Ephesians chapter six is the shortest amount I've taught, one verse today. Just in case you forgot, this section of Ephesians that we're in started way back at chapter four, verse 17. So if we look back to chapter four, verse 17, Paul says, now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. And then he's been explaining that ever since. What it looks like not to walk like a Gentile. And at one point he says it's like a coat. You take off the old man, put on the new man. So this is what it's about to be transformed in Christ. What that Christian life looks like. And it's been general information up until the last part here where he gets very specific. First he talked to the wives, then he talks to the husbands, and then he talks to the children, and today we're going back to fathers. But just to review, in chapter 6, verses 1 through 3, he says why children should obey their parents. So, Leif, I'm going to get you to read that. Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you and you may live long in the earth. So, why should children obey their parents? It's right! And how does he go to the Old Testament to prove that it's right? He quotes one of the Ten Commandments, honor your father and your mother. That's right. In a parallel passage, Colossians 3.20, you know, Colossians and Ephesians were written at the same time, Paul's school and his Jetson prison. There's a lot of similarity in the books. Colossians 3.20, children, obey your parents and everything, for this pleases the Lord. That's how he put it there. And we had a definition of obedience last week. What did we say it was? What's obedience? Shall we all say it together? Obedience is doing what I'm told to do when I'm told to do it without complaining that's right and I suggested you if you've got kids you're training that'd be a good verse to put on the refrigerator and refer to often and we also talked about this phrase that you should obey your parents in the Lord and what do we conclude that meant that you're obeying your parents as if their commands are coming from the Lord that's very good Also, we said it doesn't mean that you only have to obey if your parents are in the Lord. You always obey your parents as a principle. But what he's saying is, especially for children who are in the Lord, this is a sign of Christian children. They obey their parents. It's a divine duty, just like husbands loving their wives and wives submitting to their husbands. and respecting them. Well, verse 4 we did read last week, but I didn't really get to it. He's got a special word for fathers in verse 4, so Al, you're a father, I'll get you to read verse 4. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Well, we're going to camp out there today. All right, so for all us fathers and would-be fathers and people who might know fathers at some time, we need to deal with this. So, two things he says to fathers. What's the first thing? Don't provoke them. That's negative. What's the positive? Okay, train them in the Lord, basically. That's right. Now, the parallel passage of Colossians 3.21 says, Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. Same idea. So you've got this dynamic duo. On one hand, he's commanding the children to obey. But on the other hand, he's commanding the fathers not to make that obedience miserable by doing things to provoke children. anger or to be discouraged. So that means that fathers, we have a unique ability to do that to our children, it looks like. Talk to me guys. We've all had practice at this. Tell me how you can effectively provoke your children to anger. Provoked to anger suggests a repeated, ongoing pattern of treatment that gradually builds up a deep-seated anger and resentment that boils over in outward hostility. I learned in my role as stepfather to Valerie's children, several years after that began, my eldest stepson spotted my death. He was so angry and so hostile toward me because of the provocation that I gave him. You feel comfortable sharing that? No, I'm ashamed to say the things that I did. The way that I spoke to him was the primary thing, and unless I had to, I would never share those details. I appreciate that, Al. Fathers, we do have that ability to do that. Think of some examples of either how your father provoked you, or how you have provoked your own children, or how it could be done. How? Okay, Val says unrealistic demand. That's true, unrealistic demand. Some fathers, well, let's say for example, perfectionism, and they're driving their children to unrealistic demand. I see this a lot from Korean and Chinese children talking about their parents and Indian children, driving them, driving them, driving them toward academic perfection, say. And it can be very, very frustrating. I have a quick question related to anger. Is the anger they're talking about in the verse like a temporary anger or a more permanent anger? Because sometimes kids will get angry if you tell them to do something and they don't want to do it. They'll get mad. But that may not be the anger we're talking about, correct? Is it more a permanent anger? What type of anger are you speaking of? Well, it could be a pattern of anger, yes, but, and I don't know the answer to that