Biblestudy: Childrearing (Part Five)

God the Master Childrearer
#BS-CR05
John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 26-Dec-87; 82 minutes

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We are going to be continuing the series on child rearing. And just at the beginning of this, a very brief resume of each one of the sermons as we have so far.

Number one was on the awesome responsibility vested in us to rear potential Gods. And that of course, was intended for you and me to have a goal set before us for which we would strive in our efforts.

Number two, the chemistry of government; the reward, punishment, and charisma factors, and especially trying to begin to draw your attention to the charisma factor, which the Bible calls the fear of God.

Number three, how to build charisma so there is a proper example for our children. And that was divided into four important areas. The first and most important of which was the relationship with God. The second one was the attitude of the mates toward each other. The third one was the attitude of the mates to their children. And the fourth, and least important, was the technique that one used in the actual mechanics of rearing a child.

Number four (the sermon 2 weeks ago) featuring the things on eye contact, touching, and focused attention.

Now I am going to begin just picking up right on the focused attention idea. We are going to go to one of the scriptures that I gave to you when I was rushing to complete there at the end, in Deuteronomy 32. And we are going to begin in verse 7 and go through to verse 12.

Deuteronomy 32:7-12 [this is part of the song of Moses] "Remember the days of old, and consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you: When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. As a eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings, so the Lord alone led him, and there was no foreign god with him."

Try to view this, if you can, looking at it from God's perspective. And there He is, sitting up on His high and mighty throne, looking over His vast creation, and He sees an innumerable company of angels that He is managing and directing. He sees, of course, the demons that have rebelled against Him. He sees all of the men who are on this earth, all four or five billion of us. In addition to that, He sees the multiple billions and trillions of other created things, all of the things that are populating the heavens. And he is responsible for managing all these things, keeping everything in order, moving in the right direction. And it says that He upholds everything by the Word of His power, which certainly gives us the idea that He is very actively involved in the things that are going on in what He has created.

Now, I want to draw your attention to that because this series of scriptures shows that in spite of everything that He has that could distract Him from what He is doing, the main focus of His attention is on His people Israel. I want you to get that because we are going to make a spiritual application to this because we are going to see in another verse that His focus of attention now is no longer on Israel. That is a secondary factor. His focus of attention now is on spiritual Israel, as Romans 9, 10, and 11 very clearly explain. That the Israel of God is the church and that is His focus of attention.

I am showing you this because God is our role model in regard to child rearing. And I want you to see at the very beginning of this sermon that He is intent upon what He is doing. The rearing of His children, the making of His Family is no secondary occupation with Him. He is not preoccupied with other things, but rather He has His mind focused on the establishment, the making, the producing of His Family. It is not something that He has delegated and given responsibility to others.

In verse 8, the last two phrases, that "He set the boundaries of the peoples," meaning all of the other nations on earth, what the Bible calls the Gentiles, "according to the number of the children of Israel." Now my Bible has a marginal reference there and it goes over to the side and it says the sons of God, not according to the sons of the children of Israel, but according to the sons of God, did God apportion the nations.

Now, it is a little bit vague there as to exactly what he means by sons of God. But I think that we can determine this: that it is either good angels who are the sons of God or it is the bad angels that rebelled against Him. I feel that the weight from other portions of the Bible would go on the side of the bad angels that He has apportioned nations of the earth to. We do not have time to chase that out but I feel that that is the way it is. We can see very clearly in many scriptures that there are demon spirits who are in charge of the nations of the earth. And that is their portion, meaning that is their responsibility.

But Israel God has not given to anybody else. He has not delegated it to anybody. It is His responsibility.

That phrase that appears down in verse 10, "He kept him as the apple of His eye," that literally means the image of the eye, or even more literally, the little man of the eye. Now, have you ever looked intently into someone's eye, right into the pupil? What do you see? The pupil is like a little mirror and if you look right into somebody's pupil, you see yourself. In other words, what you are seeing is what that person is looking at, what they are focusing in on. And at that particular time, it happens to be you. Now, if an Israelite were able to look up through the heavens and look directly into God's eyes, who do you think they would see? They would see themselves. You see, that is why he is using that illustration that Israel is the focus of God's attention. His eyes are on them.

Now His eyes are on the church primarily and secondarily out to the other nations, the nations of Israel, because God is primarily working through those people.

It says here that "He found him in a desert land and in a wasteland, a howling wilderness." Now think of, again in a spiritual sense, in the beginning of your relationship with God, and that is that God initiated it. Even as He initiated the relationship with Israel while they were in the land of Egypt, so He also initiated the relationship with you and me. I am doing this so that you will understand how intense is God's focus on His people. It is not something, as I said, that He has put as a secondary responsibility at all.

But "He found him in a desert land and in a wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him."

This is very interesting, again, when we go back to the example of Israel and their experiences with God in the wilderness. You understand, do you not, that Israel moved in the wilderness whenever the cloud moved or whenever the pillar of fire moved. Now, what was God showing you and me by this? That He was absolutely directing their movements. That if the cloud stood still for a month, six weeks, two months, or a year, they stayed encamped. But if the cloud moved every other day, then they moved. The same with a pillar of fire.

