I want to welcome you all here this morning. Let's stand together please and ask God to bless our time as we look at the word of God and teenagers. Shall we? Let's bow our heads in prayer. Oh Lord God of hosts, this is your holy word. We are your servants. Give us understanding that we might know your testimonies. Be today a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Show us great and mighty things which we do not know. Make your holy word to us the sword of your spirit. Cut to the dividing point of soul and spirit. Judge this day the thoughts and intentions of our heart. Oh Lord God, let not your word go out and return void. Accomplish this morning that purpose for which you have gathered us together and for which you have sent your word out. Lord, feed us this morning from your holy word. Thy words were found, and I did eat them. And thy words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by thy name. O Lord God, from feeding on your word, help us to love your word and to love you more. Because of our fealty to you, because of our undying devotion and love to you, we subject ourselves in every area to its authority. Lord God, this is your holy word. It comes to us unbroken, perfect, without error. What the apostles read, so we read this morning. Bless us as we submit to Him in obedience. Thy Holy Word. In Christ's name we pray, Amen. Let's open our Bibles if you would to Proverbs 27. Proverbs 27. We are going to be covering teenagers. Dr. McCallway will be joining us in a little bit. But I want to let you know that this lecture, if you do not get everything, This lecture will be repeated in the Navigator office later this afternoon from 2, I believe from 2 to 4 or 2 to 5 later this afternoon. And let's see, in fact, I can tell you, yes, this afternoon from 2 to 5 it will be able to go into it with quite a bit more detail. We have an hour and a half together, two 45-minute sessions this morning, and we will have three one-hour sessions covering the same material this afternoon in the Navigator office. So I want to thank you for being here with us. We are looking at creative discipline for our young adults, aren't we? We looked at the principles last week, and now we are looking a little bit more at some of the of the practical applications in this. So let's go in here to flip charts. We're going to start at the beginning here. And we will look at creative discipline for teenagers. Now we will begin with Proverbs 27 verse 22. Turn in your Bibles, if you will, to Proverbs 27 verse 22. At the very beginning of our lectures, we shared a foundational verse, foolishness is found up in the heart of the child and the rod of discipline will remove it far from him. Now that's an interesting passage, isn't it? Why does the rod remove foolishness? Well, the Bible doesn't say. It simply doesn't say. It does, but I don't know why. Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Well, I understand the principles, but in the final analysis, I simply accept it by faith. There are many things in the Word of God I simply accept by faith. On this side of eternal life, I simply don't know. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child and the rod removes it. The rod is a tool of grace for children. But having said that, we can ask another question. What about wives? If foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, Maybe wives, maybe if you have a foolish wife, will a rod drive the foolishness from your wife? Well you laugh, but you know some people laugh about the rod driving foolishness from the child. What about men? What about young men? What about teenagers? Will it drive it from teenagers? What do we need in order to answer that question concerning wives? What do we need? Opinions? No. What did you say, sir? Yeah, we need a Bible verse. If God's word says husbands are to beat their wives, is beating your wife good? Yes, it is. It is. If God's word says no, then it's not good. But our feelings are neither here nor there, are they? When I'm witnessing, I will share the verse, Hebrews 9.27, it is appointed for men to die once and after that comes judgment. Very often the reply to me is, I do not believe a loving God would send anyone to hell. Well, does our belief change anything? God is not what we believe. We believe what God is as revealed in His Holy Word. God does not do what we believe. We believe what God does as revealed in His Holy Word. Right and wrong, good and bad are not what we believe. We believe what God's holy word says about these things. For instance, I'll ask this gentleman a question. Where, what town were you born in? Where were you born? Here in Nairobi? No, no, he was born in Mombasa. You were born in Mombasa. Right? No, no, yes you will, yes you will. I believe you were born in Bob Lawson. No, it doesn't, it doesn't. It doesn't change the fact. It doesn't matter what I believe if my belief system is based on a false fact, isn't it? So it really doesn't matter what we believe about being wise, that's neither here nor there, isn't it? Your parents may have been influenced by Western culture, which says that is bad. Your parents may have been influenced by Eastern culture, which accepts white beating. Neither one is here nor there, is it? What we need to know is what the Bible says. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter 3.7. Let's lay this to rest first of all, shall we? 1 Peter 3.7 I'll ask this gentleman since I was picking on him in terms of wearing, and I will believe you were born here sir, so I repent. Hopefully before the hour is over other people will have repented. Could you stand and read 1 Peter 3.7 please? 