because I didn't look that up, but I do know that he's not talking about an anger that is born of just a child not wanting to obey. This is an anger that's caused by the sin of the father, whether it's temporary or long seated, the father's causes and he shouldn't have, and that's the issue. So let's talk some more. Give me some more ideas about how to provoke your children to anger. Just on that same line, if you compare it to the other, versus Colossians, that they're discouraged, it's almost like you're backing them into a corner where they feel like, how am I supposed to respond? So if the father's backing the kid into a corner where it's like there's no way to follow the dad's wishes, then... So it's an impossible demand in that sense? Reasonable? In some sense, or just if they feel like this isn't right. If they feel like it, is it right? You know, one of the jobs of an elder is to build consensus, to persuade the church to do things. And so, too, in the home, the father, I think it is incumbent on him, as the child is mature enough to understand it, to persuade their children of the reasonableness of something. Of course, I know you can't do that with a very small child. I think that one of the biggest things we can do as fathers to provoke anger is not being consistent in either discipline and as well as also just how a child can expect your responses to be. So whether it's a disciplinary issue or even a love issue, I think that for fathers that are up and down and left and right and not consistent like our Heavenly Father is, that would severely provoke a child to anger. Yeah, I was thinking about that. If the child never knows how you're going to respond because you're so moody, you're inconsistent, and he's scared of you. See, that's a sin. But also, let's say, Daddy, take me fishing. Daddy, take me fishing. Daddy, take me fishing. OK, Saturday, we'll go fishing. You made a promise. But before Saturday comes, one of your buddies calls, hey, let's go play golf. And you forget all about your promise to go fishing. That's inconsistent. That can provoke children to anger, can it? And also, as Nick said, inconsistent in discipline. If he does something, and one time you're really disciplined for it, next time he does the same thing and you let him get away with it, that can be very discouraging. So you're inconsistent in discipline. I think a lot of provocation to anger comes from anger on the part of the father. Most of the time when I behaved sinfully with my stepkids and my own children was because I was out of control angry. Yeah, I was reading John Piper on this passage, and that's exactly what he said. He links the anger of the children to angry fathers. And so, he feels like the key to the passage is anger. And anger cuts off your ability to act. Anger cuts off your ability to act. Well, I said that's right. He said that fathers have the uncanny ability to cause their children's souls to shrivel into small, hard, angry shells, because that's how the father is. And he quoted Ephesians 4 31 and 32 it says let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice be kind to one another tender-hearted forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you so first God deals with the adults and And now, of course, he's dealing with the children, but we as adults already have put this anger away. And if you haven't, especially as a father, then this produces that in children. So the solution to that is, as God in Christ has forgiven you, you accept His forgiveness, you forgive other people. You have a forgiving attitude towards your children. Of course, you still discipline them, but you have to do that in love and not anger. So, this angry spirit is like a virus, or it's like warped DNA. You know, we've got defective DNA, we pass it on to our kids. This passes that on to your kids. Yeah, I appreciate that, Al. I was just going to point out that one thing I've observed is a lot of times when you have children that are provoked, it's because they are disciplining out of trying to build their own ego and you made me, especially in public, you made me look bad rather than trying to train the child that if you're given an instruction, you need to do it immediately. So rather than trying to look at it from the sense of this is for the betterment of the child, it's for the betterment of the the father. And so then the children pick up on that, that you don't care about me. All you care about is how you look. That's well said. I appreciate that. It's treating children like they are an accessory. If my accessory looks bad on me, then the public will see that I'm bad or my image will be bad. So that's a reflection on me. And we have a tendency to do that. And also looking back on my own failures as a father, In my communication with my daughter now, there are barriers that are still up because of the way I raised my daughter. She has developed certain images of herself that she adheres to because she believed the lies that I told her from the anger that I expressed toward her because of my turmoil that I was dealing with in life. And it spilled over on her dictating the image the lives that they have received from their fathers and mothers, back in the truth