Now, again, if you put that into your own life then you understand that, first of all, God initiates contact with you and then, you see, He is heading in a direction with you. He has a goal in mind in regard to your life and He is not leaving things to chance any more than He left the direction that the children of Israel went in the wilderness to chance. He guided and He directed them through life because He had a purpose in mind, for you individually, for me as well. Jesus said, "I go and prepare a place for you." He is preparing a place for us and also He is preparing us for that place. Therefore, He has to take us through circumstances that are going to produce the characteristics in us that will enable us to fit into the position that He wants us in His Kingdom. Does He not say that He puts people into the Body as it pleases Him? (We will get to that one a little bit more later.)

So "He encircled him" which indicates protection and also "He instructed him" by taking us through, and of course Israel through, the circumstances of life and "He keeps us as the apple of His eye."

Then in verse 11, "As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on His wings." I do not know exactly what your Bible says there, but my Bible says hover and it uses the eagle and its relationship with the eaglet as the illustration of how God carries on His relationship with His people. Now, the hovering or fluttering, your Bible may say fluttering, indicates an eagle over top of the nest and stirring things up in order to get the eaglets that are in the nest up on the edge of the nest and to dive on out and begin to spread their wings.

The nest here in regard to the children of Israel was Egypt. That is where they were. When God found them, He stirred up the nest. Now, in this case, He had to do it through plagues that He brought upon the land, through the teaching that came through Moses and Aaron, and eventually you see, they were stirred up till they were ready to leave the nest there in Egypt and go out into the wilderness.

Then it says, "spreading out its wings." That indicates that He is bearing us up at all times, while He leads us along the way that He is going. The next word I wanted, "carrying them on its wings"; that there are times that He actually has to carry us until we have the strength, the wisdom, the character, or whatever to walk on our own. There are times when our problems bear down on us and we get tired, somewhat weary, or we want to give up. And so during those times, God bears us up.

You see, the picture, the overall picture is that God is intensely involved in our lives. This is not something that He has delegated to a daycare center. This is not something that He has given over into the hands of angels, but He is intensely involved with His people. We are the apple of His eye. And so he concludes that particular section in verse 12 by saying, "So the Lord alone led him." That "alone" refers back to that we are His portion. There was no other God among them. And so His attention to us is so close that there is no reason that we should ever be away from Him or go away from Him into idolatry unless, somehow or another, we harden our hearts and we set our will to go away from Him.

Now, let us go back to Zechariah 2 where there is a confirming scripture, and kind of bring it up to date. In fact, we are actually going to be going on out into the future in regard to its application. But in Zechariah the second chapter, beginning in verse 6, we will go through verse 8. Now, the application of these three verses is yet future. It involves the children of Israel being in their captivity and it says in the north. All directions are given from Jerusalem so north of Jerusalem are those people who are in captivity in Russia or in captivity in Europe, both of those areas being north. And they are having a problem. They are in captivity. Interesting to see what God's solution is to their problem.

Zechariah 2:6-8 "Up, up! Flee from the land of the north," says the Lord; "for I have spread you abroad like the four winds of heaven," says the Lord. "Up, Zion! Escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon." For thus says the Lord of hosts: "He sent me after glory to the nations which plunder you; for He who touches you touches the apple of His eye."

There is a problem with verse 7, at least in my Bible, in its translation. I did not realize this until studying it this past week. I looked at some alternate translations of it and found something very interesting. I believe that it is the Revised Standard Version that translates that verse, "Up! Escape to Zion." Now, I believe that that is correct. And the reason I believe it is correct is because the context is addressed not to the church, it is addressed to the children of Israel who are in captivity. Did you see what God's solution is though? His solution to those who are in captivity is that they should escape to the church.

Now, what He is telling them spiritually is that in order for them to be protected in their captivity and to be able to make it back to the Promised Land, to Jerusalem where Israel will be regathered, that they should repent, that they should be baptized, that they should have hands laid on them, that they should have the Spirit of God, that they should come into the church. That is their escape—escape to Zion.

In verse 8, He gives the reason why that is going to be a place of safety for them.

Zechariah 2:8 For thus says the Lord of hosts: "He sent me after glory, to the nations which plunder you [Europe, Russia, the other nations]; for he who touches you [those who escaped to Zion] touches the apple of His eye."

Now think of your eye, your own eye. Your eyesight is one of the most precious possessions that you have and I know that you would not under any circumstance want to lose it. And so you protect your eyes and you know that any time that you get even a little speck of dust in your eyes that it is extremely irritating and you cannot bear it to be there and you immediately take care of it. Just as quickly as you possibly can, you rinse that thing out with water or go to an eye doctor of some kind, and get that thing out of there. It is tender and it hurts you whenever something gets in there. Now, that is exactly what God is referring to here, that His church is just like the tenderest, most valuable part of His body. And if you touch it, He is going to immediately respond.

You see, the church is the apple of God's eye. It is the focus of His attention. And if we were able to look up into the eyes of God, we would see ourselves reflected in the little man of the eye, the pupil.

I think that that ought to show you pretty clearly, again, that God has not delegated this responsibility. Jesus interpreted this in the New Testament by saying that God is aware of sparrows. He is even more aware of us. In fact, He has every hair of our head numbered.

Now, none of us will ever be able to measure up to that in regard to attention that we give to our children. But it certainly sets a very high standard for you and me. And if we are going to emulate God, it certainly means that we are not going to be able to delegate this responsibility to others. And it also shows that it needs to be a very high priority in our lives. So it is not in any way a minor responsibility because its ultimate purpose is to prepare the coming generation for entrance into the Kingdom of God. And secondarily, of course, to ensure at the same time, we are going to have a stable and enduring family and society.

