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Proverbs 13 24, and what I want to preach about this morning is the subject of child rearing, the subject of raising your children. And this has always been a very important subject because of the fact that as you study your Bible cover to cover, you'll notice that there were a lot of very godly men and women who did a lot of great things for God in their lives, and yet their children grew up and did not walk in their ways, did not serve the Lord, and ended up oftentimes becoming very wicked people. Okay, you see this with a lot of the kings of Judah, you see it with the sons of Eli, you see it with the sons of Samuel. All throughout the Bible we see godly righteous people who had children that turned out wrong. Now that tells me that just being a Christian, being a godly person is not enough to make sure that your children are going to turn out right. You also need to follow godly principles of child rearing and you need to also use biblical principles in how to train up your children in the way that they should go. The Bible says train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. And I see a lot of people in the Bible whose children departed from it, that tells me that they did not train up that child in the way he should have gone. Just because they were great in other areas of life does not mean that they were great in this area of raising children. I don't know about you, but it's very important to me that my children turn out right and that my children grow up and serve God. It says in the book of 3 John, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. And often it can be a great sorrow of heart or sorrow of mind to those whose children are wayward. It can be a great source of disappointment and shame and misery in their lives. So let's look at some biblical principles of raising children. I'm going to start out with the most obvious principle and it's a principle that nonetheless is under attack today and that is the principle of disciplining your children. If you want your children to turn out right, you have to discipline them. This is where Eli failed. He failed to discipline. He failed to keep his children under control. Look at Proverbs chapter 13 verse 24, you're talking about time outs. Oh, you're talking about grounding. Oh, you're talking about, you know, this or that. It says right here, he that spareth his what? Rod. Proverbs 13, 24 says, he that spareth his rod spoils the child. Is that what it says? No. It actually says he that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Now you need to face the hard truth right now that people who do not spank their children do not love their children. That is what the Bible says, okay? You can argue with that all you want, but you're arguing with God. You're not arguing with me. Because it says right here, he that spareth his rod hateth his son, but on the flip side of that, he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Now the word betimes is kind of an old word, but it means early. So it says he that loveth him chasteneth him early. Okay, look at chapter 22 verse 15. Flip over to chapter 22 verse 15. So I read for you where it says he that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Proverbs 22 verse 15, foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Children do not start out being smart. They don't start out being wise. They start out without any knowledge. They start out completely ignorant and children do a lot of foolish things. And the Bible says that that's normal. You know, you shouldn't just be surprised when you're young two year old, three year old, four year old, five year old, you know, do a lot of foolish things. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him. Meaning that if we do not use the rod of correction, foolishness will remain in that child. That child will grow up and become an adult that we would call a fool. Go if you would to Proverbs 23. You see, when children do silly things, we're not surprised, we don't think there's anything wrong with it. But if we saw adults doing the same things, wouldn't we be shocked? Wouldn't we be horrified? You know, if we saw adults doing some of the things that children do. You know, you might see children, for example, there's a picture of me when I was a kid and I'm sitting at the high chair with a plate of spaghetti and, you know, I'm taking my spaghetti and just kind of lowering it into my glass of milk. Now if a child does that, you just think, okay, well children do foolish things. You know, they'll often just pick up food and just throw it on the ground and just whatever. But if you saw an adult, let's say you went out to eat with an adult and he took his spaghetti and just sort of like, or what of Pastor Anderson? And you know, and I relived that picture with my mouth kind of open. You know what you'd say? That I was a fool, that I was an imbecile, you'd think that I was crazy. You know, and really if you look at people that are crazy, pretty much the definition of a crazy person, you know, somebody who's an adult and they act like they're one, two, three, four, you know. And on a child it looks normal. But on an adult it doesn't look normal. And by the way, we need to be spiritually mature also. You know, some people have been saved for 20 years and they're a spiritual babe in Christ, you know, and they're like, duh, you know, with their spaghetti noodles, spiritually. We're looking at you like, hey, grow up, man. You know, it's time to be spiritual, it's time to get right with God. But where did I return? 23? Proverbs 23 says this. Because a lot of people, the verses I showed you about sparing the rod, a lot of people say, oh, the rod there, that's not really discipline. You know, that's just a rod that's used to just guide and they'll talk about the shepherd has a rod and he just kind of guides the sheep along where they need to go. But look at Proverbs 23, 13. They use arguments like that to deceive people who haven't read the entire book of Proverbs. It says in chapter 23, 13, withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest, it doesn't say thou leadest, if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die, thou shalt beat. And you should underline those three words in your Bible. Just as much as the Bible says thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not covet, there's a commandment that says thou shalt beat. Okay? This is the 11th commandment, my friend. It says thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell. What's the world going to tell you? They're going to tell you, oh, any parent who loves their children would never spank their children if they really loved them. But the Bible says the exact opposite. If you love them, you'll spank them. We read it in Hebrews 12 before the sermon. It said, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. The Bible says it's hate when you don't discipline your children. It means you don't care whether they turn out right or wrong. It means you don't love them enough to do what needs to be done to discipline their behavior. It says thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell. I don't want any of my children to go to hell. And you say, well, why would a child go to hell because they're not disciplined? I'll tell you why. Because a child who does not receive any discipline, they basically think that the father up in heaven is the same way as their father on this earth. So these are the