with their group and do something fun.
And so it's just an extra that we have for our church.
And if you have any questions about that we would love for you to just ask about it.
And of course our church really emphasizes soul winning and it's a really important thing.
And so we want to just try and encourage everybody to do as much soul winning as they can.
On the right, we have the list of our expecting ladies.
Please be in prayer for all of the expecting ladies.
We also have down below upcoming events.
If you notice, August 9th is a joint baby shower.
We have also on August 9th is the other teen event.
We had a teen event last night, and honestly, it was really great.
We had a good turnout, about 20 kids or so.
we had some some chaperones and it was it was a lot of fun and so I really
encourage you if you can participate in the next one
it'll be even more adventurous all right so
then we also have a men's retreat August 14th to the 16th FBBF
August 27th to the 31st missions trip September 8th through the 12th
Brother Diego is helping lead this and so if you have any questions or you'd
like to find out more information please ask him it's
And it's a great opportunity.
I'm sure we'll get a lot of people saved down there.
Baby shower details are listed here below.
It's for the Carlson's and the Aldermans.
And it's going to be from 12 to 2.
All ladies are invited to attend the event.
If for some reason you can't keep your kids at home.
You are allowed to bring them, but it is nursing's only preferred.
And so that's obviously kind of a hint to you guys to try and help out with the kiddos if you can.
If you've, even if you don't know these ladies that well, you're still welcome to attend.
It's just a great way to get to meet new ladies at our church and just celebrate with them.
So if you'd like to attend, that would be great.
Please RSVP to Miss Milstead about that.
On the back, we have our prayer list.
any additional prayer requests, you can email them in,
or you could fill out our communication card,
slip it into the offering,
and we will try to add you to our bulletin.
So, that's pretty much all I have as far as announcements.
We're going to go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week.
It's in our special Psalm in Him binder.
Psalm 119.
All right, that was Psalm 119 in your special binders.
Those that know well, sing it out.
Psalm 119.
My birdies, I shall never come to my...
Thank you.
Thy testimonies have I taken as inherit forever. Thy word is the lamp unto light.
Go ahead and open your Bibles to the book of Proverbs chapter 13.
That's Proverbs chapter number 13.
Proverbs 13, the Bible reads,
A wise son heareth his father's instruction,
But a scorner heareth not rebuke.
A man shall eat good by the fruit of his mouth,
But the soul of the transgressors shall eat violence.
He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life,
But he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.
The soul of the sluggard desireeth and hath nothing,
But the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.
A righteous man hated lying, but a wicked man is loathsome and cometh to shame.
Righteousness keepeth him that is upright in the way, but wickedness overthroweth the
sinner.
There is that maketh themself rich, yet hath nothing.
There is that maketh themself poor, yet hath great riches.
The light of the righteous rejoiceth, but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out.
Only by pride cometh contention, but with the well advised as wisdom.
Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished, but he that gathereth by labor shall increase.
Hope deferred makeeth the heart sick, but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.
Whoso despiseeth the word shall be destroyed, but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded.
The law of the wise is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death
Good understanding give it favor
But the way of transgressors is hard
Every prudent man dealeth with knowledge, but a fool layeth open as folly a
Wicked messenger falleth into mischief, but a faithful ambassador is health
Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuses instruction, but he that regarded through proof shall be honored
The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul, but it is abomination to fools to depart from evil.
He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.
Evil pursues sinners, but to the righteous good shall be repaid.
A good man leaveeth an inheritance to his children's children, and the wealth of the
sinner is laid up for the just.
Much food is in the tillage of the poor, but there is that is destroyed for want of judgment.
He that spareth his rod, hateeth his son, but he that loveth them, chasteneth him betimes.
The righteous eateth to the satisfying of his soul, but the belly of the wicked shall
Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer father in heaven
I pray that you bless the sermon this morning fill pastor Shelley with your spirit and help us Lord God to pay close attention
To the sermon and apply it to our lives
Help us to be doers of the word and not hearers only and Lord
I pray also that you would protect us as we go out soul winning later. We love you and in Jesus name. I pray amen
Amen, I want to look back at verse 24 again the Bible says he that spareth his rod hated his son
And the title of my sermon this morning is this,
Spank Your Kids.
Now, I'll be honest, this is not necessarily
gonna be a fun sermon.
I don't really wanna preach it,
but I am gonna preach it.
And at the end of the day, sometimes,
you have to do things that aren't pleasant
like spanking your kids.
And, you know, no parent that loves their kids
gets enjoyment out of this.
This isn't necessarily fun.
It's not something you want to do.
But there are just things in life you have to do,
like taking out the trash, you know, working,
paying bills, paying taxes,
and one of them should be spanking your kids.
Now, the Bible explicitly talks about this repeatedly.
And it's a really, really important thing to do.
The Bible says that if you don't do it,
what does the Bible say?
It says that you hate your son.
Now it says,
Not only is it an under attack in the world today many people don't want to do it just just by human nature of us being lazy
We often don't want to spank our children, and I think probably that's the biggest problem when it comes to
Discipline is just people being lazy and just not wanting to do something. That's uncomfortable
You know we just sometimes need to do things that are uncomfortable
you know and
this sermon will probably be uncomfortable
because I want to make some really specific statements
about a lot of things today.
But at the end of the day, you know,
sometimes we just have to do things
that are uncomfortable a little bit.
And, you know, I want us to understand that even if...
You know, you don't necessarily agree with me
or you don't necessarily like what I'm saying.
I hope that you at least realize that what I'm saying
for the most part is just the Bible says explicitly.
I'm going to give my personal opinion on a few things,
but for the most part, I'm just going straight from the text.
What does the Bible say?
And notice what it says that he that spared his rod.
It doesn't even say like, not spanking is a problem.
It says sparing is a problem.
because it's going beyond just not spanking.
It's saying not only is it a problem to not spank,
it's a problem just even sparing the rod.
And I would venture to say this.
I would say there's probably very few people in our church
that are just not spanking at all.
There's probably, I mean, probably almost every,
and I'm not gonna get a raise of hands
or anything like that,
but I guarantee probably almost everybody in here
has spanked or does spank in some way,
but I think that there's definitely,
even within a church like ours,
that's separated themselves from the world a little bit,
there's still gonna be parents
that are sparing the rod though.
where they're not disciplining enough,
they're not spanking enough,
and really the Bible does not teach or bring up ever.
I would challenge anybody to show me this,
a passage, a story, a verse,
anything in the Bible saying someone spanked their kids too much.
I don't see that.
Don't hear me wrong. I'm not saying that you you that that is not possible or that's not real
I'm sure that that is real, but I'm just saying the Bible doesn't bring it up
Because the biggest problem is people sparing the rod and because of society because of social norms because of pressures
Because of drama because of trauma because of anything you could think of people are just always
Leaning in the direction of sparing the rod and that's really the problem. The problem is not the other side of the equation
It's not children getting disciplined too much. It's pretty much almost universally
Children are just not being disciplined
Whenever you look at this from a historical perspective,
you look at other cultures,
American children are not being disciplined.
like they have in the past or like other cultures
or like other societies.
And we've gotten really soft as a culture,
soft as a country, soft as Christians.
And you know what, we need to make sure
that the Bible is our authority,
not man's ideas, not man's tradition.
The Bible says if we love our children,
we will discipline them.
And you have to understand that a child is inherently bad.
A child is inherently bad.
He didn't come out of the womb and you're like,
hey, let's teach our kid how to lie today.
Let's teach our kid how to steal.
Let's teach our kid how to cry and whine and argue and do all these things.
We're not actively teaching them that.
Sometimes we can buy indirect example.
Give a bad example and our kids could mimic that behavior and I get that but for the most part
they're just doing things that are bad because we all of a sudden nature or you know children are very
Unrestrained in their behavior and so they just act wild
They allow all of their emotions to come out and they just do bad things
Just because mankind is bad in general and by disciplining you're trying to control them
Some people would think like, oh, I don't want to spank my kid because he'll turn out bad. He's already bad
Spanking only gives them an opportunity to get better
You're basically you're starting off with a rough product and by disciplining you're giving them an opportunity to become a good product
There's the thing is discipline always gonna work
No, and the Bible brings up extremes where it could get to a point where it just didn't work
But you know what, it wasn't because you disciplined them too much,
it was because it just didn't work, because everybody has free will.