I also mentioned in that sermon last week that I feel that it is not possible to rear children as well as it can possibly be done without having knowledge of the gospel. I used as a confirmation of that or at least the beginning of a confirmation of that, that without vision the people perish. Proverbs 29:18, "Where there is no revelation, the people perish [cast off restraint]." Now, you and I have that revelation. We know what God is working out on earth. And if we make the efforts in the right direction, we are going to be able to bend the twig that we have in our house in that direction toward the Kingdom of God. And that is our responsibility.

I wonder, how many of us really have purpose in the rearing of our children? That we are studying our children, that we are looking at the abilities that are beginning to surface. We see their proclivities to see whether or not there is any talent beginning to bud in music, in art, in mathematics, in science, in mechanical things. Is there any ability there that maybe needs to be developed? Well, here we have a revelation of God's overall purpose and also there are of course other examples of things that we need to bend our children toward. If we have the gospel, then it is possible for us to train, to rear our children always in every area with the Kingdom of God in mind.

The world does not have that benefit. They rear their children to be wealthy, they rear their children to be smart academically, they rear their children to be famous; and then some people make little or no effort at all. Now, we have to rear our children with the Kingdom of God in mind. That is the overall goal that we have.

Let us go back to Proverbs the 22nd chapter and see there one of the better known of all of the verses in regard to child rearing.

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

It is interesting to note that this promise only goes to those who actually train. Now, unfortunately, all of us train our children to some degree, for good or for bad. And as we read in that book that I quoted from, A Child's Mind by Muriel Beadle, that they said that early childhood training is so impressionable on a child that that verse ought to be changed. It should read, "Train up a child, and when he is old he will be unable to depart from it." (emphasis added)

Now, what we need to do, of course, is to make the effort to train the child right. And then when he is old, he will not be departing from that either, from the right thing.

This first phrase, "train up a child" means to narrow him in at the beginning or the mouth of his way—narrow him in. It gives you a clear indication that a child left to himself is going to bounce from horizon to horizon, that he is really not going to have much direction to his life and that he is going to sample everything that comes along, every little whim that comes to his mind. Jesus said that, "Narrow is the way that leads to life and broad is the way that leads to destruction."

So this verse is telling us that the best time to get a child is at the mouth of his way. You begin very early to narrow him in so that the parameters of his life in regard to the things that the Bible is concerned with are very narrow. That the ditches on either side of him are not very far away. In that way, you are going to protect him and keep him in the right way.

Now, when is a child trained? Kindergarten? Are they trained by that time? Maybe by the time they get into the second grade? Even the state has determined that 12 years is necessary to prepare one for citizenship and a reasonably productive life, so in that 12 years, there is a a reasonable amount of maturity that is produced. But I still do not think that is right because what we are trying to accomplish is so much more subtle and infinitely more difficult. The child rearing never really ever ends. Without a doubt, we have to make the most concerted efforts very early in a child's life.

There are three approaches that one can use. You can use the approach of allowing him to grow up like topsy. In other words, by whim, by chance, whatever happens that is what happens. The second category I think is the one that most of us would fall into. And that is that we do it rather haphazardly. There is no real point to it, no real goal established, and we work at it inconsistently, usually whenever we get a sermon on child rearing. The kids used to always hate sermons on child rearing because their life was going to be much more intense for the next month or so. And then it would fade into the sunset and everything would be back to normal until the next child rearing sermon. And then of course, there is the third way, and that is that you make a life-long project of it, putting much time and effort and thought into it.

Brethren, that is love and you are really giving yourself over to this responsibility.

Now, if we look at that word "train" all by itself, the closest English word that we have to it is "catechize." Some of you have gone to parochial schools and you went through catechism classes and it means to instruct or question searchingly and systematically. In this context, of course, it has to do with regard to God's way. It is interesting that the etymology of this word goes back to the French language and it means to resound. "Re" means again, it means to sound again. Or the English word would be echo, an echo. In other words, what it is trying to get across here is the idea that training is not something that happens one time. It is something that is done over and over and over again, repetitiously, searchingly, systematically pointed toward a goal.

This very closely parallels Deuteronomy 6:7 where God used the word "diligently." I showed you how that word in the Hebrew indicates the sharpening of a knife. That is the metaphor that it is taken from the sharpening of a knife. And you know very well that a knife needs to be sharpened, and then you use it and it gets dull and you sharpen it again, and then you use it and it gets dull and you sharpen it again, and you use it and it gets dull, and over and over again. That is what this word train indicates. You sharpen a child up and you go back and do it again, and you do it again, and you do it again; systematically, searchingly, studying your child, studying the direction that you are heading your child. And a child that is approached in that way is going to have ingrained within him something that he is never going to lose because it will make a very deep impression on his mind.

This word is used five times in the Bible. One time it is used in the imperative tense. That is right where we are looking at here in Proverbs 22. And when it is used in the imperative tense, it means urgently necessary, obligatory, unavoidable. Now, what it means in its context is that it is a responsibility that we should not avoid. It is urgently necessary that it be done when the child is young—the younger, the better. Now it is never too late to begin to do things right. But the younger you get them, the better it is going to be.

Now four other times it is used in other tenses and this will give you another indication of the meaning of this word as it is used in other situations. It is translated dedicated, committed, or devoted. So again, that tends to show the kind of attitude that we need to have toward the rearing of children. It is something that we need to be devoted to. It is not something that should be passed off as a secondary responsibility.