1 Peter 3.7 Husband, likewise, dwell with them with understanding. We are to live with our wives in an understanding way. Beating your wife is not understanding her. It's anger. The Bible says man's anger does not promote God's righteousness. We live with her as an understanding way as what? As a weaker what? Vessel. If you have a weak vessel, if you have a fragile piece of glass, will you use it to pound a nail into the wall? No, you won't. You won't beat that. You grant her honor, the Bible says. Now the Greek word there for honor is the Greek word timē. It does not mean honor that springs from authority. In Ephesians 5, a wife is to grant her husband respect or honor. That's the Greek word phobio. It has to do with a position of authority. It has to do with headship. The Greek word here for honor is completely different. It is the Greek word timē. It has not to do that you grant her honor because she has an equal position with you in the home. Rather, the Greek word timē is honor given to a fragile, valuable piece of property. If you had a beautiful crystal vase that was inlaid with jewels and gold, you would place that in a position of honor, wouldn't you? In a lit cabinet for everyone to see. You wouldn't use it to scrape paint off a windowsill, would you? Or to bang something with. That is what God says our relationship with our wife should be. It should be one of understanding, of gentleness, and of honor. That is the way we lead her spiritually in the home. God says if you are not going to treat your wife this way, if you are going to strike her and abuse her, then you can forget about your prayer life. You want to go to God. You want to talk to Him about your job, about your money, about your health. God only wants to talk to you about one thing. The fact that you beat your wife. That's all He wants to discuss with you. Why does disciplining children with the rod work and beating our wife with a cane or a rod not work? Why? Because the Bible says so. It's not your opinion, it's not my opinion. It's not the Western way, it's not the Eastern way. It's not your family, it's not my family. It's not your tribe, it's not my tribe. It's the Word of God. Well, what about foolish men? What about teenagers? What about people who've entered puberty and are on their way to adulthood? Does the rod work? Well, you say, well, my father used the rod on me when I was 18 years old. Somebody else says, well, my father never used the rod on me, ever in my whole life. Well, that's neither here nor there, is it? What our earthly fathers tell us about child raising is not definitive unless it is based on the Word of God. What does the Word of God say about the rod and people once they have reached puberty, once they have entered on the road to manhood or womanhood. The Bible is clear in Proverbs 27, 22, though you pound a fool in a mortar with pestle. Now, it's not talking about the little pharmaceutical mortar and pestle, is it? You know, grinding up a little aspirin. It's talking about that mortar and pestle which we pound yam in, isn't it? Big mortar, big, huge pestle, and you're pounding that all day. He says, you can pound it all day. You can throw grain in there. You can just pound all day long. Will this folly be removed? No. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child. The rod of discipline will remove it. Will foolishness be removed from a foolish young man or woman by the rod? Why? The Bible says so, that's why. Will the rod be used for a foolish woman? No. Why? The Bible says so, that's why. And we have to establish that in the beginning. This is not a smorgasbord class where every time I cover something that you agree with, it gives you ammunition. And every time I cover something you disagree with, you simply don't think about it. When we, when our culture, when our convictions, when our lifestyle collides with the Word of God, the Word of God is to reign supreme. We don't hear a verse in the Bible and say, I'm not sure what I think about that. Hebrews 4.12 says, The Word of God is alive and active. It is sharper than any two-edged sword. It cuts to the dividing point of bone and marrow, soul and spirit. It judges the thoughts and intentions of our heart. We do not judge the Word of God, it judges us. So if we are not going to use the rod in disciplining our teenagers, our children once they've entered puberty, what then are our alternatives in discipline? Well, Eleanor and I came up with three things. Now these are our applications to this principle. Do you have to do what we do? But you have to do something, don't you? We established that earlier. I say, these are my three things. You say, well, that's the unzungu way. I say, fine, what is the Kenyan way? You say, well, nothing. No, that's not an alternative. If you are not doing anything, I would encourage you to begin with this and then to adapt them to your personal life situation. We always tried to use creative forms of discipline that would not only discipline our children in terms of teaching them to obey their parents, but that would also be useful for them later in life. As a result, we never had them simply sit in a dark room or sit in a corner writing sentences. When I was in the fifth grade, in my mathematics course, if you were caught looking at the clock, you were given a yellow page out of a legal pad, notebook, you know, one of these big, long, yellow pages, that's narrow light, and you had to write on it, cooperation is the golden rule at William Diamond Junior High. And you see, that was burned into my brain. because I looked at the clock one too many times. I wrote that, I took that yellow sheet home a number of times and had to fill it out on both sides. Well, that's not really that useful to me, is it? Even though it's burned into my brain, at 55, knowing that cooperation is the golden rule at William Diamond Junior High School, outside of Wilbraham, Massachusetts, that's not very useful to me. So we would try to do things with our children that were useful to them. The first thing we did was we have a list of things that they just like doing. The thing is like, for instance, if my daughter was disrespectful to her mother, one of my daughters, she's kind of a solitary person. She loves to read. She doesn't mind being by herself. If I said, well, you just need to go into your room for a while, then she would be very happy with that. She would tell her brothers