of who they are in Christ. It's cut and wounded. The context here, you know, he says, don't provoke anger in your children. He says, but instead, do what? Bring them up? That word, bring them up, is the same Greek word translated nourish, talked about wives should, a husband and wife relationship, and a husband should love his wife as he loves his own body. And he says, you don't hate your own body, you nourish it. And that's that same word. So in the middle of child training, the discipline has got to be this overarching love, right? Nourishing love. And the child has to know that. They both go together. I think that it's for me to the place where that same stepson who plotted my death has cast for a Bible study, which will probably soon lead to him. Amen. Well, you know, this passage about fathers and children, there's always hope, because I think it also applies to adult children. Because he goes on to talk about training our children in the Lord. Even as adult children, we can continue that. Amen. Well, y'all have mentioned a lot of the things, we start off asking how can a father provoke his child, and you've come up with some pretty good examples. Just to mention a few more, publicly humiliating a child can do it, like you discipline the child in public. We were at the fair the other day, and I don't know what this kid did, but the mama was hollering at him and whooping him right there among all these people. And Sandra says, mistake, you know, something like that. Cruelty to children in the sense of when you discipline them, you're doing it out of anger and you over discipline because you're frustrated and upset that can cause it. Spoiling a child probably can do it where you let him have his way all the time. That's a form of child abuse, really. We talked about being unreasonable, unrealistic expectations. Did we talk about overprotection? Where you won't let it, oh, he's afraid he's going to get hurt. And some parents are overprotection, especially with boys, that can lead to frustration. Showing favoritism of one child over another, the Jacobitza syndrome, that can cause frustration. Discouraging words. You'll never amount to anything. You can't do that. Why can't you be like your brother? That's bad. Failure to realize the child is maturing and you treat the child like a child below what his level is, that can do it. Neglect can do it, just not taking an interest in him. We talked about perfectionism, being domineering, smothering him, that can do it. Thoughtlessness, we talked about inconsistency. I think abandonment and neglect is the big one really in our culture now. We need to be involved with our children. Why do you suppose Paul directed this at fathers and not mothers? He is the head of the household. That's right. And along that line, there was this thing, I'm probably not saying it right, patria potestas. In the Roman Empire, the father had legal right of life or death over his children. So when a baby was born, if he picked up the child, he was taking it to the family. If he turned and walked away, the child could be sold into slavery or given away or left to be exposed to die. So, it could be that. What's another reason he might have directed this at fathers? Okay. It probably is a unique weakness of fathers. Yeah. Mothers do tend to be... It seems like they're more nurturing. You can always have temporary cultural differences, but on the whole, over the ages, I think that's probably the case. Now, when we look at this verse, based on this verse, between the mother and the father, who bears the primary responsibility for discipline and instruction in the Lord? It looks like the father. That's right. And it's so tragic that often fathers make the worst teachers. But it looks like that's a unique calling. I read last week Deuteronomy 6. Again, we're not under the law, but boy, doesn't it show God's wisdom in these principles. Now, this is the commandment, the statues and the rules that the Lord God commanded me, Moses, to teach you men. He says, you and your son and your sons' sons. So you got these fathers teaching the son and the grandchildren, great-grandchildren. These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your home, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. all the time we're going to be making disciples of our children. I used to sell books door to door. You'd always tell when you go to a Jewish house, because I go to knock on the door and next to the door post is a glass cylinder with Hebrew in it. And that's literally applying Deuteronomy to the door post. No, I don't think he meant literally that that's what you should do, but you get the idea. It's just all the time we're supposed to be teaching. Yes, sir. Anneli pointed out that we take our identity from our father. In actual sense, we're also children of the devil, but we are children of our father in heaven. So there's a great... It's inescapable for good or for bad. Wow. Thank you. Well, that's the negative. Let's do the positive. Then he says the thing about nurturing. What does it say in ESV? Yeah. Bring them up. That's that word for nurture elsewhere translated. It is a nurturing, again, fathers, unlike mothers, probably don't as easily nurture