Let us go back to the book of Genesis in chapter 18, verse 17. There is a very interesting scripture here. And again, in studying it this week, I found something that I had never seen before and I found it because I looked at other translations and then began to check it out a little bit more thoroughly. You will find, I think, that again the King James is wrong in its translation. This particular circumstance involves Abraham and his visit from God just before God was going to destroy Sodom. Now again, let us make a spiritual application to this updated into the 20th century.

Sodom, of course, represents the world. Here in this context, He was just about ready to destroy Sodom. And the destruction of Sodom, Babylon, whatever title you want to put on it, is imminent. And now Abraham is being addressed.

Genesis 18:17-19 The Lord said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing [He said that to a couple of angels], since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that he may keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him."

I wonder if you noticed the difference between the way I read that and what it may say in your King James Bible. If you have a Revised Standard Version, it also says it correctly. Did you see why God called Abraham? Did you see why God knew Abraham? "I have known him in order that he may teach his children." Why did God call Abraham? Why did God make a covenant with Abraham? In order that Abraham may command his children. Teach, enjoin. If Abraham did not teach his children, there would not be any promises fulfilled from God. Everything would come to a screeching halt.

This dovetails perfectly with Malachi 2:14-16 and Malachi 4:5-6. He says, unless the hearts of the fathers turn to the children, He is going to come and smite the earth with utter destruction. Also, why did He create marriage? In order that He might have godly seed. Why did he call Abraham? In order that Abraham might teach his children.

Brethren, let us update it to our calling. We are the children of Abraham. What applies to Abraham applies to you and me in this regard. Why did he call you? In order that you might teach your children the way of the Lord. And then there is a reason for God to fulfill his promises to Abraham.

If you think that child rearing is not a major responsibility, I hope that you will rethink it. It is something that requires a great deal of time and attention. But of course, it is one of the areas of life that is going to produce among the greatest amounts of peace and satisfaction and sense of well being and accomplishment as well.

Now, how can we do this? I am beginning to get into technique. How can we do this? I hope I have given you enough to see that if we are following what God shows in His Word, it is something that we need to be very responsible about.

Let us begin back in the book of Hebrews, chapter 12. I am going to begin in verse 5 and go through verse 11 because there is a word that appears in that series of verses many, many times. And it is a word that I feel that we do not understand in the way that we should.

Hebrews 12:5-11 "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and He scourges every son whom He receives." If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

The word that I am going to concentrate on here for a while is the word "chastening," as it appears in my Bible and also in the King James. Some of you who may have modern Bibles may have the word "discipline" that is in there. But this word is from the Greek paideia. I am going to read to you the definition from Thayer's Greek English Lexicon as that word is defined in the Greek.

The whole training and education of children, which relates to the cultivation of mind and morals, and employs for this purpose now commands and admonitions, now reproof and punishment.

I want you to see that the application of this word is much broader than it first appears when you read Hebrews the 12th chapter. Because it appears in that context, we begin to get the idea that all God does is go around and spank us, that He punishes us, because that happens to be the thrust of that particular context. This word appears in many, many contexts in the Bible, as I am going to show you, in regard to the training of children or in regard to the training of God's children—you and me.

Once again: The whole training and education of children, which relates to the cultivation of mind and morals, and employs for this purpose now commands and admonitions, now reproof and punishment."

Here the word (Hebrews 12) is "chasten." In Ephesians 6:4 it is translated "nurture." In II Timothy 3:16 it is translated "instruction." And in both of those cases, in modern translations, it is very likely to have the word "discipline" there. Now, I am going to turn to a couple of scriptures, the first one being in Acts the seventh chapter, verse 22, where the context is the training of Moses while he was in Egypt. Stephen is the speaker and he says that,

Acts 7:22 "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds."

The word translated "learned" in my Bible is that word that is translated "nurture" in Ephesians 6, "chasten" in Hebrews 12, and "instruction" in II Timothy 3:16. Here it is used in the context of classroom training, teaching by a teacher.

In II Timothy 2, verse 25. Paul is the author. He is writing to Timothy. He says,

II Timothy 2:25 in humility, correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth.

The word "correcting" is that same word that is translated in those other places paideia, and there it is used in a sense of reproving or castigating with words in order to mold character. Same word though.

Now one more in Luke the 23rd chapter, verses 16 and 22. Here the speaker is Pilate. The subject is Christ and Pilate says in regard to Christ,

Luke 23:16 "I will therefore chastise Him and release Him."

Luke 23:22 [he says] "I will therefore chastise Him and let Him go."

There the word is used in the sense of punishing with blows.

You can see there is a very broad application of this word throughout the Bible. We could go to many others and we would begin to find reinforcement for that.

Now the English word "discipline." Here is the definition of this word as it is given in The Reader's Digest Encyclopedic Dictionary. I want you to notice how close the definition is to the word chasten or paideia.

The training of the mental, moral, and physical powers by instruction, control, and exercise.

Here is Thayer's,

The whole training and education of children which relates to the cultivation of mind and morals, and employs for this purpose now commands and admonitions, now reproof and punishment.

Discipline in The Reader's Digest Dictionary,

The systematic training and obedience to rules and authority, as in the armed forces. Its synonyms are educate, drill, and punish.

Now there it is.

Here is the technique or the foundation for the technique of rearing children. It is not a matter of spanking a child into obedience. It is a matter of educating him verbally as in a classroom situation, of putting him through practical drills that are designed to train him as one would with an athlete or with a mechanic, and then finally, punishing in the application, when the child steps out of line and it is used as a tool to bring them back in.