people who grow up and say, oh, God would never send anybody to hell. God would never punish sin. God would never judge anybody. God just loves everybody. God's just going to be good to everybody. Because they never had a father that actually had rules that were enforced and that actually had a punishment. And so they get a warped view of what authority looks like and they get a warped view of what the father in heaven looks like because they don't have that discipline on this earth. All throughout the Bible we see a lot of scriptures about corporal punishment, corporal meaning bodily punishment, you know, spanking, the beating with the rod, and so forth. Oftentimes it deals with children as in the three verses that we looked at. There are actually many scriptures in the Bible that actually are dealing with even adults, even servants, even people who are criminals, you know, being beaten. Now today when someone commits a crime, we are so much more humane. So we lock that person up in a cage for 20 years, you know. By the way, that's completely unbiblical. Prison is completely unbiblical. There's no place in God's law did He tell anyone to go to prison or to make a jail. You know, they would actually punish people for their crimes. They would either punish them with the death penalty if they committed a very serious crime like murder or rape or adultery, or if they committed a lesser crime they would receive a beating. Okay? And then basically if they did an even smaller crime they would just have to pay a fine. They would just pay money to the person that they harmed, you know, to the victim of the crime they would pay money. Those are pretty much the three punishments that you'll see in the Bible. Either death, scourging, or paying a fine. Those are the main punishments. Now, if you would go to Proverbs 29. You see the Bible teaches a principle of forgiveness all the way throughout the Bible. And forgiveness is one of the most important principles of the Christian life. When you think about salvation, it's really based upon forgiveness. The Bible says, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. So because we are saved, because we have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, our sins are forgiven and forgotten of the Father. Okay? That's our salvation. But not only that, we as Christians are constantly admonished that we should be Christ-like in the sense that we are very forgiving people. We should be people who forgive others just as Christ forgave us. And when you think about forgiving someone, it means that you're going to let it go. It means that you're going to forgive and forget. For example, when God forgave us of our sins, He said, there's sins and iniquities will I remember no more. He said, as far as the east is from the west, so far has God separated us from our sins. And so God forgives us completely and so we ought to also forgive those that trespass or sin against us, right? So for example, in our marriage, one of the keys to having a great marriage is forgiveness. Because there are always going to be times when the husband does wrong to the wife. And there are always going to be times when the wife does wrong to the husband. And these things, if they're not forgiven, will just add up and stack up. And the longer you're married, the more bad memories there are, the more offenses there are that just makes me so mad when I think about all the time she did this and then she did this. I mean, even if it was just one per year. I've been married for 13 years, so if it was one per year, I could have like 13 just major things that she said or did and then she could have 13 major things that I said or did wrong and just hang on and I wrote them down just to make sure I wouldn't forget. Just in case I need to use them as ammunition in an argument. You know, obviously, no marriage is going to succeed like that. You know, you have to forgive and forget and the Bible says, his mercies are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. You know, God forgives us. First of all, at salvation he forgave all our sins, which is our entrance into heaven, but then also as our Heavenly Father who disciplines us on a day-to-day basis, he also gives us a fresh start all the time. You know, he's constantly forgiving. You know, that's an important principle in marriage, forgiving, forgetting, moving on, starting every day new. That's why the Bible tells husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them. Forgiveness is when you hang on to offenses that have been done unto you instead of forgiving and forgetting. Okay, but there are other people we need to forgive. We need to forgive our brothers and sisters in Christ in the local church. You know, someone in church does something wrong, says something wrong. You forgive them. You let it go. You give them another chance and you don't keep bringing it up. Even in your mind you shouldn't even be bringing it up. Move forward, but also forgiveness is an important attribute when it comes to our children. Not only should we forgive our brothers and sisters in Christ, forgive our spouse, but it's very important that we forgive our children because our children are going to do a lot of things that are wrong, okay? And when children do something wrong, obviously they need to be disciplined. Obviously they need to be punished, but that should not be hung over their head for the rest of their life. In fact, I'll take it a step further. It shouldn't be hung over their head for the rest of the week. It shouldn't even be hung over their head for the rest of the day, okay? The best way to deal with offenses is to punish those offenses and then you can move forward with a loving, close relationship with your children. You can basically just move forward and not have to just have, you're grounded for a month. Now that offense is hung over their head for the entire month. Think about that. You're grounded for the next month or you are going to have time out for the next hour. It's better to just punish and just get it done. And honestly, all children are different. I have seven children and they're all very different from one another, okay? And they respond a little bit differently to discipline. But let me tell you something, spanking works for all of them. The same biblical principles are going to work for all of them. You know, your child is not the exception. I've got seven little laboratories and on all seven of them, God's way works. It's working. But anyway, some of my children literally, I mean, they'll get a hard spanking for committing an offense and I mean, 30 seconds later they're smiling and happy and playing and 60 seconds later they're happy. I mean, who's seeing the same thing in your children? I mean, it's just like it never even happened. But that's great because you know what, you can move on. The lesson is learned, the crime has been atoned for, and now you can live and get along with mom and dad. And you know, literally parents today will suddenly say, I'm mad at you, to their toddler. Mommy's mad at you. You know, I mean, that's not a right way to discipline. And it just creates a rift in the relationship between parents. It's better just to discipline, get it over with, and move on. And you know, I remember there were times when I was growing up when I got lectured pretty bad as a teenager. You know, and I'd get a long lecture when I was a teenager sometimes that could last like as long as an hour and a half, two hours. I mean, you think