their children. But that is supposed to be what they're doing, that comes from it. The ESV says, in discipline. Now, what does he mean by discipline in verse four? What do you think of when you think of discipline in English? Structure, okay, good. Systematic training, that's really good. The NIV puts training here. Now to me, when I think of discipline, I think of spanking, but there's a big difference between discipline and training. What's the difference? One's before, one's after. Discipline in the sense of spanking is a form of training, isn't it? The Greek word here doesn't really mean spanking, it means Training. Well, everything involved with training a child. And that's going to involve what we think of as discipline. It's a very broad word. Well, really, the spanking basically only shows you where you went wrong. It doesn't show you right. Yeah. And this word has to do with training through action. So it's like an athlete trains before the Olympics. This is not really instruction. This is hands-on stuff. Shaping or harnessing the will through the training. Shaping and enhancing the will through the training. Yeah, that's real good. Discipline comes from the word disciple. Also implies that it is, what's the term, when you, it's more of an apprenticeship that is, that has a specific goal. You are a disciple for this particular task. You're going to become a master carpenter. As opposed to training, which is essentially the same thing, but can apply in applications like classroom training, one professor, 200 students. You know, we don't have a Sunday school or a nursery, I guess you noticed that. A lot of parents come to church, and these family-friendly churches, and the kids act up. Well, many times instead of seeing that as a training opportunity, what do you see in the parents' face? Frustration. Out the door. Or embarrassment. Yeah. Your attitude is everything. Again, it's not that they're keeping you from church. This is another training opportunity. And you have to look at it that way. And it's not as frustrating. But that really is true. When God had Adam and Eve in the garden and He's training them, He puts the tree of the knowledge of the good and evil right there in the middle of the garden. He could have built a fence around it. He could have put it outside the garden. Where did He put it? Right in the middle of the garden. He wasn't concerned about protecting the tree. It's a training opportunity. So, too, in that sense, you shouldn't have to child-proof your house. You should house-proof your child. Really? And you train them not to do things. And they can be trained. A wild animal can train little offspring to do things. You can train your children. I did that with guns. I told them about guns. I showed them guns. We talked about guns. We trained them on guns. And then I took a pistol and I took all the shells out of it and I laid it right on top of the VCR player where I knew they'd find it. And I said, don't touch. I mean, don't play with guns. Well, the first one of my kids, he failed the test. He sort of failed the test. What he did was, he went into shock mode, because there was one of these things, and he touched it, but he held it with two fingers by the handle and ran to me with it. Well, okay, he didn't play with it. He was getting it. So we kept training him. So he got to the point that, I could leave a loaded gun laying around anywhere. They're not going to touch it. They're not going to play with it. Not that I did that, but that's my point. It's the same when you drown-proof your child. You teach them how to swim or how to stay away from the water, and it's just a matter of simple training. All life is an opportunity for training, is what I'm saying, including bringing the kids to church and training them to sit through the meeting. And you can tell how parents react as to whether they're seeing this as a training opportunity or a frustration. And when we get frustrated, we're forgetting what our command is to do that. Again, going to Piper, he said, discipline is the action a father takes to give his children the abilities and skills and character to live life to the glory of God. And the same word for discipline is used in 2 Timothy 3.16. All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for proof, for correction, for training in righteousness. There's a word. Now, the word teaching is in that passage, too. Teaching is not training. They're different words. So is training in righteousness. That's the idea. Just a closing part of parents. Expect the kids to be perfect. Not really, but effectively. That's what they're expecting. When they're required to step in, it's like, oh, you made me have to do that. There's no nurturing there. And that would anger a child. There's no realistic expectation of what parenting takes. There's an old thing from the days of Wesley where This guy saw a man with a bunch of kids and he said, ah, there are those that make a rich man poor. And the father said, no, these are those which make a poor man rich. And is this your attitude, you see? By the way, speaking of training, I just found out that a university in England did a study this year on bedtime routine. And it said, young children