The Family Word Finder, which is kind of an encyclopedic thesaurus, gives these synonyms for discipline: training, drilling, schooling, indoctrination, practicing.

You think that God does not do that with you and me? He does it in spades! Every Sabbath He gets His Family together and we have a classroom situation. God is always putting us through drills—we call them trials—and every once in a while, He punishes us good and hard when something happens, and we are being punished to bring us back into line. He uses all three methods and they are all contained within that word "chasten."

Ephesians 6:4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Now hold your finger there and turn a couple of pages to Colossians 3, verse 21 where there is a companion scripture.

Colossians 3:21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

These verses are very important because it is certainly possible for us to break our children's spirit through an excessive amount of zeal that is pointed in the wrong direction. We can give harsh and continuous criticism, be too strict in our discipline, and we will produce something in our children that is not very nice. By putting these two verses together, it shows very clearly that God insists that parents take into consideration their children's feelings. They are people, they are little people, they are not your slave, they are not something for you and me to kick around. They are very precious. They are God's heritage that He loans to you and me that we might have the opportunity to have first crack at preparing them for the Kingdom of God.

Both of those verses appear to be to be addressed to fathers. Now, maybe we fathers are more likely to be too severe with our children. That is certainly a possibility. But actually the word that is used there for fathers is in other contexts in the New Testament used for parents—both of them. It is entirely possible for the mother to be too strict and severe, too harsh, as well. So it is really addressed to both both parents, father and mother.

So we are warned then against goading our children into a state of exasperation. That is what that word "provoked" means, into a state of exasperation or resentment, or being embittered. And brethren, I know that it has happened within the church. That some of our people have been so hard on their children that by time they are teenagers, they are ready to throw up their hands in disgust. They look at the church as being the enemy because of the way that their parents reared them. And in many cases, you see, we have given wrong instruction in regard maybe to the importance of punishment.

Another thing that I might add here is that God is warning us that we should not challenge the resistance of our children because they are human, they are carnal, and they are going to resist that. We should not challenge our children's resistance with an unreasonable exercise of authority. All the power, you might say, is on our side until they get to be teenagers.

And then [cuts out]. . . but who may have been quite quiescent during the early years when you had all the power over him suddenly becomes a notorious rebel and begins flouting your authority in every area. So parents then can be so exacting and so fault-finding and so critical and so nagging in their approach to their children that it leaves a child with the idea that there is nothing that he can do that he could possibly please his parents with, nothing ever quite measures up.

So they lose heart, they have no self-esteem, they become listless and moody and you will begin to find them furtive in the way that they conduct their lives. They are always just a little bit out of your vision. They always seem to be sneaking somewhere, sneaking to do something.

The Phillips translation translates Colossians 3:21 this way, "Do not overcorrect." The Weymouth translation says, "Do not fret and harass your children." And the Knox translation says, "Do not rouse them to resentment." So there is a balance. Children have to be kept after, but while you are keeping after them, it is with tenderness and consideration for their youth, their inexperience, and their weakness.

Turn with me to Matthew 25 because there is one more caution that I want to give here. This is the beginning of the Parable of the Talents, just something that I want to lift from here and put it into the context of the sermon.

Matthew 24:14-15 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey."

God is showing us there that we do have differing abilities. Every child is not exactly the same, that every child cannot be dealt with in exactly the same way. And neither can you expect every child to produce exactly as much as every other child. And what it lays upon you and me is the responsibility of studying our children, meditating about their abilities, where they lie, how they are, how great they appear to be. And there has to be compensation made for the differences that you are going to be able to observe there. This goes on to show that it is our responsibility to help our children to use their abilities to produce as much as they possibly can.

Now, it is interesting to note the way that God judges. That though people have differing abilities, each can produce an equal amount within the framework of their abilities. That is, the person given five talents, doubled them to 10. The person who was given two talents, again, doubled them to four. Each, according to his own ability, produced as much as the other. The only one, verses 26 and 27, who was castigated in any way, or punished, was the person who did nothing with what he was given.

J. Edgar Hoover (he was the late head of the FBI) wrote an article once on child rearing that I happened to read and it was entitled, "How Good a Parent Are You?" I thought it was interesting and so I saved it. Here it is. He said that,

Criminals are made, not born. Long before a youngster is legally labeled a juvenile delinquent, his acts repeat a familiar pattern of conduct. [I want you to remember that because all of us have patterns in our lives.] Are you thinking about your child? Where are they headed? Can you extrapolate from the way that they are now behaving in their attitude toward you, their attitude toward others, their attitude toward their toys, their attitude toward their work, the way they carry things out? Are you extrapolating from that pattern of conduct that they are already setting before you? His acts repeat a familiar pattern of conduct, falsehoods [He is talking here about these criminals], disobedience, truancy, petty stealing. Each dereliction leads to another. And unless he learns the fundamental lessons of self-discipline, trouble is inevitable. [Muriel Beadle: it will be impossible to change it, she said.] Every child should have a maximum freedom of expression. But when such freedom transgresses common decency or infringes upon the rights of others, it must be curtailed. Our prisons [he said] are filled with individuals who enjoy freedom of expression without self-discipline.

The fundamental lessons of self-discipline. What are they? What area should we make special effort to train our children in, to educate them, to put them through drills, and to punish them if need be? I am going to give you three areas. They are broad areas, they are areas that you and I need to pay attention to. And if we do, we are taking a big step toward producing the kind of child that God wants.