my sermons are long. Imagine a sermon where you're the only person in the audience. You know, and I mean, it goes on for two hours, you know, and you're just getting laid into for that long. And I'll tell you something. I hated those lectures. I hated it. Okay? And I'll tell you this. I would have preferred to just get a spanking and be done with it. But my parents, they, and I thank God for parents that raised me up in a Christian home. And also my parents disciplined me and my parents spanked me. And I've thanked my parents. I've said to my parents, thank you for spanking me. Thank you for disciplining me. I'm glad that you, you know, led me up in the right way, that you took me to church and taught me the things of God, taught me about salvation, and also that you guys disciplined me and spanked me. When your kids grow up, they appreciate that, that upbringing, okay? But I will say this. My parents stopped spanking me when I was 11 years old, okay? The last time I got spanked, I was about 11 years old. Now let me ask you this. Do you think that after that, they just let me do whatever I wanted? I mean, after I was 11, they stopped spanking me and I just did whatever I wanted. No. They still had rules, okay? They still expected me to do certain things and guess what? I still broke the rules, okay? Because you know, when you're a teenager, you're still breaking the rules to some degree. You know, hopefully less than more. Hopefully you're growing up and hopefully most of the foolishness has already been driven out of you, but still as a teenager, there are going to be times when you get in trouble, you break the rules, right? And so it seemed like my parents, they definitely spanked me a lot, you know, when I was growing up as a kid, but then it got to a point where they stopped spanking me. I was about 11. Just because they felt like, okay, you're too old to get a spanking. Which is most people's logic. Most people's wisdom around that age, they stopped spanking. But I'll say this, you know, instead of spanking, that was replaced with long lectures. You know, basically getting yelled at, you know, okay? There it goes again with the sermon parallel. But anyway, so what I'm saying is that I do not think that that was an effective form of discipline. Because I'll tell you right now, as a teenager, getting yelled at, getting a lecture, did not make me want to improve my behavior at all. It actually drove a wedge between me and my parents because it just made me angry at my parents. They're angry at me, that's why they're lecturing me for an hour and a half, you know, or whatever. I'm angry at them and it actually just drove a wedge between us and it actually just was an ineffective form of discipline, in my opinion, okay? And so I've already made the personal decision and I know this is real controversial and this will get people all up in arms, but ask me if I care, okay? The Bible's my final authority, not man's wisdom. I don't care what man's wisdom is. And I'll tell you this, I will spank my children as long as they're in my home. When they need it. You know, if they're disobeying to the point where they need a spanking, if they are, you know, committing serious infractions, they're definitely going to get spanked, I don't care what age they are. And hopefully those spanking should become fewer and further between. I mean when you have little kids, a lot of times they're getting spanked, you know, multiple times in the day. Obviously if you have a teenager, you know, you shouldn't be taking your belt off and whipping them multiple times a day. I mean that just shows, you know, this guy, you've already failed at that point, right? Because obviously there should be some growth and some maturity there. But I'll tell you something, when they need discipline, I am not going to resort to an hour and a half or two hour lecture. You know, they're going to get the belt. Period. And you say, I don't even know if that's legal. I don't even care. I mean, you don't know? I don't care. Okay? But what I'm saying is, and again, I'm not trying to criticize my parents. I love my parents and I'm thankful for my upbringing. And I'm not criticizing them because honestly they're just doing what 99% of Christians do anyway, which is to stop thanking their kids at around age 11. I think that's part of the reason why we have a problem of teenage young people today in churches that are so estranged from their parents, that are so, there's such a rift between them and their parents because of all the angry words that are spoken. Because of all the lecturing. Because of the lack of real discipline that's taking place at that age. That's when you see kids start to change and then they start to get alienated from their parents. So if you talk to people who were disciplined as a teenager in their home, or even when they were 17, 18, whatever, at their home, if you talk to those people, they have great respect for their parents, they love their parents, and they're glad that their parents did so. Okay. So that's my belief on that. Go to Proverbs 29 and let's see this illustrated in the Bible. It says in Proverbs chapter 29 verse 15, the rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. So the Bible tells us here that the rod and reproof, reproof meaning to be corrected or told that you're wrong, these things give you wisdom. Wisdom is the opposite of foolishness. It says a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. Now why does it specifically bring up the mother there? Because the mother is the primary caregiver. The husband is off working and the mother is the primary caregiver in the home. So if the child's left to himself, I mean the person who's more to blame is the mother because she's the one who that's her job is to be with that child throughout the day. Now there are many women today, and I'm going to get to this a little bit later in the sermon, who don't spend adequate time with their children, teaching their children, and those children are going to grow up and bring their mother shame because the mother is leaving the child to itself. And the reason for that is laziness, and I'm going to get to that a little bit later in the sermon, but just remember that point. It says in verse 16, when the wicked are multiplied, transgression increaseth, but the righteous shall see their fall. Correct thy son, and he will 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 29, chapter 29 verse 19, a servant will not be corrected by words, for though he understand, he will not answer. Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? There is 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 abouteth in transgression. Now I want you to focus in on these four verses, verses 19 through 22. Even though these verses are not about child rearing, they actually provide great insight into child rearing. This is talking about someone who's not even your son, this is talking about a servant. This is talking about someone who works for you and it's not even your physical child. And it says here, first of all, that a servant will not be corrected by words, for though he understand, he will not answer. Again, talking about the futility of the long lecture as a form of discipline. And to correct with words instead of a real punishment. Now I know that at your job, you know, they don't, they don't whip you if you don't do your job right. But you know what? They still punish you. And they don't just punish you with words. You know, they usually, there's usually, what are some ways that you get punished at your job? By not doing your job properly. Somebody, somebody, yeah, they might take away your hours. Yeah, send you home early, give you days off. Somebody might demote you to a lower position. I know that a lot of jobs I worked at in construction, they'll just give you a really undesirable job assignment. They'll send you to that nightmare job that nobody wants to go to. You know, they'll give you all the jobs and there are different ways that they might punish you. Okay. But here's the difference though. You don't really need to have a loving relationship with that boss at work. So those forms of discipline are often effective in the workplace today. But you know, as far as parents disciplining their children, you know, you don't want to discipline your children in that way. It's better to use the Bible's method. But it says here, a servant will not be corrected by words for though he understand he will not answer. Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? There is more hope of a fool than of him. So what is this talking about? Somebody who's quick to say things, right? And if we get the context, he's talking about saying things in anger. Somebody who's just quick to just say something, right? Look at the next verse. It says, he that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him become his son at the length. Now we all want our sons to grow up and love us and to follow us and to have a good relationship with us. We would not want our son to ever grow up and say, I don't want anything to do with you dad. You know, you're not my dad anymore or something like that. Okay, we want our son to grow up and be a son who loves us, okay? This is talking about somebody who's not even your son becoming your son because he's delicately brought up and because he's trained properly. It says in verse 22, an angry man stirreth up stripe and a furious man aboundeth in transgressions. So when we take these four verses together, the elements that we see are correcting with your words in verse 19, being hasty with your words in verse 20, not being delicate in verse 21, and angry in verse 4. Do you see those, the fourth verse? So you see four elements here. Someone who's just quick to spout off with angry words and who does not treat people delicately. This is all the negative example of what's going to cause strife, anger, division, friction, and a failure in parenting, okay? Now what does this mean? You should not be quick to yell at your children. Quick to get angry at your children. The Bible says that we should be slow to anger, you know, slow to speak. He says, swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. Did you hear that? Slow to speak, slow to wrath. Wrath means anger. But you know what most parents are today in 2013? Slow to spank. Quick to wrath, quick to speak, quick with their words, quick to yell, quick to lecture, quick to get angry, and slow to spank. That's what they are. Now the Bible says to spank them betimes, to correct them betimes. See, the biggest mistake that people make, I think, with spanking is to use spanking as like a last resort. When spanking is the first line of defense, not a last resort, where if the yelling and throwing things doesn't work, then we'll discipline with the rod. Now go to Proverbs 19, and let me explain this to you a little further. Because you see, corporal punishment of your children or spanking your children is something that's under attack today. There are even places in this world where people are seeking to make it illegal to spank your children, to discipline your children. I mean, in Europe today, you know, they take your children aside in the school, and by the way, in Germany, homeschooling is illegal. And it's enforced. I mean, they'll come with police and guns and take your kid to school, if you don't put your kid in school. I was at, we were out on a hike a few weeks ago, my family and I did a little hiking, and we ran into some people from Switzerland. And we were chatting and they were asking about, you know, if we homeschool our children, you know, because they saw that we had our children and it was a school day. And I said, or maybe they asked where they went to school or something, I don't know. But somehow I told them, I said, yeah, I said, you know, we homeschool the children. We're speaking German. And I basically said to them, I said, well, in English it's called homeschooling, what we do. I said, in German, it's called, you know, and I used, I don't know how it translates in English, but a word of like truancy, or something, you know, like neglecting your children or whatever. It's called Schulverweigerung, okay, I don't know how that translates. But I said to them, yeah, and they thought that was pretty funny. But it's true, because they don't have a word for homeschooling, it's just, you didn't send your kid to the government school, you know. We have ways of making you put your child in school. But anyway, they, they forced you to put your kid in school, and then they'll take your child aside. Now, if your parents ever spank you, if they ever, you know, and they like to use words that aren't really associated with discipline. If your parents ever hit you, you know, use the word like hit, that's never been associated with discipline. If your parents ever hit you, you know, you need to report that to us so that we can put them in, you know, the gulag, okay. But anyway, so we see here in Proverbs 19 18, and I want to talk about how spanking your children is under attack today, but it says in verse 18, Chasten thy son while there is hope. And here's the key, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. And then look at the next verse, a man of great wrath shall suffer punishment, for if thou deliver him, yet thou must do it again. It's interesting in the book of Proverbs, almost every time there's a command about disciplining your children, there'll be something about anger, either right before or right after. Because when people don't discipline their children, they get angry at them. Why wouldn't they get angry at them? I mean, if your children are doing wrong and you can't punish them and you can't stop them, you're going to get mad, you're going to get angry. And anger causes you to abound with transgression. Anger causes you to go into sin, the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God, okay. We see in this verse that our soul should not spare for his crying. The number one thing you should take away from that verse is if your children are never crying when you spank them, you're doing something wrong. He's saying let not thy soul spare for his crying. Now look, I realize that when the Bible used the word beat, that word has a different connotation in 2013 than what it did in 1611. We hear that beat and we think of, you know, obviously we're not talking about punching your kids or something. You know, when the Bible says beat, it's talking about what we would call in 2013, a spanking. But the key to realize here is that when you use the word beat, he's not saying pat them on the fanny. Pat them on the behind. And I see people spanking their children and that's what they do. This is about, no, no. Okay, now that doesn't hurt. And therefore if you do that, you're not going to get through to your children. There's no discipline there. And just a pat on the rear end, you know, now when children are really little and you give them that really light, you