(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen. We're going to come back to Proverbs chapter 29, but the title of my sermon this morning is loving your children. Loving your children. You don't have to turn there, but I'm going to read for you a few scriptures. In Titus chapter 2 verse 4, the Bible reads that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children. 4 John verse 4 says, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. And of course, anyone who would make that statement must have great love for their children if their greatest joy in life is not some pleasure or success or joy for themselves, but rather to hear that their children walk in truth. God wants us to love our children. We as parents ought to have great love and affection for our children. And I'm going to explain to you some things this morning about child rearing and about loving our children and about how important it is that we bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We need to raise up a generation of godly young people that will bring joy to our hearts and not sorrow. And in order to do that, we need to have love for our children. Love comes from God. Love comes from having Jesus Christ as your savior and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. And so when we talk about loving our children, we need to get a biblical perspective of how to show that love for our children. Some people think that loving their children means just giving them everything that they want and spoiling them and just saying, well, we just love them so much so we want everything to be perfect for them. But that's not biblical because children who are given everything that they want are not going to be happy. And if you really love them, you would do what's best for them, not necessarily what they want, okay? So let's look at some biblical things about loving your children. Go to Proverbs 13, verse 24. You're already in chapter 29, so just go back to Proverbs 13, 24. And the first aspect of loving your children or raising your children that I want to talk about this morning is discipline, disciplining your children. You can't really preach a sermon about raising your children, loving your children, having a godly family without covering this subject of discipline because it's a key component to raising godly children. And it's a key way that you show that you actually love and care about your children when you discipline them. Look at Proverbs 13, verse 24. He that spareth his rod spoileth his child. Is that what it says? No. That's a saying that people use, and of course it's very true, but that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says, he that spareth his rod hateth his son. That's what the Bible says. He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Show me a parent who loves their child, and I'll show you a parent that chastens, disciplines their child and does not spare the rod. That's a loving parent according to the Bible. Look at Proverbs chapter 22. Proverbs 22, while you're turning there, I'll read for you chapter 10 verse 13, in the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found, but a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding. Proverbs 22, 15, foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Look at chapter 23 if you would. Chapter 23 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 shall deliver his soul from hell. This is a command of God, just as much as thou shalt not steal, or thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt beat is in the Bible, it's a commandment. And God says that if we withhold correction from the child, we could put our child in danger of even going to hell. Why? Because a child who's not disciplined by its parents thinks that there is no consequence for his actions, no consequence for his sin, no punishment for that which he does wrong, and he thinks that God's going to have no punishment either. So there's no fear of the Lord, there's no fear of hell, there's no fear of any kind of punishment because no boundary has ever been shown. The Bible says thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shall deliver his soul from hell. Go to Proverbs chapter 29, I don't know about you, but I think it's pretty obvious that if you love someone you wouldn't want them to go to hell. The Bible says for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Obviously if God loves us, he doesn't want us to go to hell. That's why the Bible says that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. The Bible says that he will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. He wants all men to be saved because if he loved the world, he didn't want the world to go to hell, that's why he gave Jesus Christ as our savior that we might be saved. And if we love our children, we would do everything in our power to deliver their soul from hell, to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ unto them, to teach them about salvation, heaven, hell and to discipline them that we might deliver their soul from hell. Because if we love them, that's the last thing that we would ever want to see happen to them that they would be damned. Look at Proverbs 29 verse 15, the Bible says, the rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. Then the wicked are multiplied, transgression and creaseth, but the righteous shall see their fall. Correct thy son and he shall give thee rest, yet he shall give delight unto thy soul. Where there is no vision, the people perish, but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. Verse 19, a servant will not be corrected by words, for though he understand, he will not answer. How many times have you seen people who don't discipline their kids, try to correct them with words, and the kid will literally just walk away and not even answer them. Have you seen that happen? Where the parent will say, hey, you need to do this and so, and they just walk away, just blow off their parents, disrespectful. Why? Because they need a whipping, that's why. Because the Bible says right here, they're not going to be corrected by words, even if they understand they won't answer. Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? There's more hope of a fool than of him. He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him become his son at the length. An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression. Do you notice how he rotates between verses about blowing off your mouth and properly disciplining, verses about anger and properly disciplining, why? Because if you don't properly discipline your children using corporal punishment, using spanking, you end up getting angry and saying a lot of mean things. Yelling at your kids. I mean, that's the alternative. If you're not going to properly discipline, you're going to get angry. Why? Because you're frustrated. Because you have no recourse when they disobey. You get angry, you yell, you're hasty with your words. We need to be quick to spank and slow to yell and scream. But most people are the opposite. They yell, scream, blow up, get angry, and then spanking is a last resort. Instead of just taking care of the problem delicately, calmly, and collectedly. You say, well, that's Old Testament. Well, first of all, the book of Proverbs is not Old Testament. The books of Psalms and Proverbs are not books that are somehow tied in with God's covenant with Jacob and Israel and Judah. That's a weird doctrine. That's not Old Covenant. That's why half of the New Testaments that you buy have Psalms and Proverbs tagged on to the end. Because these are books of universal truth and wisdom. And of course, we believe the Old Testament anyway. And we preach the Old Testament. Is there a change from the Old Testament to the New Testament? Of course. But those changes have to do with the covenant that God made with Israel. And they have to do with the Levitical priesthood versus Jesus Christ being the high priest. Doesn't change anything to do with the sound wisdom presented in the book of Proverbs or the teachings of the book of Psalms. These books are not restricted to the Old Covenant or New Covenant. That's just a very ignorant doctrine to think that. But even so, go to the New Testament. Go to Hebrews 12. Just to show that this concept is still relevant, even though we don't really need to even look at this. We need to look at Hebrews chapter 12 verse 6 to see this. While you're turning there, I'll read for you from Proverbs 3 verse 11 where the Bible reads, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction, for whom the Lord loveth, whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. Look at chapter 12 of Hebrews verse 6. It says, For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth, scourging is whipping, scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? Does it sound like he's repealing, spanking in the New Testament or something? What kind of a son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons. Why is he tying in with being a bastard? Basically, he's saying it's like the only way you'd be without discipline, you'd think, is just if your father's just not even around. You know, you're just born of a single mother and you're just a bastard child and you don't have a father there. Yeah, then you're without chastisement. And the Bible's saying, look, if you're not saved, if you don't believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you know, God's not your father, you may be free from discipline because you're a bastard and not a son. But if you're a son of God, if you're a child of God, if you've been born again, if God is your father, he will chasten you. If you're without chastisement, you're not even his son, the Bible says. So what kind of a dad doesn't discipline his children? That's what he's saying here. Any dad should discipline his child, chasten them, beat them, scourge them. Now, of course, when we use these words, these words have kind of taken on a different meaning in 2016. So when people hear words like beat and scourge, sometimes they get the wrong idea like beating is some kind of a, you know, a pummeling or some brutal caning or some brutal scourging of whipping, you know, we get a different idea. Obviously what the Bible's referring to here is what we in our modern vernacular would call spanking. That's what we're talking about here. We're not talking about injuring your child. You shouldn't injure them or harm them or do anything like that, but, you know, there's a padded portion of their body that God has provided as a great place to take the Board of Education and apply it to the seed of learning and, you know, give your child proper discipline with, you know, some kind of a spanking implement, you know, whether that be a paddle or a ruler, a wooden ruler or a paint stir stick from Home Depot, for example. You know, I mean, a friend of mine told me that, I don't know, but, you know, that they have these paint stir sticks over there. You know, whatever the implement that's used, but it needs to be used and if you don't spank your kids, you're not right with God, plain and simple. It's that simple. Say, oh, I'm afraid to spank my kids. Well, you know what? It's more important that we fear the Lord. Now sadly, there are places in this world where spanking is illegal, you know. For example, I was just in Germany and in Germany, it's not legal to spank your children there. It's a shame. But here's