1. To train or to rear your child in righteousness.

These ought to be self-evident. To rear your child in righteousness or train him or educate him or drill him in righteousness. In Psalm 119, verse 172 we have the Bible's definition of what righteousness is.

Psalm 119:172 My tongue shall speak of Your words, for all Your commandments are righteousness.

Righteousness simply means right doing. God's commandments, God's way, God's law is right doing.

This is absolutely essential because this is where true morality and where ethics reside. It is in God's law. It is where family and societal stability have their foundation. And the reason I can confidently say that is because the standards, the mores of this world are constantly shifting. They change from generation to generation, they change from culture to culture. And what is acceptable in one area of the world may not be acceptable at all in another area of the world. You see, God's law never changes. It is always right. And with the One that you want to please the most, it is always acceptable. That is, with God.

Jesus said that God's Word is truth and He says the truth sets you free. Now, if we are training our children in God's truth, then we are going to begin to produce in our own children the kind of liberties that we would have liked to have had. Do you not like to spare your children the hardships that you had to go through because of the ignorance that was in your life? Anybody ought to want that. If they love their child, everybody wants their children to avoid the kind of things that the parents had to go through in order to establish a family and a way of life. Well, certainly we have the truth. We have the gospel. We know what God is headed toward and we can instruct our children in righteousness. And that is basic to every other area of life.

Turn back a few pages to Psalm 78. A psalm of Asaph. It is quite a long psalm. We are just going to take a couple of verses here; and this incidentally is a psalm that you ought to go over with your children every once in a while. Very instructive. Asaph says,

Psalm 78:2-5 I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord. [Notice these things that he says to instruct children in: the praises of the Lord and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done.] For He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, that they should make them known to their children.

The dark sayings that he is talking about are lessons from the past. He is saying to you and me here that we should use this Book and that we should turn to the lessons that are in the front, especially. Because there God is teaching us righteousness. He is giving us examples of the good and the bad. He is telling us that this is the way to go. You should not go this way, go this way; and He is doing it with, you might say, real life examples that have been extracted from the history of the people of Israel. So then, it is the responsibility of the father to teach his children from Israel's annals and that is the Bible.

In addition to that, of course, there are the glorious works of God, the things that He has done in the past, and the parts that you read in the Bible are going to clue you in as to things that you need to be teaching.

Deuteronomy 4:9-10 "Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. [Listen carefully to this. Think. God is talking to you.] And teach them to your children and your grandchildren, especially concerning the day that you stood before the Lord your God in Horeb, when the Lord said to me, 'Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.'"

You know what words He is talking about? The Ten Commandments. That is what the commandments are called in the Bible, the Ten Words. Hey, He is instructing you in what to teach your children—to teach them the Ten Commandments.

Now, in addition to that, you need to show your children how God has worked in your life. You need to rehearse with them, you see, the things that you have witnessed, the things that you have seen with your own eyes. How that you were called out of this world, the doors that God opened up for you, maybe, to keep the Sabbath. How God has prospered you in the past, how He is prospering you in the present, how He has dealt with you in your life and maybe chastening you from time to time. How He has healed you, how He has extracted you from difficult situations. You need to talk to them about the feasts and what they mean and how you have experienced them, and maybe especially the Feast of Tabernacles.

You need to teach them from the Bible itself. You can begin by making sure that they do not have any choice in regard to a way of life, that they do not have any choice in regard to a religion. That the way of life that you are involved in now is the way it is, the only way of life, and that you begin to instill within them, you begin to teach them simple things and gradually bring them up to complex things. Start with teaching them verses out of the Bible, isolated verses. I John 2:4; I John 5:3; I John 2:6, and on and on. Then I would say, begin to teach them to string some of those things together so that they get a little encapsulated view of a major teaching that is in the Bible.

They need to learn by heart the Ten Commandments, maybe some of the other things like the Beatitudes in the book of Matthew. Many of the Psalms that they can learn by heart. You need to expound Joshua, Judges—brilliant illustrations in those two books. The Proverbs where there is a wealth of practical teaching, many of the Psalms which extol in poetic form the beauties of God's holiness and the way that He has dealt with Israel.

You might give your children, from time to time, tell them to choose out any four or five verses in the Bible. Give them one week to study it. This is when they begin to get a little bit older, give them one week to study it and then, maybe on the Sabbath, they have to stand up in front of the family and expound those verses to you; see what they mean to them. And then you can correct them. You can instruct them even further. That way they begin to have the way of life of God and the way God thinks instilled in their mind and it becomes the foundation for their thinking and you are teaching them the way of righteousness.

Strive to give them vision. Without vision, the people perish. You want your children to perish? Another translation says, when there is no revelation, the people run wild. You want your children to run wild? Reveal the things out of God's Word.

Now, you probably think that you are not a very good teacher. Well, maybe you think that way because you do not put together your sentences very well. You do not have a brilliant vocabulary and you are not very smooth in your delivery. Those things do not amount to a hill of beans. Brethren, if you are setting a good example and your children see that example, the teaching that you do give them is going to be effective. You need to just get yourself started and begin to do it.

You need to go through things like Psalm 73, which is a brilliant example of some of the frustrations that you and I might face in our own life. We look out at the world and everything is going so great for them. In the meantime, I am having all kinds of trouble. Asaph said that his "foot nearly slipped," he almost fell away because of his jealousy of what was going on in the world as compared to what was going on in his life. That is a great psalm for teaching cause and effect. It is a great psalm for teaching faith. It is a great psalm for teaching where to get answers to these perplexing questions of life. Take your children through those things.