know, spanking, I mean, sometimes they'll react to it just because they're just more insulted than anything. And then they'll, you know, sometimes it'll actually be effective, but honestly, get real. The spanking doesn't hurt. And sometimes my kids will be like, oh, it hurt when you spanked me, and I'm like, that's the idea? You know, if it didn't hurt, it's not a spanking. But I see people all the time and they spank their kid and then when they give them that pat on the fanny, it just makes their kid mad. It doesn't really get through to them that, hey, I need to change here. I need to stop doing this or I'm going to get spanked, I'm going to get hurt here, you know. And again, you say, well how hard should you spank? I don't believe that you should injure your child. The goal is to obviously produce pain. Obviously that's what you're doing when you're spanking, you're using pain to punish them. So there should be pain, but there should not be injury. You know, you're not trying to harm the child, okay. So you want to get a stinging effect, but you don't want to harm or injure. Now, one of the ways that people spank ineffectively, okay, is sometimes they'll have a child and you say, well how, you know, I have a five year old, should I start spanking them? You're late, you're way too late. Because it says chasing them betimes. You say, well when should I start spanking my children? You should start spanking them when they're old enough to understand what they're supposed to be doing, you know, what you're telling them to do and they're not doing it and they're old enough to understand the concept of getting a spanking for what they've done, you know. And that's very young, by the way. You know, but when you have a child that's defying you, even at a very young age, they need to be spanked. Now, children wear diapers until they're what, three, four years old sometimes? When do children usually get out of diapers? When do they usually get potty trained? The typical child, about three, right around their third birthday maybe? Give me some numbers, throw some numbers at me. Two? But, okay, do some kids still wear diapers at three? Maybe to bed at night? Usually my kids, it's like, they'll be wearing it when they're two and then when they're three it's like they're only wearing it to bed or something, you know what I mean? And then they kind of get out of that phase, whatever. So, when you go to spank your child that's in the terrible twos, right? Who knows that term, terrible twos? So your two year old or your three year old in the terrible twos, I've seen people sometimes they'll spank their child through the diaper. Now this doesn't work. Because if you spank hard enough through the diaper to produce any pain, you're running the risk of injuring the child. You know, because you can misalign their spine or something, you know, if you're just whacking them and they're just, you know, boom, boom, that's not effective. You don't want to hit that hard, but you want to hit hard enough to produce a stinging sensation and through the diaper that just isn't possible, okay? And so you need to, you know, spank them not through the diaper, you know, you need to pull back the diaper and spank their bare bottom, okay? Now obviously when your children get older, you know, you don't want to spank their bare bottom, okay? But that, you know, but then again they're not wearing a diaper, okay? So you don't need to. And if you use something, and you know what, you say, well what do you use to spank? And I've had people tell me that it's unscriptural to spank your children with a belt. Who's ever heard that? They say, well the Bible says rod. So you know, you need to use a rod, you shouldn't use a belt. Yeah, but the Bible also says, whom the Lord loveth he chastens, then scourgeth, every son of me receiveth. Which would be a belt. It would be akin to a belt, okay? A scourge is a whip, okay? So basically, you know, I think that a good thing to spank your children with is a wooden cooking spoon. When they're young, just a wooden cooking spoon produces a sting without you having to use a lot of force, you know, and injure the child, but you can produce a sting. And you say, well how do I know? This is what you do. Just use it on your own arm. And just, oh wow, I can't even feel this. Well obviously then you need to exert a little more force and you can test it out on your own arm and get the right amount of pressure to produce the desired effect, okay? But you know, a wooden cooking spoon works when they're real young. But as they get older, you know, for example, when your children are 10, 12, 13 years old, a 12 inch wooden cooking spoon, they're going to laugh at that. You know what I mean? It's going to mean nothing to them, okay? That's why I think that the belt is the best thing to use. You know, whatever you use, that's your business. I'm not telling you what to do. When my parents spanked me, they used a sailboat rod, it was called. And I still have enshrined in my house today the sailboat rod that I was spanked with. And it's this white, like fiberglass plastic, and it's like a rod and a whip in one. Because I mean this thing, it flexes and snaps, but it's hard as a rock. I mean it's like, it's the worst of both worlds. And one time my mom tried to deny that she ever spanked me with it. I'm like, mom, she's like, no that was your dad. I'm like, mom, you spanked me with this thing like 50 times if you did it once. I'm like, don't tell me you did that. Oh, okay, I guess. But man, I got spanked with that sailboat rod growing up. So you know, there are different implements that can be used, okay? But look, this is the main implement. This is why I don't wear suspenders, my friend. Okay, because I have seven kids. And so look, you take the belt and you fold it, look, this is, isn't this the popular thing now? Practical, relevant preaching. Isn't that what you're going to get at the mega church down the street? With the rock band? They'll give you a 20 minute relevant practice. This is pretty practical, okay? You fold the belt in half like this, okay, and then that's how you do it right there. You get the sting without the injury, alright? This is, you know, retail value $19.95, you know? The effect on your children's future, priceless, okay? So anyway, I wanted to just briefly touch on, and I'm not, man, this is supposed to be a child-rearing sermon. The whole sermon's on spanking, but anyway, there's just a lot to cover. But I want to talk about the fact that lately there have been a lot of studies that have been coming out, scientific studies, that show that spanking your children is harmful. Who's heard some of these studies? Oh yeah, there's studies that show that your child is going to be more prone to get arrested when it gets older. Well, I mean, I guess I'm part of that statistic. I've been arrested, you know? I mean, I was spanked growing up. I was spanked growing up and I was arrested, and I was arrested, of course, for standing up for my Fourth Amendment right and I was declared not guilty, you know, and that's a whole other story. But I wasn't committing any sin or doing anything wrong. I just basically didn't want my car to be searched without a warrant. So I've been arrested, so put me in the statistic. I am a result of spanking, failed parenting. But I'm sure that if we could find some atheistic, lesbian freak that's never been arrested and never been spanked, that'll be in the success column. Because you have to understand, the