Go to Deuteronomy chapter 8.
We're going to go to a lot of places in the Bible.
I hope you like the Bible this morning.
And I hope you spank your kids.
Why? Because then it means that you love them.
And you know what, this doctrine is not an American doctrine, it's a Christian doctrine.
And you know, our church is filled with international people.
I mean, we're a conglomerate of people from all over, everywhere,
and I don't really care what your culture was, I don't care what your parents did,
I don't care what country you grew up in, I don't care what you think,
you're supposed to spank your kids.
And if you love them, you will spank them.
Deuteronomy chapter 8, look at verse 5,
Thou shalt also consider in thine heart
that as a man chaseneth his son,
so the Lord thy God chaseneth thee.
Notice that there's a direct parallel to how a man disciplines his child, to how God disciplines us.
And notice the word, Chasen, okay?
God chasens us, we're supposed to chasen our children.
This is a direct parallel.
And often children learn about God just from the sheer fact of us disciplining our children.
Because God disciplines us and God will discipline us and God brings pain in our lives
To teach us lessons just as a parent gives pain into their child's life to teach them lessons
Not because he doesn't like them
But because he does like them because he loves them because he wants what's good for them because he wants to bless them
And he wants to warn them from real pain
You know temporary
Spanking is not the real pain in this world
We forget about it. We get over it. It's done. What's the real pain is the lessons that
you know, you don't learn and they have to learn the hard way in real life and
You know discipline is gonna make you a better person. It's gonna bring you more joy go to chapter 21 just for a second
Look at verse 18
You know and in God's law
if a child were to smite his parents.
This is what Jesus like brings this up in the Gospels.
He says that if a child would smite his parents,
whoso curses his father and mother,
or if he smites his father and mother,
let him die the death.
That's what Jesus said.
And then we have an example here,
in Deuteronomy 21, look at verse 18,
if a man of a stubborn and rebellious son
which will not obey the voice of his father
or the voice of his mother,
and that when they have noticed this,
chastened him will not arc under them.
Look, I like this because it's showing a distinction
between just the voice and the chastening
because the chastening's not just a verbal correction,
it's a physical discipline.
He's saying, hey, they said don't do it. They didn't listen. Then they chastened him and notice that the law would not punish a child
If he was not spanked
It's saying like well, you didn't even give the child a chance to obey
You should give them the chastening. You should give them the spanking. You should give them the, you know, proper physical
corporal punishment that they deserve and if they won't listen to that, well, then we can elevate to this particular circumstance.
Then it gets to something more extreme.
And look, this specific law that we're reading about in the Bible right now...
was the laws in many states or colonies of America
in the founding of our country.
You say like, oh, that sounds horrible.
Well, then how come the greatest nation on earth
was founded upon these principles?
Like if these principles were so bad,
then why did they work so good for hundreds of years?
You know, it's so funny how people are like,
oh, the Old Testament's so scary and so bad.
Is it because it created the greatest nation on earth?
And as we drift away from that, our nation becomes worse and waxes, you know, less prosperous,
less freedom, less safety, all kinds of serious issues, not as much unity, not as much superpower.
I mean, we're waning in power, strength, wealth, prosperity, safety, all the good things that
come from the fact that we just don't do what the Bible says anymore.
And look, you may not like this doctrine
because of like having to discipline your own kids,
but I know and you know that you love this doctrine
from for every other kid that's out there in the world.
I mean, I mean, I can't tell you how many times
I've thought like someone needs to discipline that child.
It's not my child, but someone needs to discipline this child.
Who can think that?
Yeah, who?
Yeah.
If you didn't raise your hand, you're a liar, all right?
Or you can't lift your arm, all right?
I'll give you that exception.
But here's the thing, like, hey, as a society,
we don't want just children in our culture
that just will not obey their parents,
that could get physically disciplined
and they still wouldn't obey,
then this is just someone
that should be eradicated from society.
Look what it says in verse 19.
Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him
and bring him out under the elders of his city.
and under the gate of his place,
and they shall say in the elders of his city,
this our son is stubborn and rebellious,
he will not obey our voice,
he is a glutton and a drunkard,
and all the men of his city
shall stone him with stones that he die,
so shall they put evil away from among you,
and all Israel shall hear and fear."
Notice the Bible's saying, look.
Everyone is going to participate in this.
Every single man is going to say,
yep, you better obey your mom and dad,
and if you don't obey your mom and dad,
well, then you deserve the death penalty.
You know, it's not like any guy is going to be like,
hey, you have a refuge with me,
or oh, you poor little soul.
No, no, no.
Every single dad should back up every other dad.
Every parent should back up every other parent.
Okay, and here's the thing when your kid comes and tattles to me
Okay, or does something I I go to the parent I
Back up the parent, you know, I'm not interested in getting involved in all this drama
And let me tell you something the parents are right
The parents are right, the parents should deal with things.
I'm not interested in all this tattling and nonsense that goes on.
You know what?
Parents should back up parents.
And you know what?
Sometimes kids do this thing called lying.
I don't know if you've ever heard that before.
And I can just tell you how many times, I mean people will just side with their kid over
And I'm just thinking like you know what if an adult comes to me and says hey your kid was misbehaving and my kids like no
I didn't they misbehave
I'm not siding with my little kid my kids lie
And I'm like oh, that's just your kids best late. No, it's your kids too. All right
And look, I'm going to side with the parents.
I'm going to side with the authority figure.
I'm on dad's side.
And you know what?
We need to give parents the respect that they deserve.
Parents are the ones in charge.
And if a parent says, hey, this is my son,
he's stubborn and rebellious, yes, that's right.
And you know what, children should fear all the parents in this room.
They should obey all the adult figures in this room and the authority figures in this
room.
Now look, obviously if anybody gives you an instruction that's contrary to your parents
or the Bible, we have to obey the higher powers.
But just generally speaking, you know, we do what adults tell us to do as kids.
If you're a kid in this room, if an adult tells you to not to do something, you just
If they say, hey, get out of the kitchen,
you don't say like, eh, my mommy lets me do it.
Or whatever.
Get out of the kitchen.
Stop running, stop yelling, stop horsing around,
stop misbehaving.
We should back up each other, and you know what?
If an adult gives my child an instruction
and they mouth off or do something,
they're gonna have to answer to me.
What was the title of this sermon?
Spank your kids.
You better know I'm gonna deal with the situation.
And my kids know that I'm going to deal with this situation.
So you know what?
They actually try to obey.
Not always.
My kids make mistakes.
My kids need correction as well.
But let me tell you something.
When it's not an idle threat,
boy kids act a little bit different.
I mean, I had friends growing up and the dads that when they threatened their kids and it was real,
they shaped up like that and the parents that threatened their kids and then the kids walked all over them,
they never obeyed. And the kids know, the kids know how much they can press your buttons.
You know, go if you would to Proverbs, chap. You actually go to Psalm first. Go to Psalm 94.
You know, sometimes women or mothers will say,
oh, they don't obey me, and they obey dad.
Just ask yourself this question, are you an idle threat?
Yeah.
Because if you're not an idle threat,
well, then they'll probably obey better.
Does that mean that dad, is it still a little scarier?
Hopefully he is, OK.
You know I hope that you as the man as the dad
You know just having a deeper sounding voice just being a stronger person
Hey, I hope that they get a little bit more terrified
You know sometimes my wife's like telling me he's like oh the kids are a little bit scared of you
And I'm just thinking like good
Hey, but you know what even even with that statement my kids love me and adore me and give me a hug whenever I want
And they're constantly wanting to wrestle and fight with me and whatever
Okay, so it's not like it's it's harming our relationship in any way
But you know what the kid should have just at least a little bit of healthy fear and respect for dad and just be a little bit
Afraid of when dad says hey knock it off
In fact really good parents honestly
This is how you know you've arrived. You don't even have to speak. Yeah, it's the look
It's the dad look, you know, it's all of a sudden you're just like
And they're just like, they just shape up, right?
Or they just hear dad's footsteps, you know?