and sisters they can't bother her. She'd go fix herself some tea. She'd go into her room with a book. She'd curl up on the bed. She would be very happy with that. I have another child, though, that would be very unhappy with that. All of our children have personalities, so we have to understand that. If I told my son, you've been disrespectful to your mother, or you didn't finish your homework, or you came in late, you can plan on weeding the garden. Well, that would not be his favorite thing to do, would it? But he wouldn't hate it. I mean, he would get out there and start weeding the garden, he would find a turtle, maybe scare his sisters with the turtle, maybe kill a snake, there'd be bugs out there, you know, he'd see some interesting bugs, maybe kill one or catch one, he'd be all dirty, maybe some Some of his friends would come by and he'd have his shirt off and he'd all be sweaty and dirty working in the garden, you know, show off his muscles. I mean, he would rather be playing football, but he really wouldn't hate that, would he? I have a daughter, though, who is all pretty and pink. To have to get out there with the bugs and the turtles and, you know, the flying insects and get your hands all dirty and be all sweaty. What if one of her friends saw her out there? Oh, it would be so embarrassing. So that's what she would do. What about my son? Now that's entirely different, isn't it? In the kitchen, we would have my son clean around the baseboards on the floor of the kitchen while his mother was working in there, and then clean the stove, clean the oven. He would hate that, wouldn't he? In there with his mother and his sisters while they were working down cleaning in the kitchen, one of his friends came by. Well, both those things are skills that it won't hurt the children to learn. It won't hurt my daughter to learn how to work in the garden. It won't hurt my son how to keep the kitchen clean, but they dislike it. So what we would do, we would instruct, what time were you supposed to be in? Seven o'clock. What time is it now? 730, okay, what is that? Well, I disobeyed. That's right, you disobeyed. So now, I want you to go, your mother's in the kitchen cleaning, she's doing the dishes, she's cooking, I want you to go in there, I want you to, you know the routine, get your little plastic cup and your brush, I want the baseboards around the edge of the kitchen all clean, then you can clean the oven, then come back and we'll talk again. When he comes back, okay, now, Have you learned anything besides how to keep a kitchen clean? Yes, Daddy, I will keep track of time. I will be back on time. That's right. When you're 15 minutes late, there's five other members of this family. How late does that make the whole family? Makes us several hours late, doesn't it? It's disrespectful to keep people waiting until you decide to show up. So then we instruct again. You will be unsuccessful, Sam, if you are late at work, at school, at church, in life. Yes, Dave. So then what do we do? Instruct, discipline, instruct. Then what's the last stage? Restore it, isn't it? Give him a hug. That's good. I know you're a good boy. I know you can do this. I know you'll be to dinner from now on. I'm proud of you. You can do it. Okay, you can go now. what they dislike. I had a friend who is a missionary whose daughter was saying I hate you when she would get mad at her mother and her mother asked me what to do now she had four brothers and so I told her mother I think you should make October I hate you month and then she should clean all the toilets in the house with a little brush and rag and a little bucket, every time she says, I hate you. You should instruct, discipline her with cleaning the toilets and instruct. Well, we all know what toilets are like with four younger brothers, don't we? So that was a very nasty chore, but she, within a month, she had stopped doing that. Instruct, discipline, instruct, restore. In fact, I was back in their home in November, and I remember seeing her, and I remember saying, Sarah, you know, how are you doing? And she smiled and said, oh, I've been cleaning toilets, Reverend Mann. So, I had gotten partial credit for that discipline. Things they dislike. You should have a list. In our home, we had a list on the refrigerator. There's other things that you dislike. We had a list at the refrigerator. There are some things I have to do around the house that I don't particularly like doing. Why not let the children learn how to do these things when they're disobedient? I can remember one of the things with my responsibility around in the upkeep of a house was to wash and wax the car regularly. I can remember talking to Eleanor. You know, Sam's been very respectful. I wish he would lose his temper. The card, it really needs to be washed. And Eleanor has things like that too. Cleaning the toilets, doing certain jobs outside, cleaning, washing the windows. There are certain responsibilities that we have for our home, aren't there, that we don't particularly like. Well, we can put those up there. If you have house help doing all these things, that doesn't change it. When we, Eleanor, for her house help, we would tell her, do not clean the children's room. Do not clean the children's bathroom. Do not wash the children's clothes. The children's things were off limits to her. She was there to help Eleanor. Not to have our children grow up thinking that they were little colonial potentates. Children will need to learn how to grow up and work hard. Working hard is a Christian virtue. Having lounging around the house while somebody else does your work is not a Christian virtue. Ordering adults around when you are a child, is not a Christian virtue. So our daughters and sons were expected to speak respectfully to this woman. They could not tell her to do anything. They could ask her, us, about it. But they were not to order her around, nor were they to expect her to do anything for them. This list was for them. The last thing you could deal with is privileges. We would