the thing. There are a lot of godly things that are not legal there. For example, it's also illegal to homeschool your children, so you have to put your kids in a government school and it's enforced. I mean, look it up. There are stories where people are literally arrested and their children are taken from them and put in the school. In fact, there was a family that had come to the United States to seek asylum just for the right to homeschool and Obama or somebody in that administration stepped in and denied them asylum and just turned them back over to Germany so that they had to be forced to put their kids into the public school system where they're learning values completely different than their parents' values, completely different than what the Bible teaches, just totally humanistic, atheistic, worldly, sinful values and all kinds of perversion and corruption that's taught in the public school. It's taught in the public school in the United States, but even more over in Germany, it's even worse. It's even more wicked. It's even more sinful. And then into the bargain, they tell the parents that they can't spank their kids and then they question the kids at the school, you know, are your parents spanking you? And they try to get them to rat out their parents in Germany. And you know, my advice to those who live in a place like that would be that they need to bring their children to an understanding of God's word and teach them the scripture that their children would voluntarily submit to discipline and that the children would say, I'm going to obey my parents because God said I'm supposed to obey my parents and I'm going to submit to discipline and I'm not going to call the police on my own parents. And you know what? If you ever call the police on your own parents, you're a wicked person. Look, the only reason that you should ever call the police on someone is if what they've done is worthy of death. Yeah, if somebody is a molester or a rapist or a murderer, of course call the police at that point if there's molestation, murder, you know. But to sit there and call, don't call the police on your spouse either. Hello, is anybody home? Don't call the police on your spouse. Don't call the police on your parents. Don't call the police on your friends unless you think that they're worthy of death, unless they've done something horrific because the police are likely to kill your loved one. It wouldn't be the first time that they shot them with some non-lethal or actually I'm sorry less lethal, you know, less lethal munitions like a taser that often kill people. You know, and how many times have they accidentally killed people or, you know, somebody reaches in their pocket for the wrong time and gets shot or they throw the flashbang and it blows somebody up or what, you know. There have been a lot of times where people are accidentally killed, you know, locking someone in a cage is very inhumane and so, you know, a child who would call the police on their parents because they got a spanking, that's wicked. It's ungodly. We need to just realize that God has commanded this and, you know, I would say to those who are in a place where it's illegal that they should, the children need to be taught to fear the Lord and submit to discipline, you know, but it's a tough situation. I wouldn't want to live there. I'm thankful to live here in the United States where at least for the time being, we still have the freedom to practice our religion and raise our children up the way that God told us to raise them up. And you know, this world is filled with hypocrisy where they think, oh, you're so abusive when you spank your kids. No, you're abusive for putting your kid on drugs. That's what they do. They don't spank the kid and then the kid acts up and they put it on drugs. I'm talking about Ritalin. I'm talking about these psychotropic drugs that are supposedly going to cure ADD. You know, we don't need a cure for ADD. We need DAD to give the kid a whipping. Everything will be fine. But today, the abuser is the one who puts their kid in a sex education class in elementary school. That's abuse. Yeah, that's right. Filling their mind with adult material when they're in elementary school is abusive. Withholding correction from the child is abusive. Screaming at them is not a nicer way of doing it than corporal punishment. And drugs are not a viable alternative. And this world's full of hypocrites. They think the Bible is so inhumane and cruel. They're the ones locking people up in prison which is cruel and inhumane and unbiblical from cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation. But let's move on to the next thing. Stay there in Proverbs 29 because discipline is not enough. You know, loving your children isn't just a matter of discipline. You could discipline your children without even loving them. You know, if you wanted to think of an environment where there's discipline without love, the that would be, for example, the military. I mean, if you join the military, you're going to get discipline, right? But are you necessarily getting love? Does your drill sergeant love you? Now, I've never been in the military, so I'm not an expert on this. I can't really speak from experience. Who has been in the military? Put up your hand if you've been a member of the military. Yeah. Did you feel the love coming from the drill sergeant and the commanding officer? Who felt real loved? Who has a picture of your drill sergeant by your bedside in a frame? Nobody, right? There's no love there. Discipline's not enough, friend. Discipline's not enough. We need to love our children. What's the title of the sermon? Loving your children. Well, he that loveth his son chasteneth his son. The Bible