And it's kind of like Adam and Eve and they're in the garden.
They hear the voice of the Lord walking in the garden.
They're just like, they've run, you know?
And it should be that way.
You know, that's a healthy level of respect.
Now, Psalm 94, the good verse 12, the Bible says,
blessed is the man whom thou chasenest, O Lord,
and teaches him out of thy law.
Look, being punished is a blessing.
And why would it be good to just continue in bad behavior?
Continuing in bad behavior is not good.
It's a blessing to be corrected out of it and to stop the bad behavior.
Same with your children, the same with us.
Go to Proverbs 19 now, go to Proverbs 19.
There's a direct parallel to us disciplining our children and how God disciplines us and
how even children can form their ideas about who God is.
present in the home as a father.
That's why it's important to be loving under your children,
to provide for your children,
but also to discipline your children.
So they have a healthy understanding of who God is.
Oh, God is a benevolent dictator,
but he will still punish me too because he loves me.
And Proverbs chapter 19 verse 18 says this,
Chasing thy son while there is hope,
and let not thy soul spare for his crying.
Look, if you're doing the spanking right, they're gonna cry.
But what does the Bible say the Bible says to not spare did you notice again? Isn't that the same thing?
We read this morning at the very beginning
He that spare with his rod hated his son
So we should not spare. Hey, is it pleasant? Do you want to make your kids cry? No one wants to make your kids cry
No one wants to disappoint your kids. No one wants to upset your kids
My kids often they'll even look at me and they'll say please don't spank me or I don't want to spanking or whatever
And it's sad and they start crying before it even happens
But what should the what should the loving father do? I'm still gonna do it
Now does that mean that you don't sometimes show mercy? Yes, we need balance. I do show mercy sometimes depending on the situation
I may not give them a dis a spanking every time they deserve it because then it would just be non-stop, but
At the end of the day, hey, we need to still, you know,
have a good rule of thumb, and, you know,
the mercy should be the exception, not the rule,
but at the end of the day, hey, our kids need discipline,
they need spanking, and, you know,
some people have all kinds of ideas about all this stuff.
I don't really care about the ideas.
One method may work for you,
maybe different for another person, for different kids.
You know, some people say like,
oh, as they get older, you spank less.
Some people could say, as they get older, I spank more.
That's not necessarily true.
There's not like this, just here is how it is.
And you know, you could read all these books
on this kind of stuff.
I would avoid all of that nonsense, personally.
I think you just stick with the Bible
and use the discretion and intuition
God gave you about your children.
But you should be consistently applying discipline.
Some days it's gonna be multiple times.
Some days it's nothing.
Some children, one year is a really good year.
Some years are not a good year.
You're going to have ebbs and flows, children are going to come and go, some children are
harder than others.
There's no specific rule to any of this.
That's why God gave you a brain in your head.
You're not an AI robot that it's just like, eh, eh, spank now, eh, eh, eh, no, no, no.
You use your intuition, you use your discretion, you think about it, but what is the Bible
saying?
And you know when you're sparing, and you know when you're not sparing, and that's on you.
You need to be paying attention to your children and thinking about it,
and chasing my son while there's, notice this, hope.
Because eventually, the hope runs out.
Eventually your child is raised.
Eventually he's going to be pushed out of the nest,
or he's going to jump out of the nest himself.
And at that point, there's no more chastening.
There's no more time to do this.
It's over.
And so, where is he at?
Well, we have we want to get those disciplines in now
So they don't need them later in life from the government or from their boss or from their
Relationships or or whatever or just directly from God could be indirectly indirectly from God
Just we we need to give them the discipline that they need while there's hope because there's hope while they're young as they age
and they get more stubborn and more
Willful and just become a teenager boy. They just really change a lot
And, you know, there's a time when you need to do it.
And I'm not saying that you can't discipline your kids when they're teenagers.
I believe that wholeheartedly.
I'm just saying that as they age, the likelihood of affecting their behavior goes down.
Now, I don't think that there's a specific age where this stops working or something.
I'm just saying the Bible is—what does the Bible mean here?
Chasing us in, wow, there's hope.
And look, the Bible doesn't say guarantee either, does it?
We can only just hope for the best, discipline our kids appropriately, do our job.
But you know what we don't want to do is get to a point where we didn't do our job
and our children are suffering because we didn't do our part.
Go to chapter number three.
Here's pretty much one of the only examples I can find in the Bible
where it's just clearly outlining a fault on the parenting side.
are responsible for their behavior and their actions.
Children in the Bible are slaughtered at very young ages
because of their behavior.
and everybody is responsible for their behavior.
And you could be raised in the most perfect home
and come out rotten,
and you could be raised in the worst upbringing
and come out great because we have free will,
and praise God we have free will.
I mean, look at Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
taken into captivity as young children,
and yet they turn out to be great people
despite their upbringing, despite their environment, okay?
Then you have people raised by Noah, raised by...
Abraham raised by Jacob raised by all these great men in the Bible David and they turn out to be the most rotten people ever
Not because they didn't have a good dad, but because they were rotten people
Okay, so you can't say that there's any guarantees in life
But there's hope and of course the more you do what God says the better hope you have the better chances that you have
If you don't discipline your kids, this is just kind of my personal opinion personal rule thumb
If you don't discipline your kids, it's almost for certain guaranteed bad outcome
If you do discipline your kids, it's very likely to be a good outcome.
No, no for sure thing, no guarantees on either side.
But if you say like, I don't know if I want to discipline my kids because I want them to turn out right.
Well by not doing it, you're almost guaranteeing that they won't.
By doing it you're giving them a good chance to come out good, but it would be weird to think like oh well
If I don't physically discipline them somehow, they'll be good
No
God gets mad at the child and at you for this first same as chapter 3 lookers 11 and the Lord said to Samuel behold
I will do a thing in Israel at which both the ears of everyone that hear that shall tingle
In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house when I begin
I will also make an end for I have told him that I will judge his house forever
For the iniquity which he knoweth because his sons made themselves vile and he
Restrained them not
Why is God mad at Eli because he did not restrain his children his children were bad and he did not restrain them
Now again, he can't force them to be good
He can't make them any better persons than they are, but what he can do is at least restrain them
And you know as a parent you need to at least just restrain your kids
And you know what when you don't restrain your kids
God's mad at you and everybody else is mad at you, too
When you notice the children of Israel coming to the offering of the Lord the Bible says they abhorred the offering of the Lord
Because of the sons of Eli and because of what they did and here's the thing. You know what? This is extreme
but sometimes people don't like coming to church because of your kids and
It's not as extreme, but they don't like coming to church because of your kids because you won't restrain them
Hey, you know what we're in a tight space
We have a lot of people we have a lot of kids, but you you would be shocked probably I don't know maybe not
It's surprising I guess how many people will just even just admit they'll just come to they'll say like
I just don't even like coming to church because of so-and-so kid
And I'm like that's not a good reason to not come to church. It's a little stupid a little carnal
But I'm just saying it's a real feeling
That people have they say I'm just annoyed because we go and this kid terrorizes my kid or causes problems
Or it's just an issue or just annoying or upset my kid or hurt their feelings or did whatever
And it's just so annoying that this parent won't take care of their kid won't discipline their kid won't correct their kid
Won't do anything, you know
It's just annoying and then it could just like literally
Impact somebody's going to church because you won't restrain your kids
because you won't spank your kids and hey you know what we have a great church
we have a lot of great kids in here you know people love coming here but you
know what you could you could make it bad if we all just stop disciplining our
kids and stop restraining our kids and we just let our kids run amok and just
act however they want and they're totally disrespectful and they're just
causing all kinds of problems look they're children and they need to be
reigned in
This is church not a playground. This is church not a bounce house. This is church not a fort
This is church
Okay, they should behave and look I know they can behave. It's called me preaching really long sermons
They can but you know what you're restraining them right now
And this is what you don't want to do a lot of people just don't want to restrain their kids after service or in between services
You know what you're causing a lot of problems
For yourself you need to restrain your kids and look I think a lot of times. It's just because you don't spank your kids
Because not every kid is necessarily bad
But here's another problem because you don't restrain your kid and they're bad a lot of kids follow their example too. Don't think
A lot of kids fall victim of the lowest common denominator and they're causing problems.