Do you think that you could do it every day or almost every day? I know a family that did that for a long period of time. It does not take a lot of time, 10 minutes every day. A couple of verses, maybe, before they go to school. Maybe that does not fit your schedule. But is God important to you? And is God important to the life of your children? Now, if He is, see, if your relationship with God is really good, that little 10 or 15 minutes a day is really going to impact on their lives and when they are old, they will not turn away from it. Because combined with your example, they are going to have vivid teaching regardless of your vocabulary.

2. Teach them to be responsible.

This word means to be answerable legally or morally for the discharge of a duty; to be accountable, to be trustworthy, to be reliable, to be dutiful, all synonyms of that word.

Turn it with me back to the New Testament to Matthew the 24th chapter, verse 13. This will provide a foundation for us to build on here. Jesus said,

Matthew 24:13 "He who endures to the end shall be saved."

A responsible person gets jobs done. A responsible person not only gets jobs done, but he gets them done as well as he can under the circumstances in which he is doing them. The person who is not this way shirks work, tries to push it off on somebody else, makes justifications and rationalizations for why he did not do it. And that kind of person is the kind of person who is very likely not to get very far in life or be successful in very much about what he does.

Now, what you as a parent have to do, and you have to understand that you have to do this within the context of the child's age and what you expect him to be able to produce, and do not be too hard on them. Be tender with them. Be considerate.

Do not allow them to do half-baked jobs, half-finished jobs. In a gentle way, insist that they get things done again. Take their age into consideration here. I was telling the morning congregation that my father-in-law had a neat saying that whenever he did a job that he was not really all that proud of, it was kind of patchwork and he was using materials on this job that were not really suitable, they were just kind of adapted because something happened to fit here or there or whatever—he said when he was done, he would stand up and say, "Well, a man galloping past on a horse would never notice." Now, what he meant was this is a pretty shoddy job, but as long as nobody stops and looks at it very carefully, it is going to get the job done. It will pass.

Sometimes, because of circumstances, we are going to have to do that. I can remember one time at the mill, I complained to my general foreman that I did not have the proper welding rods for doing the job that I was doing. Well, his answer to me was, do the best you can with what you've got. Those kind of circumstances are going to come up. And when I was done welding that, I walked away from it as quickly as I possibly could because I did not want to be around when it cracked and someone would say, "Who welded that?" And then I would have to say, "Well, I didn't have the right rod." And then they would say, "Well, why didn't you go get them?" Rather than go around and around, I just disappeared from there as quickly as I possibly could. That was the galloping horse routine.

Well, we do not want to do that. And where you have to begin, of course parents, is with yourself. You need to be a perfectionist as well without being overbearing. God, of course, puts up with us in our imperfections, but we should be striving to increase, to grow, to do things better than we did before. Show your children an example of doing your work with desire! No martyr complex is allowed. "Oh, woe is me." No, we do not want that. Do not be a quitter yourself. Set the right example.

Now with the child, do not lose patience and get exasperated and do the job yourself. Mothers are great at that. Mommy, let me bake a cake, or mommy, let me make cookies. Mommy says sure, that sounds like a good idea. A few minutes later she comes back and there is salt, and there is pepper, and there is flour, and there is sugar, and there is things all over the kitchen, and it looks a mess and mother throws her hands up in despair and she takes the job right out of her child's hands because she can do it better, faster. You see, the job will get done.

Well, you can do it that way but it is not going to be the best way of producing things in your children. Parents have to allow for the mistakes that their children surely are going to make. And at the same time, still be pushing that child gently toward perfection and getting things done and being responsible.

Back in Revelation the second chapter, verse 26, Jesus said,

Revelation 2:26 "And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations."

God is going to give power over the nations to those who take things through to their completion. They keep their commitments, they are responsible enough to make the sacrifices necessary to get the job done. Now, these overcomers, perhaps a better word might be conquerors, they are not conquerors of other people, but they are conquerors of the difficulties that would keep them from succeeding.

Now, with your children, just like the eagle in the beginning, every once in a while, you have to bear them up, you help them through the difficult parts. But you make them bear as much as you judge they are able to bear. So what do you do? Well, you might have obedience classes where you actually put your children through a drill in order to get a habit instilled in their mind.

I know a family that had a little girl who came dashing through the front door one time, threw it open, dashed into the house, slammed the door shut, and then went about what she was doing. Her father though, held her back, made her open up the door, step outside, and close the door very gently. And then she opened the door again, stepped inside, and closed the door very gently. And then she opened the door again, stepped outside, closed the door very gently. And then she opened the door again, stepped inside and closed it very gently. After a half an hour, 45 minutes of that, that lesson never left her mind. She does not slam doors.

You put your children through drills. Good habits are acquired. They do not just happen. Just like J. Edgar Hoover said, "Criminals are made not born." So are good habits also acquired. You need to insist that your children say, yes, sir; no, sir. Yes, ma'am; no, ma'am. They show deference and respect and honor to those who are their superiors or have done a favor for them. You need to teach them, put them through the drill, a practice session so that they will sit still. We can do it to dogs. Surely, an intelligent child is going to be able to sit still. They can do it.