says that repeatedly. But number two, if we're going to love our children, discipline's not enough. We need to be willing to put time and effort into our children. That's what's going to really show that we love our children when we give time and effort. You see, if you love your wife, you're going to put time and effort into your marriage. If you love your husband, you're going to put time and effort into that relationship. If you have a friend, a companion, and you show love to that friend, I guarantee you, time and effort is what you're giving that person to show them that you love them. People that are not as close to you, you don't necessarily have time for. You don't necessarily put forth a huge amount of effort. But people that you love, people that are important to you, you put time and effort into those relationships. And if our children are very important to us and we love them very much, we would give time and effort to them. Are you still in Proverbs 29? Look at verse 15. The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. We ought to make sure that we're not just leaving our children to themselves. That shows a lack of caring and a lack of love. See if we love them, yes we will use the rod and reproof and we will not just leave them to themselves. We'll spend time with them. Go to Deuteronomy chapter number 6, Deuteronomy 6. Time and effort into child rearing. Many people today are lazy and it shows in their child rearing. Because they don't put effort into that. They don't put time and energy into it. They are too lazy to put forth the work necessary. Time and effort into our children is what I'm talking about. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 6. The Bible reads, and these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart and thou shalt teach them diligently. Now the word diligently, it's the exact opposite of being lazy. If you study the book of Proverbs, it talks about people being slothful or sluggards, and that's meaning that they're lazy. And then the opposite of that is the diligent. He says, you know, the slothful guy is like this, but oh, but the diligent, he does this. A lot of verses like that in Proverbs. Diligence is working and putting effort into something and spending time and being patient and working hard. That's what diligence means. And the Bible says that we are to diligently teach the commandments of God and the word of God unto our children. And it says, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Now to me, in verse 7 here, this paints a picture of parents that are spending time with their children. How else could they talk about the word of God when they rise up, when they go in the way, when they sit down to a meal, when they lay down in bed at night? How can they have these conversations if they're not even with their child? These are people who are spending time with their children and diligently putting effort and energy into training their children and bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians chapter 6 in the New Testament, Ephesians chapter number 6, title of the sermon is Loving Your Children. We need to love our children. Is love a feeling that we have in our heart? Absolutely. Absolutely. Don't ever let anybody tell you that love, love's not a feeling. It's action. Yeah, but it's also a feeling. Okay, love is an emotion. Love is a feeling that comes from our heart. It is affection. And if we really love our children and we feel love and affection for them in our heart, we need to express that love through action. And one of the ways that we express that love is by taking the time and energy to discipline our children, which is a lot of work, and we need to take the time and energy and effort to spend time with them, to be with them, and to train them. You see, teaching your children how to read is very difficult and hard work, and it's a little bit mind-numbing to teach a child how to read because it's very repetitive. But here's the thing. If you love your child, you're willing to put some time and effort and work into teaching them and training them, teaching them the Word of God, teaching them all things, and just spending time with them in general. You don't want to just discipline your children and then just leave them alone and let them do whatever on their own because then you know what they're going to feel like? They're not important to you because you're not spending time with them. You're not making them a priority. You got to show them that you love them by giving them the most precious thing that you have, time, effort. The Bible says in Ephesians Chapter 6, Verse 1, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The Bible says bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Not just discipline, but also nurture and admonition. See some people, they discipline and then they just walk away. And they don't spend any quality time with their child. They don't spend any time positively reinforcing their child or talking with their child. Discussing things with their children. You know, one thing I've noticed about my children is that they have good verbal skills at a young age. And I honestly think that's because my wife and I, we sit and talk to our children. Even when they're just a little kid, even when they're a toddler, I sit and have conversations with them at a high level. Even when they're just a little kid. And you know, you talk to them and take that time and patience to have a conversation with them. You know, I'll take my son, even Boaz, on a walk. Just a couple years old. Take him on a walk. And I talk to him and I point things out to him and I discuss things with him and everything like that. And so he, you know, he's learning the language at a high level. The Bible says that we should not just discipline, but also nurture them. And admonish them. And what does admonish mean? You know, when I see the word admonish, to me, I would use words like motivate them. Admonish. Basically encourage them to do something. It seems like reproving and rebuking are negative words like, don't do this. Correcting. Hey, stop doing this. But you know, admonitions and exhortations are sometimes more of a positive command. Hey, this is what you need to be doing. You need to get off your rear end and go do this. And things like that. Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Nurture and admonition. Admonition is more like commandments, telling them what they should be doing. Nurturing them. You know, is a more positive word there of just spending time, teaching them, helping them grow, and so forth. Now there's a parallel passage with this. Just in case you're not sure what that means, provoke not your children to wrath. You don't have to turn there, but in Colossians 3 we have a parallel passage. Starting in verse 20 it says, Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger lest they be discouraged. So the Bible says, provoke not your children to anger lest they be discouraged. Here it says, provoke not your children to wrath. So wrath and anger are the same thing. Wrath is just a stronger word for anger. Wrath is like extreme anger. So he says, you don't want your children to be discouraged. You don't want to provoke them to anger or provoke them to wrath. Now do you see how maybe if all you ever did was just discipline and admonish them, how you could possibly provoke them to anger or provoke them to wrath? If the only thing that they're ever hearing from you is correction. The only thing they're ever getting from you is discipline. When the nurture isn't there, you could provoke. That's why he says, don't provoke them to wrath. Don't provoke them to anger, but instead bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. So we need to make sure that our child-rearing is not one-sided, all negative, all discipline. Now some people, it's all nurture and no discipline. They're going to raise a criminal. They're going to raise a reprobate. They're going to raise a wicked person. Okay, if it's just all nurture, no discipline. Their child's going to hell. Over on the other side, if you just are all discipline, all admonition, you could actually provoke your child to anger, provoke them to wrath, the Bible says. So we need to make sure that we have both aspects where we love our children and we show that by disciplining them, but we also show that by spending good time with them, quality time with them, positive time with them, and teaching them, training them, helping them to grow. Turn to John chapter 14. John chapter 14, and the last thing I want to bring out here, actually the second to last thing I want to bring out here, is that if we love our children, we need to make sure that we're teaching them the things of God, because we know that the only way that they're going to live a successful life, the right kind of life, and be blessed in their life is if they follow the Lord. That's their only hope. I mean, if they turn away from the Lord and turn away from his commandments, they're going to mess up their life. And you know, if we love someone, we don't want them to mess up their life. We don't want them to go through all the pain and needless suffering of living a life of sin. The Bible says the way of transgressors is hard, and so we don't want that for our children. We want our children to be blessed and grow up and have joy unspeakable and full of glory, and they're going to get that through serving the Lord. So if we love our children, number one, we're going to discipline them. If we love our children, number two, we're going to put time and effort into their upbringing. And number three, if we love our children, we're going to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And what does that mean specifically? It means Bible reading and church. These are two things that I want to highlight. Bible reading and church. Now when I say Bible reading, of course, a verse that comes to mind is in 2 Timothy 3 when it says that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Bible reading. Here's something that you need to implement in your home if you haven't already. Bible time. Daily Bible time. Take the time daily to read the Bible. To read the Word of God. You say, oh, we're too busy. We don't have time. But you know what? If you're so busy and you don't have time, why don't you just read the Proverb of the day? You know, there's 31 chapters in the Book of Proverbs, 30, 31 days in a month. You know, if it's the 8th, you read Proverbs 8. If it's the 22nd, you read Proverbs 22. How long does that really take? Four minutes? Five minutes? To sit the family down. And you know, you should read the entire Bible to your children. But I mean, at least as a start, if you just want to get to first base, if you're just going from nothing, why don't you just implement a Bible time and read the Proverb of the day. And the Proverb of the day is going to give you all kinds of wisdom and sound advice, especially geared toward the young, the Bible says. And so that's a great place to start with the Bible reading time. And then your children might even learn how to be good in church. Because if you read the Bible to them at home, they're learning how to sit still and listen to the Word of God. And that'll carry over into their church behavior. They can show up and be good in church. I'm telling you, Bible reading, Bible time, the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. And we need the Word of God in our hearts and in our minds. And we need to diligently teach the Word of God to our children. And you know, if you're just looking for a place to start, just step one, just a basic, hey, how about one chapter a day? How about the Proverb of the day is a good place to start raising your children. Bible reading. But not only Bible reading, but church also. Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Church is a place where they'll hear God's Word preached and be taught the things of God. And if you love your children, you're going to want them to get that teaching and that training. And blessing is when you are dwelling in the house of the Lord all the days of your life. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. If you want goodness and mercy to follow your children, they need to be in the house of God. They need to be in church. Church and Bible reading. Love. What does it mean? What is in that word? Obviously, love is a big word. I mean, it contains so much meaning, you know, I can't even imagine how anybody could even make a dictionary definition for a word like love because it's so vast in its scope. And we know that love is affection and feeling and emotional, but also love involves doing what's best for people, not just doing what they want necessarily. Let me just show you some scriptures that tie in love with keeping God's commandments. Look at John chapter 14 verse 15. If you love me, keep my commandments. Look at verse 21. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest myself to him. Look at John 15 verse 10. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. Go over to 1 John chapter 5. I'll read for you from 2 John verse 6. And this is love, listen to this, this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment that as ye have heard from the beginning ye should walk in it. 1 John 5, 2, By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous. Look, if we're going to love our children, love comes from God. Everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Love is connected with obeying the Lord, obeying his commandments, obeying the Word of God. And so if we love our children, then we need to bring them up in the commandments of the Lord. And that involves reading the Bible to them, number one. That involves number two, bringing them to church and letting them hear God's Word preach and teaching them that we as a family obey God's commandments. As for us in our house, we shall serve the Lord. That's part of loving your children. Teaching them those values that are going to stay with them for the rest of their life. Go to John chapter 15, this is the last place, John chapter 15. What does it mean to love your children? How can we practically show the love that we have for our children? Number one, by disciplining them. Number two, by giving them of our time, putting time, energy, and effort into those relationships. Number three, through bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And specifically, I'm talking about Bible reading and church. See, I don't want to just get up and be vague and just say, yeah, you know, bring up your children in the Lord. No, no. Read the Bible every day, book of Proverbs, that's where you start. I want to give you a concrete instruction today. You know, I can't command you what to do. I can't tell you what to do. I was recently talking to someone and they were telling me all the problems that they were having with their children. What do I do? You know, I was trying to give advice and one of the pieces of advice I said was, well, why don't you start having a Bible time with your children where you read the book of Proverbs? And I showed this person some scriptures from Proverbs and they really liked the scriptures that I showed them from Proverbs and they were underlining them and thankful. But then I said, why don't you read a Proverb a day? Oh, no. No, they don't need that. They already, they've already heard all that. And you know, you can take the horse to water, but you can't make him drink. And here's the thing. You know, if we love our children, we need to take some concrete steps. They're not just going to come, turn out right by osmosis. You know, just, oh, whoops, my kids all turned out right. No, you got to put some work into it. There's a lot out there in this world that's working against you as a parent. A lot of pressures and influence pushing your children in the wrong direction. You need to stack all the cards that you can in your favor. You need to do everything that you possibly can. It's not going to happen by accident. If you want to raise godly children in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation, you better discipline them. You better put some time and effort and work into it and you'd better also bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And don't just have some vague idea about, yep, raising them in a godly home. No, no, no. How about a concrete step of instituting Bible time? How about a concrete step of getting your rear end in church three times a week, Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night? You say, oh, that's too much. Okay, well, how much influence are your children getting from the school or from the TV or from the world or from the radio or from other worldly friends? You know, how much influence do you want them to get from the things of God? Well, you know what? Bringing them three times a week is getting them around other Christian kids three times a week. It's getting them under the preaching of God's word three times a week. It's getting them singing the hymns three times a week. You know what? Three times a week, I mean, even people who join a gym go three times a week, right? I