And it's like my kids don't really act like this, but then when they're around these rowdy
people or these rowdy kids or these understrained kids, well, they just, they turn into a different
beast.
They start coming alive and it causes a lot of problems.
And, look, I'm not trying to just get mad at one specific person because there's multiple
people in here that are a problem, okay?
So if you're sitting here thinking, like, it's that other person, don't think about
other people.
Think about you and think about your kids or restrain your kids and you do right.
And of course, often you preach a sermon like this and the good people get a little
better and the bad people, they're just mad and still suck.
This is the non-fun parts of pastoring,
is preaching about things like this, enforcing rules,
parenting people, telling people,
hey, you need to fix this.
It's not fun, it's not enjoyable, nobody likes it.
But you know what?
People like having a friendly place to be in,
a safe place to be in, a place that's operating well,
and it's like, well, which one do you want?
Do you want the mean pastor in a fun environment,
or do you want a terrible?
environment, and it seems like the pastor's less mean to you or something, right?
I mean, it's like, you can't have it both ways.
You can't have everything the way that you want.
And you know what, in life, you can't just have great kids and not discipline them.
You got to do something about it. God got mad.
Look at verse 14, and therefore, I have sworn in the house of Eli that the
iniquity of Eli's house should not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever.
He's like I'm God's like I'm not only mad about this. I'm just gonna be mad about this forever
Now is it it's kind of crazy you think about okay
What does the Bible say about parenting and what are some of the pitfalls of parenting and how does God feel about like this?
Is the real clear example about parenting. He's mad that he didn't discipline their kids and
Then people will always be on the side of like why don't want to do some too much or I'm afraid of spaying them too much
After reading this story you should be on the other side of the equation
Not the idea of like, man, I never want to discipline my kids.
No, you should be disciplining them consistently, spank your kids, more.
I mean, there's really probably not anyone in this room that's doing it too much.
I just don't even believe that.
It's not real.
It's a boogeyman.
Go to Proverbs 22, go to Proverbs 22.
And it's so funny.
People then will bring up weird scenarios that never happen.
to try and make this sermon sound scary or something.
They'll be like, yeah, but what about this guy
that's just beating their children into a pulp
and hates them and tortures them or whatever?
And it's just like, well, let's kill him, okay?
I don't know, I mean, I don't really like that.
I don't like this person, I don't care about this person.
Let's all pray for God to punish him that way, right?
But I'm just saying, that's just not a real scenario.
Right it would be the same as if you applied it to any other scenario in the church of just
Random hypotheticals that affect virtually no one in this room, and we don't really care about
Okay, it's like hey be nice to people invite people to do things with you. What if they're a serial killer?
Well, well, you wouldn't want to invite a serial killer to hang out
Obviously, so I guess just never hang out with people then right?
Well, be friendly, but yeah, but what if I'm friendly to a pedophile? We wouldn't want to be friendly to a pedophile
So then it's just like we'll just throw that out the Bible, too
You know the Bible doesn't have to put a caveat to every single verse in the Bible
Like show they're so friendly unless it's a pedophile or serial killer or a communist or you know a Democrat
You know, it's like it doesn't say those things
The Bible doesn't just give every exception to every single situation.
And in fact, when it never brings up an exception, why do you constantly bring it up?
You don't think God thought of these exceptions.
You don't think God thought of those hypotheticals. You don't think God thought of those scenarios.
But then he just says, hey, discipline your kids, spank your kids,
beat them with the rod. I mean, the Bible is just hammering
one side of the equation. Why? Because that's really what you need to hear.
Not about all the quote exceptions. You're not the exception.
So quit worrying about it.
And they pretend like they care about other people,
but really they just want to cause problems
and throw shade at the Bible,
and throw shade at the Word of God.
You know, it's like Romans chapter number three,
when it's like people are being slanderously apported
that they're saying, let us do evil that good may come.
And it's like, look, I'm preaching salvation's free
because it's free, not to try and teach you do cocaine now.
right they're like oh you're teaching people to just be a gangbanger and do
cocaine and do whatever it's like no I've never said that okay it's like hey
spank your kids oh now you're green lighting child abuse and torture no no
one's ever done that no one ever wants to do that you're a psychopath for even
thinking about it
How am I the problem it's like I go out and say hey you believe in Jesus
He gives you eternal life will never take it away from you so I could be a serial killer drug dealer
You're like why would you bring that up?
Like are you teetering on that?
You were just like so close to the edge and I just like gave you the little tap over into that land
It's like I don't think the people that are never spanking their kids are about to just go to just a masochist
Just like just just abusing their kids and torturing them for fun. It's like that's just not real
We're trying to just get you to like a little bit closer to what the Bible saying like hey just discipline them appropriately
Right. I mean come on
People are just weird and crazy and they come up with psycho things
You know, they're the psycho when they bring up all these exceptions and all these weird
hypotheticals and whatever.
Proverbs 22, verse 15, foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction
shall drive it far from him.
Notice this is just the Bible explicitly saying your kids are kind of stupid, your kids are
kind of dumb, your kids are really fools, they make bad decisions, and the only thing
And that will drive it out of him.
That will help him.
Pain teaches.
Look at Proverbs 23 right there.
Look at verse 13.
Withhold not correction from the child,
for if thou beatest him with the rod,
he shall not die.
Thou shalt beat him with the rod
and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
There's your little caveat for all you psychopaths.
No spanking should even come close
to causing some permanent injury.
Because it clearly says that what the Bible's instructing, beating with the rod, could never cause death, could never cause permanent injury.
But what you are doing is you're trying to deliver a soul from hell through pain.
And look, God uses pain to get us saved.
So when you don't punish your kids, you're tempting their fate and causing them to be less likely to get saved.
And it's like, you, you know, and obviously spanking is going to be gradual with life, okay?
This is just my personal opinion. This is my personal discretion.
But when it comes to physical discipline, I think it's very clear you shouldn't be disciplining a baby.
A newborn baby or something. They can't even, they don't even know anything, right?
They have to first get to an age where they can even kind of understand right from wrong.
As they grow, as they develop, even when they're still nursing, though, they can sometimes realize,
hey, if they're grabbing mom's hair, if they're throwing a fit, if they're doing things,
you can start to tell them no, you can start to enforce certain things,
maybe give them a light tap on their hand or their bottom or something,
just to get them kind of used to this. It doesn't need to cause any pain even necessarily, okay?
And as they age, as they grow up, you would increase...
You know your physical punishment to the appropriate level for the child
That's gonna be a little bit different for every child some chat some children age and grow up fast
Like they just sprout up and they get big and strong quick
So even at the same age as another child they may need even just a little bit more force
boys may need a little bit more force than girls there's gonna be a varying scale of
discretion
what's appropriate, that's for the parents to decide
what's appropriate, but if your child
is 18 months, two years, and you've never spanked them, you're doing it wrong.
Again, that's my personal opinion, but the Bible says chasing betimes.
I think, well, you know, before that, they can get these things and you can start implementing.
No, it doesn't even necessarily need to be hard.
I mean, when they're somewhere between 12 months to 18 months, just the fact that you
touch them, like just, just, boop, like they could scream and cry.
And if they're, if it's changing their behavior and it's working, good.
Okay, and then it has to graduate, elevate, and of course, instrumentation, that's going
to be personal discretion.
I mean, the Bible says it's a rod.
The Bible brings up...
You know, people being chastised with different instruments,
that's to your discretion, what you think is appropriate.
I don't really care because it's not really my business.
But at the end of the day, hey, you need to be disciplining your child.
You know, for us, we like using wooden paddle of some sort.
We find that that's a really good instrument.
If you want to do something else, I don't really care.
As long as you're spanking your kids.
Okay. And why not use the rod, since it's literally brought up?
That makes a lot of sense. It works kids don't like it. I
Don't you know, I think it's very effective
But as they get older it's gonna increase and if if the punishment is not causing a change in behavior or is not
Hurting then you probably need to elevate
Alter, but look, I don't think that physical pain physical corporal punishment. It ever stops working
as far as God's program, because we can read in the Bible
that as you graduate in age, even when you become an adult,
that the rod is for the back of fools,
and that there's corporal punishment even for adults.