people putting out these studies, their idea of success is different from your and my ideas of success, okay? Because they would raise some God-hating, man-hating, lesbian freak and say, she graduated from Harvard, or, you know, she's got a BS in lesbian poetry, you know? But if that was our child, we'd be ashamed. We'd be hating life if that was our child, okay? But to them, that's success. I mean, if your child was Hillary Clinton, you'd cry yourself to sleep every night. But to the world, that's success, right? Okay, but if you get arrested, well, you're a failure. Like the Apostle Paul when he got arrested, like Peter when he got arrested, like John when he got arrested, like Jesus when he got arrested, like all of the Apostles when they all got arrested, like all the Old Testament prophets all got arrested. I mean, the whole book of Acts is like a jailbreak story, it's just one jailbreak after another. It is. The Acts of the Apostles, okay, we're in jail again, we're in jail again. Then you get into the Epistles of Paul, and it's like, Paul a prisoner. That's like the way the book starts. Paul a prisoner, Paul a prisoner, I'm in bonds, remember my bonds. Don't be ashamed of my chain, alright? So what I'm saying is, first of all, you've got to think about these studies is that the world has a different idea of success than what we think is success. The world thinks if you just shut up and do what you're told and go to school and worship Satan with the rest of the world, you know, you'll be fine. That's not my idea of success, number one. But number two, the problem with these studies that show that, you know, spanking can lead to aggressive behavior, okay, part of the problem with that is that, you know, it doesn't take into account how people are using spanking. Because in these studies they usually say people who spank their kid like at least once a month or something like that. So basically there are people who are getting angry and mad and yelling and using timeouts and using groundation and using everything else, and then their last thing that they'll do is when they're really mad, when they're really angry, they take the belt off and spank you, nothing else is working, you're getting to spanking once a month. I mean like for example, who went to a school when you were growing up where they spanked? Okay, so did I. And look, when I was in school I got in trouble at school all the time, but I don't think I ever got spanked at school. I might have once, I can't remember it if it did happen, because I remember being threatened a few times, but I don't think it ever happened. And honestly, we would go a whole school year, like one kid in the whole school would get a spanking like the whole school year in Christian school. I mean who agrees with that? You went to Christian school and it was used very sparingly, right? Jerry, you went to Christian school? You'd get a spanking one kid once a year and it's like the whole school knows about it. Someone's still got spanked, you know? So what I'm saying is all spanking is not created equal. So you're lumping in a statistic, every just derelict person who just gets angry and loses their temper and hits their kid once a month, with the person who is just using loving discipline as a first line of defense, just you commit the crime, you get the spanking, and then they're happy and smiling 30 seconds later, you're lumping that in with the angry person. Listen to me, I think it's very important not to spank your children in anger. And here's what you need to understand when it comes to discipline. The word delicately, because in the discussion about discipline he talked about delicately bringing up your child, and in fact David said of the Lord, who we know disciplined him, he said, thy gentleness hath made me great. What you have to understand is that you can still spank hard enough to where it hurts without yelling, getting angry, and being mean about it. And I can honestly say that I spank my children all the time and when there's seven of them, you know, you're spanking somebody pretty often when there's seven of them. And I'll tell you this right now, I can honestly say that I'm not angry with my children. The vast majority of the time when I spank them, I'm not angry with them at all. Sometimes I am, but you know what, I shouldn't be, and I'm wrong when I am. And when I spank them, I can honestly say that the vast majority of the time, I'm not angry at all. Because it's just a simple equation, you know what, you've done wrong son, you're going to get the discipline. It's not mean, it's not angry, it's not, you always do this, you're never good, why do you always do this? You know, you just did this yesterday. I mean look, how many times is our brother supposed to trespass against us in one day and we forgive him? Till seven times a day? He said seventy times seven. So you know, we shouldn't hang previous offenses over their head getting angry. So that's why these statistics are skewed. Because of the fact that they're lumping in just people who angrily spank their kids as a last resort after they're already infuriated with people who just calmly and coolly use spanking as their primary form of discipline, whose children grow up and love them and respect them. You and I know that in the churches we've gone to and in the circles that we've run in our lives, those of us that have been Christian for a long time, we've seen all the examples of people who were spanked and they grew up and they did what they're supposed to do and they love their parents and we've seen the ones who didn't get disciplined go off the deep end. So you know, don't just let some study just become your gospel. This is my gospel, okay? And I don't care if a study says ninety-nine percent, look, I'll trust the word of God over any study. I mean these studies can be manipulated, they can be skewed, sometimes they could just be a bold faced lie. Do you think nobody ever lies to you? You think nothing on TV is ever just a bold faced lie? Or nothing in a magazine or newspaper is ever just a boldly calculated brazen satanic just lie? But honestly, even if the statistics are true, it doesn't prove anything because you've got non-Christian people in the study, you've got angry people, you've got people using all different forms of spanking in all different ways, and you know what, I don't need a study, I need a study to show myself approved unto God, not some worldly study to tell me about spanking. Another reason why the studies are skewed is because it's also a fact that people who are college educated do not spank their children as much as people who are not college educated. Oh see, if you're smart you don't spank. No, if you're brainwashed you don't spank. See you're equating college with smart, college equals brainwashed. And people who are brainwashed in college make more money because they can get jobs that require this BS degree or that BS degree or this master's degree or that PhD. So they can make more money, so what you have is you basically have a disparity. If you look at spanking statistics, spanking occurs more in the poorer classes. Spanking occurs more amongst the poor. So there could be a lot of other reasons why these kids are getting into crime, maybe just because they grew up in a poor neighborhood. Maybe they're just not being supervised by their parents in a poor neighborhood, although they're getting some spanking, they're also getting a lot of bad influences in that poor neighborhood. It