Bibles if you would please tonight to Proverbs chapter number 22. Proverbs chapter number 22. Find your place there in the pages of God's Word. We've been talking about family 101 and last week we began a message on parenting in God's way and I believe it's very important. There's two ways that we'll do family, marriage or parenting. We'll do it our way or we'll do it God's way. Proverbs 22 and verse number 6. Notice the Bible said, Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Let's pray together. Lord, we sure love You. Thank You for Your faithfulness in our lives tonight. I pray, Lord, that You'll bless Your Word. Help us to have ears to hear Your Word, Lord, and to be obedient to it, to respond to You. Lord, we want to learn your truth whether maybe our children are grown or maybe just starting out or wherever we are. Lord, there's always truth that we can glean and learn that we can pass on to another, maybe guide someone else or grow in our own understanding of what you desire for us as parents. Father, I pray you'll teach us your Word tonight and we'll sure thank you for what you do in our hearts and lives. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Well, when you come to this matter of parenting, you're going to find, first of all, in this day and age, it's controversial. And what I mean by that is that we live in a day that God's Word says one thing while educators, sociologists, and child psychologists are saying something quite different. And we have to determine whether or not we're going to listen to the noise of this world as it relates to rearing our children. We're going to listen to what God, the truths of God's Word. And somebody said, well, you know, children don't come with instructions. I beg to differ. It's called the book of Proverbs. And God gives us teaching in how that we ought to rear our children for Him. Not only is the matter of rearing our children controversial, but it's consequential. There's consequences for failing to discipline our children biblically. Juvenile delinquency is increasing seven times faster than the population. In 1940, school teachers are asked to describe the top disciplinary problems they faced in the classroom. Here's what they listed. They said talking, chewing gum, making noises, running in the hallways, wearing improper clothing, and not putting trash in the wastebasket. Can you imagine that? Today's teachers in many of our cities make hazardous duty pay. Believe it or not, my sister who taught in the Charlotte Meck system receives a stipend. She receives a stipend. It's actually basically a hazardous duty paid. You know what the top issues today that teachers are concerned with in the classroom, the disciplinary problems for the modern teacher is rape, robbery, assault, burglary, arson, bombing, and murder. Our cities have become war zones. But can I tell you, it's not just the city, but it's also the country. The rural areas that we're seeing a failure in this area of raising children in a biblical fashion, teaching them biblical principles and values and direction in their lives. And we as God's people want to do it right because it's crucial to the physical and mental and spiritual well-being of the family. The Bible said, "...the rod and reproof give wisdom, but a pious child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." And we don't want to shame our parents. And many times, as parents, we don't want to be shamed by our children. We want to make sure that we're doing things God's way and in a manner that pleases Him. And just some basic principles I want to share with you. We began last week, we looked at the principle of affection. Of affection. Of loving our children. The Bible said, Proverbs 13 verse 24, He that spared his rod hated the sun. God said, when I fail to discipline my child biblically, I'm not just failing in the sense that that I am not applying what needs to be applied in their life. God said, basically, I hate my child. I do not love my child enough to give it the biblical direction that it requires in life. I hear people say this, I just love my child too much to discipline them. No, in reality, you hate your child. That's what God says. You actually hate your child because you don't love your child enough to do that that's right by doing things God's way. The Bible said, "...but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." And so we need to invest in this matter of disciplining our children and it begins with the principle of affection. I love my child too much to let them have their way. And I need to show them affection. We want to reach the heart of the child. Remember, we talked about how you must capture the heart of the child before you can discipline the will of the child. And it's not always punitive in nature. Much discipline is not punitive, it's corrective. It's the idea of correcting and giving direction to that child in the way that they should go. And that leads us to number two tonight, what I would call the principle of direction. The principle of direction. And we understand that this, I believe the key word here would be acceptance. And I'm going to explain that to you as we relate to our verse here in a moment. Giving acceptance to our children. Do you realize the Bible tells me that I'm accepted in the beloved? that God accepts me based on the merits of His Son Jesus Christ. I am accepted in Him. It has nothing to do with my behavior that makes me accepted. Whether I'm good or bad, it has everything to do with the fact that I am His child. And so understand that this matter of acceptance, Alright? It's loving your child for who they are, not what they do or don't do. You never want your child to sense that because they do wrong, you love them less, or they do right, that you love them more. Okay? You love them on the basis of who they are, not what they do or what they accomplish. Let me give you a little illustration of that. When the Lord Jesus began His public ministry, the first words that God the Father spoke concerning His Son is this. He said, This is My beloved. There's love. There's affection. This is My beloved Son. and whom I am well pleased." That's what he said. And our children need to know that we're pleased that they're our children. That they belong to us. That God has given them to us. We need to speak words of acceptance and affirmation to the child. Not, I don't know what in the world I did to deserve you. I can't imagine. I tell you what, if I knew that it was going to be like you, I'd never had kids. Statements like that that begins to demean or belittle or cause that child to question the parents' love and acceptance for that child. There needs to be an atmosphere of affection and