And so why would I stop, there's not this like magic age
where corporal punishment stops working or something,
or is not effective, or isn't something, I mean, look.
Even in society, in theory, if a guy just mows off to another guy,
and he just punches him right in the face,
he's gonna think twice about malving off again.
Now whether that was right or wrong, or he goes to jail or all that stuff,
I'm not really concerned with it.
I'm just saying, pain teaches.
And at the end of the day, it's still effective.
It still works.
Hey, if you're into school, most of you aren't public school.
If you're in public school and you do something,
it pisses someone off and they punch you in the face,
you'll probably be like,
I'm gonna think twice about that again.
Because pain teaches.
And look, parents disciplining their kids physically,
it still works.
Now, does it work on every single kid, every single time?
No, because the Bible brought up the stubborn rebellious son
that after chastening it didn't work
and you put that one to death.
But just, for the most part, it works.
Look, if I don't work in this environment
and it would never happen,
but if I went to work and my boss said,
hey, if you come in late,
we're gonna beat you with, you know, 10 lashes,
I probably wouldn't be late.
You know what I mean?
Hey, in the military, if you do something, you screw up,
you're gonna run, you're gonna do push-ups,
they're gonna make, you're gonna go through pain.
They're gonna put you through physical pain.
And, you know, when I grew up, I went to a Christian school and a public school.
And especially at the Christian school, they had the option,
hey, do you want us to spank your kid at school?
And my mom said, I signed up, yep, you get spanked at school.
And she said, and also I told them that they needed to tell me
so that you can get spanked at home after that.
And I was thinking like, what in the world?
But you know what just just even the threat of that made me nervous and made me want to obey and made me want to follow
The rules and look if I wasn't a real strict home where my punt my parents discipline me strictly
I guarantee my behavior would be better than if my parents were never going to spank me and not punish me
Because that's just that's just human nature and why is God doing this because there's a really bad pain that exists
You know, it's called it's called hell
It's a really, really bad pain, and when you don't respond to pain, well boy, you're not
going to respond to anything.
And when you won't respond to hell, you won't respond to anything.
And look, God is using pain to warn us of the pains of hell, and God uses physical punishment
to deter people from doing stupid things and causing problems in society.
in the home and then in society and then ultimately the worst punishment of all hellfire and he's saying hey you need to obey
God uses pain to cause you to obey
Why do you think when you put your hand near the fire it hurts?
Because God is saying don't burn your hand off you idiot
Why does God even give you pain in the in the first place, you know people think like pain is bad pain is good
pain prevents you from destroying yourself.
If we could go into your brain and just turn off the pain,
you would probably kill yourself very shortly after.
You would just burn your hand off,
you would just hurt yourself somehow,
you'd do something crazy to your body.
Look, that's why it's even dangerous,
and I'm not mad at you if you've ever gotten an epidural or anything,
but turning the pain off at birth can cause problems.
Because you don't even know what's going on look when you're in pain. You're like this babes coming out
You know you want to get to a solution when you're not feeling pain
Well, then you could wait longer your body's not responding as much you can push when you don't need to push you could push too hard
There's all these things that you can't necessarily respond to the same way because there's no pain
Look, pain can help you.
Look, what if there was no pain when you worked out?
You could totally destroy yourself, hurt yourself, harm yourself because you didn't
feel any pain.
You could lift too much or do something stupid or run too long or do something that's going
to kill you or harm yourself because you don't feel pain.
You could have your hand just slam in the car door and you don't even realize it.
You could just do all kinds of stupid horrible things.
You could just sit on something that's sharp and stab yourself and be bleeding out and if you don't feel it, you don't even notice it.
I mean, look, pain is a good thing.
You could be having splitting headaches
because you're dehydrated and your body's saying,
get water, get sleep.
You know, if you didn't feel any pain,
you may just try to stay up forever,
not even eat or drink.
Look, why is your body saying, feed me, give me drink,
give me sleep, rest, do these things
because your body needs it.
We need pain.
And these people that are just so against pain
are just against God.
They're against nature, they're against the word of God, they're against all common sense.
Pain is good.
Quit getting the stupid idea like, oh, I don't want to hurt my child.
No, no, you're loving your child. Spanking your kids is good.
Pain is good. Pain teaches us lessons.
But there are so many countries today that just hate this message.
I actually looked it up on my, I said,
What countries don't spank their kids like give me the stats?
The number one country in the world as far as not wanting to spank their kids is Sweden
Sweden
In fact in 1979 they banned spanking your kids
You should praise God that you live in a country you can spank your kids you cannot spank your kids legally in Sweden now
Some of these are just estimates they estimate that almost close to zero percent of homes are spanking their kids as a result of this
It could be up. It says it's definitely less than ten percent, but it's close to near zero number two was Norway
1987, they banned it, around five, this is just estimates, five percent are estimated
or less to use corporal punishment, Finland also in 1983, 10 percent or less, Germany
in 2005 to 10 percent, New Zealand in 2007 around 10 percent, and Denmark in 1997 around
10 percent.
Now of course, a lot of people praise and lift up these Scandinavian countries which
in this particular list, as being just amazing places
and so wonderful and so happy and all this stuff.
Well, then I just said, you know, well,
what does the Bible say, though?
Thou shalt beat him with a rod
and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
Isn't that the verse we just read?
So if you're not disciplining your kids,
what will be the result of that?
More people going to hell.
So then I just said, okay, internet,
which countries have the most atheists in them?
Again, these are estimates.
Okay, now, it depends on how you quantify this.
Like, if we're just going by sheer volume,
just the sheer volume, China for sure wins,
just because they have like such a large population.
But I was looking at statistics more like a percentage,
like a percentage of the population,
a percentage of the people.
This was the number one country,
according to Wikipedia and a particular person
that studied this, named Zuckerman.
Not Zuckerberg, Zuckerman, all right?
Zuckerman said he believes the country with the highest possible atheist group or agnostic group
around 46 to 85% of the country is shocker Sweden.
Huh.
It's almost like the Bible is the word of God or something.
Number two, Vietnam. Number three, Denmark. Number four, Norway. Number five, Japan.
So like pretty much a three, three of the top three
are the same countries.
Do you think, oh that's a coincidence, right?
No, it's not a coincidence.
Look there is something about us that physical pain teaches us
Physical spanking teaches us and by just wholesale just groups of people and families and churches and states and countries saying
We're not gonna spank our kids. They're just sending them the hell just you know large scale large scale
Just tons of kids are just going to hell, tons of adults are just going to hell, becoming
atheists because they never experienced physical pain, they never got disciplined appropriately,
and boy it just has something to do with their mentality.
I also looked up countries with the most, I just, just out of interest factor, it said
number one country was Egypt, number two was Nigeria, number three was Cameroon, number
four was India, number five was Jamaica, and number six was Morocco.
You know, this correlation is interesting to me but in general, most of these places that we talked about are very religious.
I'm not saying that they're necessarily all Christian or there's like a closer connection to being Christian or saved per se.
But they all seem to have a much more healthy fear of God or have some religious view.
So it's like countries with lots of religion seem to have more discipline than countries that are more atheistic and more agnostic.
And these other countries are probably into false religion,
and they have their oppositions of getting saved.
But like, it's way harder to get an atheist saved
than any other religion.
Maybe Jew, I don't know, it's about the same.
Kind of the same person.
But really, I mean, if you go to a door,
and they're like, hey, I'm a Pentecostal or something,
or I'm this other form of Christian,
they're way easier to get saved than I'm an atheist.
And one of these countries on the list, Jamaica.
Jamaica is a very receptive country.
And really, when you look at just,
I was looking at like bigger picture things
and like a lot of just the Caribbean countries
were listed on here.
And again, the Caribbean is one of the most receptive places
that I've ever been.
Obviously, America, when I was looking up statistics on it,
it's kind of divided on this particular issue.
So it said US spanking is more common in the South.