Teach them to pick up after themselves, to always make their beds, to do the dishes when required, to set the table, to hang up clothing, to be responsible for personal cleanliness, to wash their hands and comb their hair prior to each and every meal. Brethren, begin to get a little bit of formality back into your life. Require those things of your children. When they get up in the morning, again, they comb their hair, they brush their teeth, they clean themselves up before they come to the table, showing honor and respect to you as well.

They should eat everything that is set before them. I mean, in your own house. You have to be careful that you do not give them too much or that you tempt them by putting something before them that you know that they do not like. But what you put before them in measured amounts, they should eat. Waste not, want not. They are being responsible and using properly what is given to them, what is apportioned to them from God. Christ is our example. When He did that miracle, He had the apostles go around there and gather up everything that was left over. Did not waste a thing.

Teach your children, drill them to listen to you the first time. That is a responsibility that they need to have so that you are not repeating yourself. You do a few drills and you are going to find out how quickly their hearing improves. You can create teaching situations.

Proverbs 14:23 In all labor there is profit, but idle chatter leads only to poverty.

Give your children chores to do and there should be a schedule made out of when those chores are to be carried out. And he is responsible for carrying it out when the schedule sets. If you have a number of children, you apportion the responsibilities. So-and-so does the dishes this day. So-and-so does them the next day. So-and-so sets the table. So-and-so clears off the table. So-and-so takes the garbage out. So-and-so shovels the coal—or whatever happens to be. They have responsibilities and they are made to carry them through.

Now, one way that you can really help your children in this regard is to work with them. That is, I mean, that as much as lies within you, you carry out the chore with them; they are a member of the team that is carrying out the chore. And if you are creative, and I think every one of us is to some degree, you can make a game out of that chore, where in a sense the children are competing with mother to see who can do the best job in the shortest amount of time or whatever. You see, what you do, you begin to associate work with enjoyment rather than as being a pain in the neck that was always given to you when you wanted to do something else. You are going to create character in your child by making them responsible. They need to be responsible for what they say. The law of vows are in the Old Testament.

3. Teach them respect.

Respect is an aspect of humility. It means to have deferential regard for, it means to esteem, it means to treat with consideration or honor, it means to have second thoughts. Now, there are three aspects to this: respect toward God, which the Bible calls the fear of God; respect toward men; and respect toward things.

This principle has its foundations in a couple of verses. Genesis 2:15, where God has given us an overall command. Actually, this command that He has given covers every area of our spiritual and physical lives. He told Adam and Eve to dress and keep the Garden. When you are dressing something, you are having respect for it. Dress means to embellish, it means to cultivate, it means to tend. If you are showing respect for the things that you have been blessed with, you are going to take care of them, you are going to beautify them. If you do not take care of the things that you are blessed with, in a sense, it is almost like telling God, you know, you are thumbing your nose at Him! Why should He bless you if you do not even appreciate the things that He provides for us and lets us have. It is a way of showing appreciation to God.

The second one is in the two great commandments of the law. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your being." That is showing respect for Him. And the second is like unto it, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." So there you have respect toward things, respect toward God, and respect to man.

Now, we could get into more specific areas. In Leviticus 22:32 (which I will not turn to) and Psalm 64:9. Those two verses put together, show you specific areas that we should teach our children why they should fear God, respect Him. That is what Leviticus 22:32 is about. And then Psalm 64 shows you areas that we need to respect Him for what He is. He is Creator, Lawgiver, Provider, Sustainer, Healer, Life-giver, Father. Leviticus 19:32 is the verse that says that you should rise before the hoary head, rise before the elderly. Children today are rude. They are brusque, they are presumptuous. They take things upon themselves and they expect the old people to make way for them. Around here we see children running, bumping into elderly people. That is not the kind of honor and respect that God expects that we should have for those who are old.

We are going to go back to the Old Testament. You might want to study Genesis 48:12. It is a very good example of Joseph and his respect for his aged father, Jacob. Now when you consider the circumstance there, who Joseph was; he was second in command in the land, he was prime minister. He was a big gun. He had a lot of power, the power of life and death. Now, here he was before his father who was old, decrepit, blind. And yet that verse clearly shows that when Joseph approached him, he knelt on his knees. He bowed his head before his father. Boy, we do not have that kind of deferential regard for things.

Turn to Exodus 23, verses 4 and 5. Just very quickly here. There are all kinds of verses that show that we should have respect for things. For example, let us look at verse 5.

Exodus 23:5 "If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it."

Help the donkey. That is a life. You respect it for what it is, help them lighten the load or whatever. There are numerous verses that show the respect that we need to have toward animals, toward things.

Now, what you are going to have to do is observe your child in the way that he is taking care of what he has been given. How does he treat his toys? Does he tear things up, have just kind of a hard and harsh attitude toward things? Is he a litter bug? Does he deface the things that he has been given? Well, that is the same kid who later on is going to be spray painting all over a wall somewhere. They are going to be defacing automobiles or not treating with any kind of respect the bicycle that you give him or maybe the car that you might help him to buy or whatever. He is not going to appreciate those things. He is not going to have the kind of respect that a person needs to have.

Romans 13:7 [just kind of an overall verse] Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

God wants us to respect Him, and others, and things. Now we will conclude in Proverbs 20.

Proverbs 20:11 Even a child is known by his deeds, by whether what he does is pure and right.

Brethren, character, even in a child, is revealed by his conduct. It is our responsibility to begin to work now toward His perfection. I will stop there for today. And the next time I think I speak, we will carry this another step further.

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