mean, when have you ever known anybody who had a serious workout is once a week? Who's really into working out? Put up your hand if you like to work out, you like to exercise, right? Man, barely anybody. This is a really sedentary church. Okay, you know that you don't get results from one day a week, do you? You know, I like to work out a lot. I like to lift weights, I like to run, I like to do lots of types of exercise. And I'll tell you this, running is my main exercise. And if you run once a week, you don't make any progress. Running once a week, you can maintain a level of fitness, but you will not increase. You will not grow. It's just sort of a maintenance. And so church is something where if you just go a few times a month, you're not necessarily in intensive training at that point. You're not necessarily going to be growing by leaps and bounds. And you know, if people are going to a karate class three times a week, if people are going to a gym three times a week, you know, bodily exercise profit is little. Exercise thyself rather unto godliness. If you're going to spend three days a week at the gym, and I know virtually none of you are doing that based on the hands raised, but if you're going to spend three days a week at the gym, why don't you spend three days a week at church training the spirit, getting trained. Bible reading, church, these are concrete things that we need to be implementing. Spankings need to be taking place. You say, well, what about a teenager? Are they, you know, there's this teaching out there that they're too old to spank. What? You know, when are they too old to spank? When they're not living in my house anymore. I'm serious. Now, you know, I love my parents, and I'm extremely thankful for my parents. They brought me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They made sacrifices to get me to independent fundamental Baptist churches. They taught me doctrine, and I thank God for the upbringing that I had, and I thank God for the discipline I received. I received a lot of spankings growing up. You know, I got a lot of discipline. And I'm extremely thankful, so I'm not being critical of my parents, but they stopped spanking me when I was like 12. But it's not like they just started letting me do whatever I wanted after that. They just switched to more yelling and lectures and stuff like that. You know, and honestly, I believe that instead of the yelling and the lectures coming in at that time, I think that the corporal punishment should just continue all the way to the bitter end. That's what I believe. I'm serious. Now, personally, as a teenager, I would have rather just gotten a whipping than gotten those really long lectures and getting yelled at. I would have just preferred to just get a whipping and be done with it, okay? And here's the thing. I don't think it's a coincidence that you have a lot of teenagers rebelling against their parents at that age, and that's when the corporal punishment stops and the yelling picks up. Because, look, when the corporal punishment is gone, when the spankings are gone, yelling will come, because, you know, what else do you do? I mean, you got to say no. You got to do something. I mean, so that's why the corporal punishment is important. There's nothing biblical about this thing of stopping spanking your kids when they're 11 or 12. Now, obviously, if your children are growing and learning, they should be getting a lot less spankings. You know, hopefully, they're learning something and growing. But when they need it, they need it, friend. And I don't care how old they are. And I'm going to go to the gym, if I need to, to make sure that I'm big and strong enough to discipline my kids until they're out of my house. And if they want to stay at my house, you know, for years and years after they're adults, well, then they can keep getting whipped. I'm not kidding. I didn't say anything funny. Why is everybody laughing? Look, the Bible talks more about disciplining adults than children. Read the Bible. Look it up. Because, you know, the Bible talks about disciplining employees. Now, I'm not recommending that, because obviously, we live in the United States of America. That would be highly illegal. Okay. But I'm just saying that, you know, this doctrine of just, oh, they're too old. And then it's like, it's too old. And oh, it's too young. And they just want you to spank in this tiny window. I don't believe in it. John 15, verse 12. The last element that I want to bring out is unselfishness. You know, when you love someone, the way that you show that you love that person is by putting them first, right? Being unselfish. That's a form of love. Jesus said in verse 12, this is my commandment that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You're my friends if you do whatsoever I command you. He says here that the greatest love that anyone could have is to lay down their life for their friends. That was first. That's unselfishness. That's a self-sacrifice. And so when we raise our children, we need to not show love by just giving them everything that they want, but we need to show love by doing what's best for our children. That's the best way that we can love them. Love is not just giving them all the fancy clothes and all the name brands and the big college fund so that they can go to college and not have to work and do beer pong and whatever instead of working and just go to class and just footloose and fancy free. And you know what? That doesn't make, giving people what they want doesn't make them happy. I talked to somebody recently and they were frustrated because their children were disobedient and they said, I just don't understand. I give them everything that they need. They