It said in the South it's estimated around 70 to 80% of people do spanking and it's highest in Alabama and Mississippi and
Then it said it's the worst in the Northeast or the West so you got like you know the colonies
You know New York
Pennsylvania, Connecticut, all that all that area and then the far west, you know
You got Seattle and Washington and all that and okay
What places in the United States are the most receptive for going soul winning?
the south or
The Northeast colonies or the the far west
It's not really it's not even a competition if anybody's ever actually experienced these things you would realize it's not even close
It's really not even close
And, you know, this could be another reason because who's noticed that black people are more receptive than white people?
But you know what? Black kids get the tar beat out of them.
And a lot of them need it, I'm just telling you, because they're real feisty.
I mean, it's just, you know, by nature probably. But you know what? That's a blessing.
That's a blessing and of course I guarantee the kids that didn't get much physical discipline or their dad wasn't in the home
They're more likely to cause problems and cause issues, but what you know, it's really hard to find a black atheist
I'm not saying they don't exist. You know Neil deGrasse Tyson seems to be like their champion or something
but
Like for the most part they're typically not like that and so you know look there is a benefit to being spanked folks
And I guarantee you the best people that you meet,
by and large, almost all of them were spanked,
feared their dad, feared their parents,
or physically punished.
And, oh man, your parents don't really love you.
No, my parents loved me.
And you know, in fact, I probably needed more spankings,
not less.
Who would say I think I needed more spankings than less?
Yeah, hands all over the room, all right?
You're welcome, kids.
All right, we love you.
It's not that we dislike you and look
You know, I'm not I'm not I'm not just like all talk up here or something
I had to discipline almost every kid in my house this morning now because I wanted to I really didn't
But sometimes it's necessary go to Hebrews chapter 12 go to Hebrews chapter 12
We need to spank our kids
And why would I want to go down these trends?
In fact, this is what I just, I just a quote that I found.
It just said public support, this is about U.S., the United States trend.
Public support for spanking is waning.
A 2016 Pew Research poll showed that only 35% of Americans strongly supported spanking
compared to over 50% in the 90s.
It's like, why are kids getting worse?
Well, the spankings are going down.
Advocacy groups like the AAP discourage physical discipline and they're trying to grow awareness of nonviolent methods that are trying to drive the decline.
It said, however, spanking persists in many households as often a quote last resort.
I don't think this is a quote last resort. In many cases, it should be the first resort.
Hebrews 12, verse five, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as
unto children.
So God speaks to you like a kid, my son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord nor faint
when thou art rebuked of him, for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeeth
every son whom he receiveth.
If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons.
For what son is he whom the Father chastened, if not?
But if you be without chastisement, where of all the partakers,
then are you bastards and not sons?
Here's a good lesson.
How many kids are not being spanked because they're a bastard?
How many kids are a result of a fornication hookup?
Mama daddy bet baby daddy situation or whatever and then they're not being disciplined because they're a bastard and not a child
Because the child in the home should be getting the loving correction
Whereas the bastard dad's not there no one cares
They're just out in the wild and they don't get that loving discipline that correction that they need look
there's no new thing under the sun God could already tell you the ending from
the beginning and the reality is kids that are born in these you know bastard
type situations fornication type households don't get the loving discipline
that they need
it's sad
Verse 9, furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence.
Shall we not much rather be in subjection of the Father, spirits, and lift? Notice by correcting your child, they give you respect.
My kids don't respect me. We'll get their respect. Make them respect you, right?
For they very late for a few days chasing us after their own pleasure, but he for our prophet that we might be partakers of his holiness
You say okay. Well, how do I understand how to discipline my kid? Well notice what it says here after their own pleasure
God endorses and supports parents are allowed to discipline their kids as they see fit
How they want to for their pleasure. I just don't like you talking discipline
I just don't like you arguing.
I just don't like the look you gave me.
I don't like how you worded that.
I don't like your sarcastic tone.
Oh, well, where is the Bible?
It says, after my pleasure.
So if I like it, it's good.
If I want it, it's good.
And some of y'all need, you say,
like, I'm not getting much pleasure
out of my children.
Okay, we'll discipline them for your pleasure.
Because look.
They're gonna become adults and they're gonna have to go to work and you know what they're gonna have to work for their boss
based on his pleasure and
Look, they're gonna have to live the rest of their lives after God's pleasure
We are to live after other people's pleasure and we're to learn. Hey, I supposed to care what my authority figures want
You know you're raising daughters to live after the pleasure of their husbands
You know what, I'm gonna be picky over letting people date my daughters because I think they're gonna be great wives
I'm trying to raise great housewives
Over here, and I want to be picky with who they get or who's gonna marry them
Because I don't want to just give a great wife to some guy that sucks
Now it could happen and I you know she's gonna have to take responsibility if you marry a guy that sucks
Well, that's your fault. Yeah, and you know what?
Keep loving him, you know just because your husband sucks doesn't mean you have to you can still be a great wife
I mean Abigail's a pretty great wife. It seems like in the Bible to a really bad dude
naeball
Hosea had to be a really great husband to a really crappy wife
So what is it Gomer? That's a weird name
You should have known by the name
Like I like that girl. What's her name Gomer? It's like I don't know about it anymore
Notice there's not a lot of Gomers walking around anymore.
You know what I mean?
Hey, but we discipline our kids after our pleasure.
Notice he does it too, but even for our prophets,
we get better as a result.
And I believe in most discipline,
you'll become a better person if your parents punish you.
Look at verse 11.
Now, no chastening for the presence
seemed to be joyous, but grievous.
Look, it should not be fun.
No one enjoys it.
No one likes it.
We don't want to do it.
afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them, which are exercised thereby.
If you do it right you get more peace. Will you ever have perfect peace? No. Will your kids always obey?
No. Will your kids not stop being kids? They'll continue to be kids. Do you want to live your
whole life just only disciplining them? No, but you better do it.
And you need to do it, it needs to be regular, you need to spank your kids, they need to
be afraid of you, they need to be afraid of when you give them a command and they're
not going to do it, they need to be afraid to break mom and dad's rules, they need to
be afraid to get in trouble.
Why?
So that they'll do right.
God uses that pain to then teach them life lessons.
Go to 1st Timothy chapter 4, 1st Timothy chapter 4, you know the Bible says that we, you know,
are in the house of God and it says specifically about the house of God that we're supposed to behave ourselves in the house of God and
You know the Bible I'm not going to necessarily go to every verse on this, but
The Bible says that we're supposed to know how we're supposed to behave ourselves in the house of God
I've taught you a lot of just good principles here and I want to apply it to church for a minute and we'll kind of end the sermon
And I hope that you pay attention still because, you know, it's still important that not only are you spanking your kids but that you're teaching them to behave in church.
And there's good behavior in church too.
And look, if you're only disciplining your kids at church, it's a problem.
Discipline begins in the home.
And it needs to be consistent in the home.
And that's where the majority of the discipline needs to happen so that you're not having to do as much in public.
And, you know, because our society is so weird on this,
I think it's probably best to do discipline in private.
You know, I'm not against public discipline personally,
but just because of the weirdness of our society
and how many people are just crazy
or snap pics and do whatever,
like, I try to always discipline my kids
as much as possible in private.
Just protect yourself, protect them, and whatever.
You know, if we live in a different society,
you know, some cultures, they'll just bank their kid
And look, if I saw a parent spinging their kid in the supermarket, I'm just going to be like...
You know, move on. Thank you.
I don't like it when they hand the candy bar, they're screaming and throwing the fit on the floor,
and they hand them the candy bar, I'm thinking like...
I'm thinking like...
Now look, obviously if a kid was being tortured or harmed in public, we would go run and rescue them and save them and try to figure out what's going on.
No normal person would not.
But look, we all understand a kid being a brat and saying stupid things and being a jerk and then getting disciplined by their parents.
And we're all like, praise God, thank you.
Okay, there's an obvious difference.
And we all are annoyed by the people that won't discipline their kids.
Go soul-winning with us in the neighborhood and you'll find lots of them.
And we'll get them saved, but at the end of the day it's like,
man, you kids need some discipline in your life.
And you know what?
Church should not be like the world.
It should be different in here.
Our kids should be different.
We should get them to behave differently.
And as a parent, you need to be an example.
Look what it says in 1 Timothy 4 verse 12.