could be part of the problem. But you know what? I don't look down on poor people. The Bible says God has chosen the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised and the love of. The Bible says a lot more positive things about poor people than about rich people. This life is not about just loving money and gaining riches. Now let me just jump forward in my sermon here. I'm not even going to talk about Hebrews 12 just for sake of time, but let's go to Ephesians 6 and we'll wrap this up. Let's go to Ephesians 6. What I was going to say about Hebrews 12 and the reason I'm skipping Hebrews 12 is because we already read the whole chapter before the sermon started, because a lot of people will try to say, oh well that's spanking, that's just Old Testament, they'll say. Which it always blows my mind. Why would that change in the New Testament? Why would Jesus die on the cross so that we could have children that bounce off the ceiling? Why would Jesus die on the cross so we could give our kids drugs instead of spanking them? And by the way, you know what the alternatives to spanking is? It's anger. It's yelling. It's lecturing. And you know what else it is? It's drugs. Today children that are misbehaved in school are forced on drugs. They're forced on Ritalin, they're forced on ADD medication, and ADHD. Look, ADD does not exist. Yes you heard me, ADD does not exist. You know what it means? And then they talk about, you know, oh he has Asperger, and he has ADD, and he has ADD. No he needs his butt whipped. That's what he needs. And so this is just an excuse for bad parenting. Hebrews 12 is a New Testament scripture that backs up everything we read in the Old Testament. I'm not going to go to it for the sake of time. Read Hebrews 12, it's a clear scripture on discipline. Go to Ephesians 6 verse 1, it says, 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 in the earth. Now here's the instruction to parents. Verse 4, Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In case there's any question about what God means by provoke not your children to wrath, there's a parallel passage in Colossians 3.21 that says, fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. So when it's saying provoke them not to wrath, it's saying provoke them not to anger. Don't discourage them. And so the Bible's telling us to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. See there are two elements to good childbearing. Discipline's not enough. It's not just if you spank your kids, if you discipline your kids, they're guaranteed to turn out right. No, there are actually two elements. There's a positive element and a negative element. Now obviously spanking is the negative element. Obviously discipline is the negative there. And the Bible says that we should bring up our children in the nurture, does that sound positive or negative? Nurture and admonition. That's when somebody's being corrected and being told that they're wrong. So the nurture is the positive, the admonition is the negative. The nurture and admonition of the Lord. Our rules should be based on the Lord's rules. So when we admonish, it should be with the word of God. And we can make our own rules and then it falls under children obey your parents and the Lord. This is right. So we see the nurture and the admonition. If you just have the nurture with no admonition, this is called attachment parenting. Just be nice to your children, show them unconditional love, treat them well, and they're going to grow up and love you, you're going to fail. If you just have the nurture, you'll fail. But let me say this, if you just have the admonition, you'll also fail. If you just have the negative, if you spank your kids every time they're bad but you never show them any love, you never spend time with them, you never teach them, you never invest in them, you're going to fail also because you must have both. It's just like the battery in your car. It doesn't matter whether you disconnect the positive terminal or disconnect the negative terminal. It's not going anywhere. Either way, it's not going to work. You need both. Nurture and admonition. Go to Proverbs 31, it's the last place we'll turn, Proverbs chapter 31. Now that was a scripture on fathers, nurture and admonition. Let's go to a scripture on mothers because the mother's role is very important in child rearing as we saw earlier. Remember we talked a little bit earlier about the child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame? There's a godly mother in Proverbs 31 and look what the Bible says in verse 1 of Proverbs 31. The words of King Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him. So here's a mother teaching her son the Bible, taking the time to talk with him and speak to him about the Bible and to teach him. So it's not just enough to discipline your children, you should also spend time talking with them, teaching them. In Deuteronomy 6, 5 it says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul and with all thy might and these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up. Look, throughout the day we need to be talking to our children, being with our children, rising up with them, eating meals with them, spending time with them, loving them, teaching them, training them. It's interesting that God gives us this example in Proverbs 31 of a mother teaching her son in a famous chapter about what a virtuous woman looks like, and if there's one term that we could use to describe the virtuous woman it's that she was a hard worker. I mean read the whole chapter, I don't have time, the whole chapter is about her working with her hands, she's staying up late, she's making clothing, she's cooking food, she's planting a vineyard, she's making girdles, she's making this, she's spinning linen, she's making this, I mean she is a hard worker. Almost every positive thing about her has to do with the fact that she's not lazy. Did you hear that? When it comes to the virtuous woman, her greatest virtue is that she's not lazy, she works. That means that the greatest vice that could be found amongst women would be idleness. God warns us of this in 1 Timothy 5, about women who learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busybodies. So what the Bible is telling us here is that the virtuous woman, she works hard and she looketh well to the ways of her household, and she openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Did you hear that? Look down at your Bible, are you in the chapter? I have it memorized but I need to find the, what verse is that? 26. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. What does that mean, the law of kindness? It means that that's how she speaks. That's what governs her speech, kindness. So does it sound like she's just angry, railing, yelling, screaming, quick to speak, quick to wrath, is that the virtuous woman? No, she opens her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She speaks the truth, this whole chapter is her teaching her son, teaching him the word of God. She's not quick to just rail on him, she's kind to him. These are the words you need to learn about parenting, kindness, gentleness, delicacy, these are all good parenting words. Does that mean that I'm not swinging the belt hard? No, but you can still be nice and administer discipline in a loving, forgiving way and then you can move on and move forward and love your children. We need to love our children, women are commanded, love their husbands, love their children. We as fathers need to love our children, and you know what, if we love someone, we're going to invest in that person. Where our treasure is, there will our heart be also. When you're too busy for your children, where you're just constantly doing something else and you never have time to play with them, to talk to them, to teach them the Bible, to read to them, to take them on a walk, you know what, you need to get your priorities adjusted and realize, and you say, well I'm too busy serving God, I don't have any time for my children. Look, it's important to serve God, no question, but you know what? What about the service that your children are going to do for God? Think about it, there's only so much that Stephen Anderson can do, but what about seven little Stephen Andersons that can grow up and serve God for the rest of their life? That's why it's so important that we as God's people don't neglect our children. Yes discipline them, yes do the soul winning, yes go to church, yes preach the gospel to every creature, yes be involved and serve God in every possible way and take care of everybody else, but you know what, we also need to make time for our children. It needs to be a priority, it's important to me, it ought to be important to you, it's important to God, it's important, that we nurture them, love them, teach them, spend time with them, make memories with them, you know I have great memories of doing things with my parents, you know going places with them and them just, even just them just talking with me, just sitting and talking with my parents, you know those are great memories, playing a board game, going somewhere, going on a walk, going on a bike ride, going wherever, you know these are things that we need to take the time to do so that we can have a relationship with our children and that they don't just see us as just the person who spanks me when I disobey, the rule enforcer. You don't want to be just an enforcer, okay? You want to be also somebody who they have a relationship with, I mean think about it, is God to us as our Heavenly Father, is He just an enforcer? I mean is that all He is? If we do wrong, He's going to cloud up and rain, if we do well, He's going to reward us and that's it. No, isn't He someone that talks to us every day through His Word and we talk to Him every day? Isn't He someone that we actually walk with and talk with and have conversation with and have a relationship with? That's the way it needs to be between us and our children. We need to bond with our children, we need to spend time with our children as we're teaching them and you know what, the biggest obstacle toward effective child rearing is laziness. Number one thing, the number one reason why you will fail as a parent is because of laziness, whether you're a mother or a father. And the reason for that is because raising children is hard work, disciplining your children is hard work. I mean just swinging that bell takes some energy, but let me say this also, it's a lot easier just to yell at your children than to spank them. I mean sometimes you don't want to just stop everything, okay, stop everything, okay, take off the belt, okay, go get the paddle, go get the spoon, alright, spank, you know, it's just this big, you're busy, right? It's just easier to just go, shut up, you know? Or just to yell, or just to throw something, you know, just yell, just get mad, okay. Or to just do nothing, you know, you're on your computer typing up that Facebook post or that blog post or you know, and you're just like, listening to the kids just destroying the house in the other room, it's like, ugh, that drives me nuts, ugh, ugh. Okay but look, that's laziness. Laziness is where you just don't do anything and you just get mad in your heart, or maybe you yell. It's hard work to stop what you're doing and go fix the problem. And you know what, you need to make sure that, by the way, that you're not spending a bunch of time on the computer or on other entertainment or hanging on the telephone instead of doing your main job which is raising your children throughout the day. You know, you shouldn't be neglecting your husband or your children and we as fathers also need to make time for our children, you know, after work, we need to use our time to have a relationship with our wife and to have a relationship with our children. In that order, by the way, you know, we should never put our children above our spouse. That's just going to make them grow up and be a spoiled brat. But the bottom line is that laziness is the problem today with child rearing. Too lazy to do the discipline, so let's put them on drugs. Too lazy to spank, so let's just yell. Let's just get angry. Let's just be mad about it. Or let's just ignore it. Or let's just placate them. You know, you're telling them, neeee, neeee, neeee, neeee, neeee, neeee. And then what do you do? Here, here's a brownie. Here's a cookie. Here's a sucker. What are you teaching your child? Be a brat. Get rewarded. Yup. Commit sin. Get a reward. Look, people are creatures of habit. Whether it's me at age 32 or whether it's my child at age 2, people are creatures of habit and when you do an activity and you get a reward, you're going to keep doing it. And when you do an activity and you get a red behind, you're not going to do it. It's that simple. I mean, that's what it comes down to. And so don't let laziness cause you to placate your children, cause you to yell at your children, get angry at your children. This ought to be our mantra, okay? Slow to speak, slow to wrath, quick to spank. And you know what? My children are going to grow up and hate me if they get spanked. No they're not. They're going to grow up and hate you if you just scream at them all the time and lecture them all the time. That's when they're going to not like it, okay? Now look, children, I hope that no child in this room is trying to use this sermon against their parents. Hey, yeah, my parents yelled at me or whatever. No. You probably needed to be yelled at, okay? But you know, I'm preaching to the parents and obviously no parent's ever going to be perfect. The Bible doesn't say never to wrath, never to speak, it just says slow to speak, slow to wrath. So there is a time when somebody does need to be chewed out. There is a time when somebody needs to be lectured. But I think it's few and far between. And I think that the most common method that the Bible is telling us to use is corporal punishment. And it'll create a much closer, better, more loving relationship when you cut out the anger, when you cut out the lecturing, you know, you can actually have a better relationship with your children. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word and for the wisdom that's found in the book of Proverbs and elsewhere. Please just help us to be wise and to implement these things and to let these things become our guiding principles. Help us not to go with the trendy new study and the trendy new parenting method and the trendy new worldly methods that say, you know, never to spank your children or use timeouts or put them on drugs or oh, milk is the problem. If they don't drink any milk, then they'll turn out perfect. You know, just Lord, help us not to be carried about with every wind of doctrine that this world has to offer. Help us to stay with the timeless biblical truths that we've been brought up with that are your words that are perfect from everlasting to everlasting. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.