have this really nice house. They've got wonderful food. They've got nice clothes. They've got everything that they could possibly want. They've got the smartphones. They've got all the fun and what in the world do they want? Why aren't they happy? Why are they sad? Why are they disrespectful? Why don't they appreciate me? And I told this person, I said, because giving people whatever they want doesn't make them happy. I said, otherwise all the Hollywood stars would be happy. But they're not. They're in and out of rehab, they're depressed, they're suicidal, they're on the fifth spouse because getting everything you want doesn't make you happy. You know, when you go through struggle and when you go through hard times, sometimes that makes you happy. And people who are spoiled, right, that's when they get everything they want. The Bible says that the full soul loathest than honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. And so in order to be happy in life, you go through hard times, you go through hunger, you go through some pain and suffering, but it's the right kind of pain and suffering. It's the kind of pain and suffering that is for a purpose, that's for a cause, that's for what's right, and then you have joy in your life. Not just a hedonistic fulfilling of the lust of your pleasure, and then that is going to make you happy. But that's what people think today. Oh, I just love my child so much. And they say, I don't want them to have to struggle like I struggled. But here's the thing, struggle is good for you. Struggle brings joy. Think about the struggle of, say, climbing a mountain. And you get to the top, let's say Mount Humphreys, the tallest mountain in Arizona, we've gone there with a men's group a few times and climbed that thing, what, three times? And you get to the top and you experience what emotion when you're at the top? Coldness, headache. No, you get to the top, loneliness. It's lonely at the top, folks. No, but you get to the top, it feels good. It feels good to have gone through pain and struggle and pushing yourself. It feels good. It feels even better than getting to the top, getting back to the car. And you know what feels even better than that? Getting to In-N-Out Burger, you know, or getting to Panda Express, right? And here's the thing, you'll never enjoy Panda Express as much as when you hiked 12 miles that day and climbed 4,000 feet of ascent or whatever. When you get to Panda Express, it's going to taste better than it's ever tasted. But you know what? If you laid around all morning and played video games and then went to Panda Express, it's not going to taste as good. I don't like this. But when you struggle, you enjoy and you feel elation and intense pleasure. And you know, that's just a worldly example, okay? How much more joy is it when we suffer for the cause of Christ? I mean, think about it. The disciples, they got beaten and arrested and they were rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ. They enjoyed the struggle. They enjoyed the fight. They enjoyed being imprisoned and beaten even. Why? Because they knew that they were doing something of value for the Lord, of eternal value. And you know, winning a soul to Christ, man, that brings joy, right? Isn't that exciting when you can win somebody to the Lord, get somebody saved? But that beats the hedonistic type of pleasures of this world. So the point is that we need to love our children, not by spoiling them rotten, giving them everything that they want, because then you're just going to raise an entitled spoiled brat who doesn't enjoy anything because they don't appreciate anything because they've never had to work or struggle or suffer for anything. And I've noticed that children who are disciplined and raised and brought to church and all those things are happier. They're smiling, they're happy, they're not depressed and down. Work makes you happy. Grown men who go to work are happier than grown men who don't have a job. Men feel good at work when they work really hard and they finish a hard day's work and they crack open the cold bottle of Gatorade or whatever. Feels good, right? Feels good. Well, you know what? Kids are the same way. If they work hard and do what they're supposed to do, they feel good too. Give them everything they want, they don't even appreciate it anyway. How many self-entitled little spoiled brats have you seen that don't appreciate anything you do for them? Anything. They don't even say thank you. They don't even care. We need to love our children and love comes from God. And if you want to love your children, learn how by reading this book and learn how by implementing what I preach from the Word of God in this sermon on loving your children. That's the real love, is training them right and it's going to take time and effort but if you love them, if you love them, you'll want to make that sacrifice, right? I mean, look, what do we want to do with our lives? We want to spend our lives on people that we love and things that we care about, right? And our children ought to be real high on that list. Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for our children that you've blessed us with, Lord. And we thank you for those that are here this morning and we pray that they would be given wisdom to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And God, help us all to have the patience and diligence to not just stick our kids in front of a TV or stick them on a bus off to the public fool system to be raised by someone else, Lord. Help us to take the time and energy necessary to do our very best not to spoil them, Lord, but to train them to be godly, joyful, Christian adults. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.