Let no man despise the youth, but be that an example
of the believers in word and conversation
and charity and spirit and faith and purity.
You should be an example.
unto your children.
And you should be an example in this church.
The past is an example, but likewise,
all the men of the church should be an example
and follow that example.
And look, I get up and I occasionally,
it's not every time, give instructions.
Hey, kitchen be in the kitchen,
kitchen be running around,
kitchen be doing all these things.
And if you hear the pastor say those things and I know your kids hear me say those things and then they do them
And you don't enforce the rules. You don't discipline them. You don't get on to them
You know you're saying I don't respect the pastor
And you're saying I don't respect the pastor and I'm a bad example, and then you're passing that bad example down to your kids
And you say I don't respect authority and look if you can't respect a pastor or church. What institution do you respect?
I mean, shouldn't you, in theory, respect church and the pastor and the church rules
more than other institutions, than other places, than other establishments?
You say, like, why don't like your rules?
I don't care.
We've got to have some rules, and you know what?
When you go to places that don't have rules, they're terrible.
Go with me to Jamaica and drive for a few minutes, because you know what, Jamaica has
no rules on the road.
No signs. No stop signs. Oh the stop signs really cramp in my style. You know what?
Go to a country with no stop signs.
Go to a country with no laws, no speed limits, no anything, and you'll find out I really like stop signs all of a sudden.
I really like...in fact, you'll even like building code. You go with me to a foreign country,
and this is like the corner of the intersection for the road, okay? And the building will be right here.
Well, you know when you're sitting in a car like this,
you know what you're looking at when you look right?
A building.
So a car driving 40 miles an hour, you can't see.
And then it's real easy to just turn into oncoming traffic
or someone gonna hit you.
And like, I did it one time in the Bahamas,
and this girl got out and she lost her mind on me.
And I just said, have a good day.
That was the worst that I could have said.
Have a good day!
But you know you go you go to America and you have a thing called an easement
It means they can't build they can't put buildings at the edge of corners of property
They have to have them way back so that when you pull up to an intersection you can see way down the road and it's for safety
You're like all these stupid easement rules and stuff like that. Oh, I hate all the policing and all this stuff
Look if you didn't have policing, you know what everybody would drive like a crazy maniac and look
Praise God, you live in a country where you can if you want to.
You know, I kind of like it.
It's like, please keep everybody else in check so I can drive fast.
And then if I get in trouble, I have to pay a fine.
But it's like, hey, it's just the cost of doing business, isn't it?
If I get a ticket, I'm just thinking like,
okay, I probably deserved it.
But at the end of the day, hey, I like society
being kept in check.
I like rules.
God has rules to keep us in check.
Like, that should not kill.
That's not cramping my style.
And let me tell you something.
You know what?
We have rules in the house of God
so that things are decent and in order
and we don't cause more problems.
And you may think like, well, I don't like this role.
Maybe you're just too stupid to understand it.
And maybe if you were actually in charge of something you'd realize you need some rules.
But maybe if you were in charge of things they would just be crappy
because you don't enforce rules and you don't have rules.
You know what? People have rules to make things better.
God gave us rules to make things better.
Church has rules.
Why don't you be an example into your family and say,
hey, we actually follow the rules at church.
We don't just disregard and don't care.
And look, if you don't follow the rules,
somebody will tell you to follow the rules,
but I wouldn't want to be that person.
We shouldn't just be letting kids run around
and play in church like a jungle gym, because it's not.
And they should learn the difference
between a jungle gym and church.
And look, every kid needs this reminder.
Every kid needs to be told to not do this.
I mean, how many church supplies, cups, waters,
hymnals, so many material, chairs, whatever,
would be destroyed?
if we never said anything, and you never said anything.
And is that what you really want?
Do you really want us to just waste thousands of dollars
of church money and resources on constant
just replacing all this stuff and all the headaches
and all the trash?
And look, most of you don't clean the church.
Most of you have never cleaned the church.
We have people that volunteer their free time
to clean the church.
Is it really fair for them to come
and clean up all of your kids' crumbs and trash
and filth and mess every single week
because you won't restrain your kids?
That's not fair, I'm not going to take my kids over and drop them off at your house to cause a bunch of a mess
And then come pick them up later and say thanks for the free child care
You know a lot of people like the free child care that comes to this church where there's huge messes and all kinds of problems in the
Building and then someone magically comes and cleans it up
It's like that meme video, this guy is saying like,
you know, he's living in an apartment,
it's all messy and trashy everywhere,
and his wife's coming over, and it's just like,
man, you know, you're just a slob.
We have all these problems.
And he's like, let me tell you about this magic hamper.
And he's like, it's the coffee table.
If I just put clothes on the coffee table,
and walk away, eventually the clothes just disappear.
And then they get folded into my dresser.
And she's just like looks at him mad and he's like in fact actually anything you put on this coffee table just disappears
He's like I just put you know empty pizza boxes and cups and whatever and then I come back and it's all gone
And it's just a joke because the wife's obviously cleaning up after him
And it's like look just because you can just make the biggest mess in the world at church
And then it magically gets cleaned up doesn't mean someone didn't do that
And you know what? It's just unfair to be unpaid volunteers cleaning up after your kids.
Because you wouldn't do that at your house.
Because guess what? The unpaid cleaning volunteers don't come to your house to clean up your messes either.
You know what? It's weird that you would go to God's house and let your kids run amok and
let God clean up after you. Isn't that weird?
I mean you realize this is the house of God, this is the house for the Lord Jesus Christ.
You really treat the house of Jesus worse than your own house?
because you won't spank your kids,
because you won't restrain your kids,
because you don't care.
And look, I want us to fellowship
and have a good time and talk and have fun,
but not at the expense of everybody else
and just letting your kids go to trash
and just not paying attention.
Look, spank your kids regularly,
pay attention and discipline them,
and it's not a big problem.
I just think most of the time
when I look at people that have this huge problem,
there's like, I don't think y'all spank your kids.
I think you're sparing the rod a lot.
And I think your kids don't care, and they don't respect adults,
and they talk back to adults, and they're just running amok,
and it's embarrassing, it's weird, it's annoying,
it's a bad example, visitors don't like it, I don't like it,
everybody else here doesn't like it, your kids don't like it.
Spank your kids, restrain your kids.
You know, the Bible says he that is slothful in his work
is brother to him that is a great waster.
Because you're too lazy to spank your kids,
to discipline your kids.
We waste stuff at the church.
We waste people's time, we waste money,
we waste energy, we waste all kinds of things.
And I have to get up here and yell at you
and you're uncomfortable.
You think I like preaching like this?
I hate it.
And look, I'm not even saying this because we're worse than other people.
We might be the best church in the world, but I don't want to just settle for whatever
we're at.
Let's get better.
Let's do better.
Let's be a great example, not a mediocre example.
You know, look, I'll just say this, it's a rumor, it's hearsay.
I don't know.
I've heard a lot of people say, boy, you know, when you go to other new IP churches, it's
And you actually have to, like, you know, watch your kids.
And I'm thinking, like, great.
I hope that's my reputation.
Not like, oh, man, you have to actually watch your kids.
Praise God.
In fact, I think he's getting more, not less.
I'm not, I'm not, like, leaning into, like, oh, man,
these other people are, like, more lax.
That's their problem.
I don't want that problem.
The Bible says that we're supposed to teach our children to be a good steward.
The Bible says moreover it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful.
The Bible says in Luke 12, the Lord said,
Who then is that faithful and wise steward?
Whom is Lord shall make ruler?
What else?
We should teach our kids to be a good steward of church, of hymnals, of bibles,
of church materials, of everything that we have,
and not saying, hey, this is just something to trash and just run amuck and do whatever.
You wouldn't do that.
Money is, you know, being stretched thin these days.
You wouldn't want to let your kids just waste a bunch of your resources at your house.
Why should we let them do that at church?
Is that how you want your tithes spent on just your kids destroying material?
How will your kids learn to reverence the house of God if they run and yell and they're destructive?