take away privileges from our children in addition to one of these two things. It would either be one of these two items plus a privilege. One of these two items plus a privilege. Now, sometimes We've lived with our children so long that we forget that there are things in our house that simply don't belong to our children. There are things they do that they don't have a right to do. They come to think of these things as theirs. They come to think of them as their rights. We kind of drift into that also, but it's not. They're privileges. Can you think of anything in your house that your son or daughter bought with their money? The stove, the refrigerator, the building, the car, the lawn care. What in your house? The television, the sound system. What thing of significance did they buy with their own money apart from you? Virtually nothing. Maybe a few incidental items. The TV, the refrigerator, the rooms, the car, the computer, the entertainment center. These things are yours. Your children have them by your grace, by your permission. They are a privilege. They are yours to give and yours to take away. I am you a minister. whose son, when he was angry, would slam the door. While his son was away at school, he took a screwdriver and took the door off the hinge and set it aside. And then he told his son, when you can behave respectfully, you can have that door back. That door does not belong to you. Are you a family? Christian family whose daughter was so rebellious and so much trouble while she was away at school they went into her room and boxed up every single item in her room but the mattress on the floor and the sheets and a box with some of her clothes in it. They said this is your room based on your behavior we will begin returning items to your room. A desk, a chair, a dresser, some shoes, but for now this is your room and this is it. This is all you have. And that's, see it's important for children to remember that they have these things as a result of our blessing. They are not their rights. They are privileges which we extend them and which we can remove. For our children, we always took away the TV. Television is the enemy of reading. Reading is the key to secular and spiritual education. A person cannot be close to God if he is not a good reader. We should all be good readers. Reading is a skill. It's like any other skill, you improve by doing it. If you are not a good reader, you should set yourself down to a schedule, a disciplined schedule of reading. All of our children were required to be good readers, to be able to read out loud as well as to be able to sight read without using their fingers, to be good readers. If our children came to breakfast late, if their rooms weren't straight, if they didn't have their homework done on time, it would be one of these two things, but it would always be television in addition to that. It might be other privileges, but we would always take away the television. There was a time when our children just weren't doing well with reading. Eleanor and I were concerned, so we sold the TV. We just didn't have a TV in our home for a year. We sold it. Eleanor and I have been in Kenya now for three months, and we have not seen a television on, and we have not had a cell phone. And here I am, clothed and in my right mind, standing before you. An early lesson Eleanor and I learned in terms of materialism is simply because you can purchase something doesn't mean you should have it. Mark 419 says, the world's cares and the delight of wealth and the passion of other interests enter in to choke the word. We've never lived in as nice a house as we could afford. It's always been less. We've never driven as nice cars as we could afford. We've never had a new car, even though we could afford it. We've never had electronic equipment that were as nice as we could afford. Because we are stewards of God's wealth, and also we are stewards of our children's values, aren't we? We're stewards of God's wealth, we are stewards of our children's values. God gives us these things, these blessings, as a privilege. We don't take advantage of God. We raise our children the same way. Not to assume these things, or to take advantage of us. Now, one of the privileges that we never withheld was that of church activities. We would never tell our children, It's Wednesday night youth group, you haven't been doing well in school, you have to stay home. You cannot go to youth group, you have to stay home and do your studies. No, we might tell them you have to set your alarm an hour earlier tomorrow morning, you might have to stay up an hour later tonight, you may not be able to go outside when you come home from school to study, but no, we wouldn't withhold, we wouldn't place secular activities above church activities. If it was exam period, the whole family still went to church on Sunday. The children still fulfilled their spiritual responsibilities. Because we wanted them to grow up viewing spiritual responsibilities as important. and equally important, if not more so, than their secular ways. So these were the things, things they disliked, things you disliked, privileges. But just remember, all the things that your children have and do, they are privileges which you have extended to them. How can your children be thankful if they view these things as rights? So another thing that withholding privileges from your children does is it reminds them These aren't things that I should grow accustomed to. I have these things because my parents love me. These aren't my rights. And we wonder why children are not thankful and we never exercise our authority over their privileges. Of course they're not thankful. Of course they're not. So privileges. Now there are five necessary ingredients for your children to get into trouble. These are things that you have to give your children in order for them to get into trouble. Most parents freely extend them these things. I would encourage you not to extend them to them. This topic piggybacks on privileges. Let's take a break.