who do not have a regular sleep time are more likely to suffer behavioral issues. Erratic bedtimes can cause a similar effect to jet lag. And the longer it goes on, the worse behavior can get. Parents who started putting their children to bed at consistent times noticed an improvement in their behavior, as did their teachers. And this study said that it looks like going to bed at different times for children disrupts natural body rhythms and causes sleep deprivation. It undermines the way the brain matures and the ability to regulate certain behaviors. So again, part of this training, back to consistency again, I just thought that was interesting. Now, again, this word discipline is a bigger word than just spanking. Our culture being what it is, I thought I would point out that Pretty clear the Bible teaches you should spank your kids. Proverbs 3, 11 and 12 says, So the Bible assumes that just like God disciplines us, if you love your children, you're going to discipline them. It's like the daddy who used to say before he spanked his son, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. Proverbs 13, 24, he who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. Now the Bible doesn't say this, I think Ben Franklin did, but spare the rod and spoil the child. It's based on this proverb. 22, 15, folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. Proverbs 23, 13 and 14. Do not withhold discipline from a child. If you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol. Proverbs 29, 15. The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. That's pretty clear. If God doesn't love you, He won't discipline you. The fact that you are disciplined shows that He loves you. So too, guys, if you love your children, you're going to discipline them. Hebrews 12, 6, the Lord disciplines the one He loves and chastises every son whom He receives. So if you don't discipline your children, you are, in effect, disinheriting your children. That's what it comes down to. It says, all discipline for the moment seems painful rather than pleasant. You know what that means? Discipline is supposed to hurt. So many times I've seen people try to spank their children through diapers. That doesn't hurt. All you're going to do is knock his spinal cord out of alignment. In my humble opinion, you shouldn't spank with your hand. The Bible doesn't teach that. You should use a rod. And I didn't look at the Hebrew word for rod. It sounds kind of scary, but we always used a switch. And we'd make them go get their own. We had forsythia bushes in the yard. And boy, they make good switches. So they'd have to go get their own forsythia switch. And the good thing about a switch is, see, you hit them with your hand. That can cause deep bruising. All your sensors are on the surface of your skin anyway. So you use a switch. You can't hurt them. I mean, you can't seriously hurt them. But buddy, they're going to feel it. And man, then things whip around. And boy, you can make them dance. You can make them go from being mad at you to being glad. And so I would recommend the switch in the principle of the rod, which is what scripture says. What did you say last week about the British conserving American homes? The Duke of Windsor said everything in America is controlled by switches, except the children. And somebody else said, there was a guy teaching a parenting seminar, and he says, you should switch your children. And this dad raises his hand and says, well, I would switch if I could find somebody to trade with me. Alright, so that's that part of discipline. Anyway, the next word he deals with is instruction. When you think of instruction, what do you think of? Okay, and in the Greek, that word tends to mean that. This is audio. This is spoken admonition. So one is a training by action. This is training by words. That's kind of the difference between those two words. is neuthesia. Some of you guys that study counseling might have heard of neuthetic counseling. That comes from this. And it means to put in your mind. Putting in mind. I guess it's got to get them in the right mind. It's used in 1st Thessalonians 5.14, the same word. Admonish the idle. Encourage the faint-hearted. Help the weak. Be patient with all. But that word admonish. 1st Corinthians 4.14. I write these things to admonish you as beloved children. And 2 Thessalonians 3.15 talks about a wayward brother and it says, warn him as a brother. It's all those same words. Society of counseling. It is. So one's active, hands-on training. This is counseling. So anyway, it takes both and it's interesting that he has both words here. According to verse 4, what is the area in which fathers are to instruct their children? In the Lord. There's the instruction of the Lord. That's correct. What does that mean? To discipline and instruct your children in the Lord. What does it mean? Right attitudes and behaviors as God would have them to be. One commentary said, the most important thing in raising children is that they come to see Christ the Lord as supremely valuable as Savior and Lord and treasure of life. And we must lead our children ever more faithfully to love Christ above all. almost always a good thing, provided it is biblical