Leviticus 19, look at verse 30,
My sanctuary. I'm the Lord when you went to the temple of God
It was a special sacred holy place. You didn't just act however you wanted you were in your best behavior
We should be on our best behavior at church. We're in our best clothes
We're not in system ragged play clothes or pajamas running around screaming and building forts
We're having church. We're here to serve God
We're here to be the best versions of ourselves today and to present ourselves
Acceptable Lord look at chapter 26 verse 2. It's the same thing
Leviticus 26, look at verse 2.
You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary. That means respect the house of God.
I am the Lord. Why would God want to give us a bigger, nicer building if we can't even take care of the one we have?
And look, I would love to have a nice building that has a kid's playground, a really big fellowship room,
have all kinds of extra spaces.
And personally, I think if we had those,
it would make some things easier.
But I also know this, if we are doing such a bad job now,
it might make it worse.
People just trash things even worse.
You know, we need to learn how to be respectful,
take care of things, so that God will bless us
with other stuff.
Go to Proverbs 29, it's the last verse I'm gonna have you go to.
And look, if women are upset,
about having to control their children if they're mad about the rules that we have in our church
It's because you're lazy, and you can't control your kids
So if I'm gonna say it again
If you are complaining or mad about us giving you rules or telling you to control your kids
It's because you're lazy, and you can't control your kids
It's the only reason because if your kids are well behaved you're just like okay check
Move on with my life
But if it's like, man, I'm just not controlling them.
They just do whatever they want.
They just run amuck.
They're causing all these problems.
And we're like, hey, controller of kids, do this.
And you get mad at us.
You're just displacing your anger.
Your anger is just at yourself for being a lazy person.
And look, my wife has had times where she wasn't pleased
with our children's behavior in church more than others.
And you know what she did?
She just had church at home.
The kids have to sit on the couch and they have to just listen to a sermon and if they act wrong
You know they got a spanky
These have to sit there and just act appropriate act right do right and look when you do a Monday Tuesday
Wednesday Thursday Friday. Hey, they're pretty good by Sunday
And look you don't have to do this rest of your life. She doesn't do this irregularly. This is just hey
I need a spot treatment.
You know, this is an issue,
so we're gonna figure out how to do this.
And you know what?
That's just a tip.
You don't have to do that.
I'm just giving you some tips here.
What does the Bible say?
Proverbs 29, verse 15.
And look, just because the church service is over
does not mean we turn the church into a jungle gym
or a playground.
It's not a jungle gym or playground, it never will be.
You know, we offer a thing called quiet time at our church
in between services.
And I think people are confused about what the word quiet means.
It means shut up.
It means don't talk.
It definitely doesn't mean run around
or scream or whatever.
You know, who goes to the library occasionally?
Who likes the library? Okay, not everybody kept the hand up. You know, it's you know, it's interesting about the library is
That it's quiet
Right, you know why it's quiet because they enforce rules
Yeah, if the library did not enforce rules
It would not be quiet and it would not be the library in order to keep the aura in order to keep the essence in order to keep
That that quiet feeling
The library has to enforce certain rules, doesn't it?
And it's enjoyable.
You could actually go, you can read a book,
your mind can think.
When kids are just,
ah, ah, ah, ah, ah!
It's harder to read.
Because all these instincts in your body are like,
is that a kid okay?
What's happening?
Is someone dying?
Like, what's happening?
Like, you can't really focus.
And look, if you go into the library right now, you go to the public library, not a Christian institution, a public library where they have literal, tranny books and sodomite flags up, and your kids misbehave, they'll kick you out.
But then you think it's weird that church would act like that?
I mean like in order for the library to be the library, we have to respect the library's rules
and they have to enforce the rules and if you do something, they're going shh, shh, shh, ouch, shh.
And if you don't shut up, they're just like, you have to leave.
And if you don't leave, they bring the security.
And look, we try to offer quiet time at the church to be like the library.
And apparently, we have to get the librarian out. You know what I mean?
But look if we didn't let's just say we didn't do anything because some people get mad about this
It's like okay
Let's just not have quite time then people just come in here and the lights will be on and their kids just run and scream and do all
That even worse. Yeah, we're not making the problem better. We're making the problem worse by doing this
We're actually giving people a chance to rest
Read a kid to take a nap or something. It's just a free nice thing
But it only stays nice if you keep it nice and look if you don't want to be quiet leave
Think while I'm preaching if you start talking or causing a disturbance. We'll ask you to leave, too
It's not any different. This is the house of God
We got to keep at the house of God and look praise God you have a church
We can actually bring your kids to and if they squawk every once in a while or do whatever
It's not a big deal. You know so annoying going to the old IV churches
Where it's like a pin you could hear a literal pin drop because the sermon is so boring and no one cares and everybody's falling asleep
And your kids just over here. Just like mommy and then the whole sanctuary is just like
you know
Here it's it's dude. I'm telling you when I go to these other churches. I'm thinking like steadfast is awesome, man. I
Love steadfast. I love the kids in here and the rowdy environment doesn't cause me a problem at all
Okay, and it's not even that rowdy. Let's just be honest. It's pretty great
But I'm just telling you, hey, we offer these things to try and be a blessing under the church and
It's not fun to enforce rules or tell adults. Hey, you're causing a problem
But look we offer the quiet time to help with our church and look if people don't want to respect that
Then we'll just say hey, please don't come to quiet time because you know
You're just kind of ruining it for everybody else. We want to keep it as a special way
You know in between services if you want to have light polite conversation you can do in our fellowship room
We have no problem with that if you want to be rowdy and rough leave
Don't come if you don't want to restrain your kids then leave right after the service
Come right before the service and leave right after the service
But you know what? It's it's just annoying to have to just
Please people and tell people to do stuff and they can't restrain their kids
And they can't get them to behave and look my kids will be disciplined if they disobey too and my kids will disobey
They could disobey right after the sermon you better not
I'm watching
And you know what, no kid should be doing that.
And hey, if a parent comes up to you and says,
hey, your kid is doing this stupid thing,
don't mouth off to that parent.
Just say thanks for letting me know.
I'll deal with it as I see fit.
And then you deal with it as you see fit.
And if they're for sure and the wrong,
you need to do something about it.
You need to discipline them.
You know, we need to have a culture here
that respects parents, respects parenting,
respects, you know, punishing.
And if you don't want to spank your kids,
well, you know what?
We'll tell you to leave when your kids act up
because at the end of the day,
you know, it's not my problem
that you don't spank your kids,
but you know what?
It's my problem when you're causing problems here.
And someone has to deal with it.
And let me just tell you something about Pastor Shelley.
He deals with problems.
I don't know if you know me,
but I unfortunately do the uncomfortable things.
It's not fun, I hate it, don't make me do it.
Don't make my wife do it.
My wife's better at it than I am, okay?
Don't make our staff do it.
Don't make other people do it, because we will do it.
And it's not fun, I don't like it,
restrain your kids,
and let's have a better environment here at church.
Let's just try to enjoy ourselves the maximum.
And you know what, kids?
Obey in church.
Be good in church. Don't run around in church. Don't wrestle in church. Keep your hands to yourself
Okay, let's go some prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for
giving us the institution of church
that we can come together and sing praises unto you
and hear the word of God being preached.
And thank you so much for the discipline
and the punishment that Chastany give to us
to make us better people.
I pray that we would also give that same benefit
to our children, that you would encourage moms and dads
to spank their kids and discipline them appropriately,
that they would care about their souls,
that they would care about their lives.
I pray that you would help us to have more respect for church,
respect for pastors, respect for rules,
that we would try to have a good example.
I pray that you would encourage us to restrain our children
and to keep them in line.
I pray that you would help us to have the faith
to understand that spankings and the rod brings wisdom
and is a good thing.
I pray that you wouldn't let the world taint our views on this.
And I pray that you would help us to raise godly children that fear their parents,
that fear the Bible, that get saved, that love the Lord, that want to be good members of society,
and they want to be soul winners, and they want to dedicate their lives to doing things
that are godly and spiritual. We understand that we need sometimes these basic rules,
these basic instructions. I pray that we wouldn't get away from the fundamentals,
All right, for our last song, let's go to song number 372.
Song number 372, let the lower lights be burning.
you
In trouble is even, you may rescue, you may save.
Trim your people, let my brother, some more say our tempest calls.
Trying now to make the harder in the...
We're all dismissed.