counseling. They say that is because psychological counseling is usually based on models come from psychologists and psychiatrists who tell you up front they do not believe in the existence of God. And so they remove, and here's the point, they remove by their disbelief in God the absolute standard. They remove definition of authority. If a child understands that they are under authority, the authority of parents, but their parents are also under the authority of God, that lends a much different understanding of authority that just the human level cannot provide. Yes, amen. So this all is predicated. It's in the Lord and what he says. You know, it's sad, along those lines, a lot of people I've known have gone to marriage counseling, but they go to the wrong kind. and they get unbiblical direction. And you look at our crummy society and our godless government, when our country had a biblical orientation, things got okay. Now that they've wholesale chunked the Bible, we have gay marriage. I guarantee you, polygamy's next. Why not? And the whole idea of women in combat. Well, they're pushing that. They just came out with unisex uniforms. They're pushing. Have you seen that? The men and women in the military have the same dopey looking hats and stuff. And I'm just saying, you lose any moral foundation and sense of what's right and wrong especially in these counselors. Yeah, you got to have it biblical. But I told you, I think I did. I remember when I was little, I used to watch Little Rascals a lot, Hal Roach's series. And one of them, I can't remember the whole thing. I think they came up on a baptism in the woods and all this church and baptism. They were just all having a good time. But they start talking about churchy stuff. Spanky or somebody makes this big pronouncement. Any boy don't go to Sunday school is bad. And they start saying that. Well, of course, we don't have Sunday school. And part of the reason is, it's the parent's job to teach children about things of the Lord, not the church's job. And if the church starts to assume that, more and more parents, they'll let them. They send their kids to government schools to be edumacated, and they send them to the church to get spiritual learning, and more and more of the parents are off the hook. So that's part of the reason we don't do that. And initially, the way Sunday school got started is this English Christian going to church, and he was always vexed every Sunday of all these street kids out playing. Parents are English pagans back then, just like today. And he was burdened. So he started Sunday school as an evangelistic tool for these street kids. And no self-respecting Christian would ever, ever send his kids to Sunday school. That meant spiritually, you were an abject failure as a parent. But see, now it's kind of switched, and I don't think for the better. So anyway, the point is, it is the parent's job to train the children in the things of the Lord. The church should equip the parents, but not do it for them. All right, so just to review, fathers, what should you be careful not to cause your children to feel? Anger. That's right. And positively, Since the training rests squarely on the father's shoulders, what should we be actively doing? Training, instructing, discipline. And as Lee for somebody said, you've got to be engaged with the kids. That's what it comes down to. So easy not to. Even if your kids are grown, it's not too late. They had a guy on the radio, I think it was Dobson this week, and he was talking about he regretted how he raised his kids, and he went back. They're adults, he's an adult, went back and talked to them, and now they're doing Bible study over the phone every week and encouraging each other, and what a blessing it's been to the father and to the son in this case. So never too late. It's better to do it when they're little. Who makes great-grandparents? Oh, yes, and they get wiser. I've heard a lot of men say they can't believe what good grandparents or fathers are, because they were such terrible fathers. We learn. There's hope. Yeah, and that's part of the reason for grandparents, too. Adam? I have one comment. I was continuing to think about that instructor of nonverbal. And I think that's one thing that we missed in things that provoke your kids. Kids actually learn a whole lot just from what you're punishing them for. So it's like if they get punished for it, then it becomes frustrating to them. Part of the instruction is that we need instruction even when we're not verbally giving the instruction. I actually remember an occasion from childhood. I got caught smoking and red-handed. And my parents both lectured me about the ills of smoking as they smoked. When I got a little older and dared, I pointed out to them the ludicrousness of that counseling. This message was produced by the New Testament Reformation Fellowship, reforming today's church with New Testament church practice. Permission is hereby granted for you to reproduce this message. To learn more about New Testament church life, you can find us on the web at ntrf.org. God bless you as you seek to follow Him in obedience. May your faith in the Lord Jesus be strengthened and your daily walk with Him deepened. Oh