acceptance in the life of the child. That doesn't mean I accept every behavior. That doesn't mean we accept every decision. That does not mean that we condone any kind of wrong action, whether they're young or grown. It does not mean that at all. But it does mean the fact that I accept the fact that you're my child and I love you and nothing is going to change that. That's so important in their lives. Now look at Proverbs 22 and verse number 6. The Bible said, train up a child in the way she go. That's what we understand an agricultural term. It refers to training a tree or a vine to grow in a particular shape or direction. From the time the bush or the tree or the vine is planted, it is shaped and trimmed and pruned. It's trained in the way it should go. Remember there's an old adage, as the twig is bent, so grows the tree. And I believe that's true in this matter of child training. That's what God says. How we direct our children early in life many times and much of the time determines the way they will go later in life. and every person's child has what we call the bents. That means that they have a natural inclination to certain areas of life and certain directions in life. I'm not necessarily talking about the sin nature at this point. Some kids just don't like sports. They just don't like it. They'd rather play an instrument. They'd rather sing. They'd rather do art. They would rather do something different. Every child has natural giftedness and ability in understanding the uniqueness of your child and in nurturing that child in that direction the way they go. The natural inclinations and giftedness that God has given them. We never pushed our children to play athletics. We never did. We gave them the option when they were very little. They chose later in life to play sports, but when they were little, we never pushed that. We didn't say, okay, you're four years old, you have to play t-ball. We never did that. We didn't. They didn't have any interest in it. Why force the child to do something they have no desire to do? Just because everybody else's kid's doing it, doesn't mean that my kid has to do it. Just because I want to go to the ballpark, doesn't mean necessarily that my child wants to live at the ballpark. I need to understand the natural inclination of the child and then guide them and direct them in that way. And helping them to flourish in the God-given talents and abilities and directions of that particular child and help them to grow in that way. And we understand that we're training them up spiritually, we're training them up physically, we're training them up mentally. We want to train the whole child. That's one of the areas that's different between what I would understand as public or government education versus Christian education. You say, preacher, what is it? That we train the whole child. Well, the public education, let's forget the idea of the issues of the sin and the wickedness and the philosophies of the classroom. Because it is a godless method of education, they only concentrate. Now watch this. They've left God out of the classroom. They only concentrate on the physical and mental aspects of the child. God didn't just create your child a dual being. They're not just mentally, alright, and physical. No, there is a spiritual dimension to your child. That's where really a big difference comes in, is the idea of training the whole child of both mentally and intellectually, training them physically to help them to grow and develop effectively, and then also spiritually, training the heart of that child. Let me help you understand something. that a Christian school or just sending your kid to a kid life or Calvary clubs or whatever that we do here, by the way, that is a wonderful thing to do. You ought to take advantage of every opportunity here at Calvary Baptist Church to help your child to go in the direction they should spiritually. You ought to do that. But can I help you understand? That is not fail-safe. It is not our job to raise your child. That is your job. What we do is come alongside you and help you direct that child in the way he should go. Can I tell you, Solomon's not advising us to train up a teenager. You say, Preacher, why is that? Can I help you understand that teenagers are foreign to the Bible? They did not exist in the Lord's day. The Bible has nothing to say about raising a teenager. Nothing. Now, there's general principles that we can gain to help us direct our teens. But you understand, by the time they hit 14 years of age in the days of the Lord, they were adults. Mary was probably around 14 or 15 years of age when she gave birth to the Lord Jesus. You have to understand, you cannot press Today somebody would say, well, a young girl being married and giving birth at 14 years of age, that's pedophilia. Not in that day it wasn't. You know the average lifespan in colonial America was 35? Today it's over 70. You can't press 2023 into 1789 or 33 AD. You can't do that. Because it's different. Teenagers did not become a phenomena until after World War II. Up until that point, many women married in their mid-teens. Ran households. I'm not recommending that today at all. But we're understanding there's a difference between then and now. You understand that biblically the child was grown by the time they were in their mid-teens. Now maturity level today, we know that's not the case. We understand that. Not belittling anybody. We're just being honest. It takes longer for people to develop and grow. It's a different society. And here's the big danger of our day of to history revisionist. It's when we try to take the 21st century and press it on the 1st century or the 17th century or the 19th century. And life's not lived that way. You live in the time frame in which you live. And the Bible is relevant. It is real. It addresses life's situations as fresh and new. And there are biblical principles to help us in directing our teenager. But the child training years are before they ever reach the teen years. If you wait till they're 12 or 13, you're way too late. Notice Solomon's not advising us how to train up a teenager or a young man or a young woman. He's advising us on how to train up a child. The best counsel we can receive on child training is to start early. Proverbs 13.24, jot it down again. He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. That word betimes is an Old English word that means at dawn or at the dawning or the very early stages of his life. We began to discipline our children the moment we knew that they could recognize the difference between what was right and what was wrong. What they should do and what they shouldn't do. I didn't fully childproof my home. I disciplined my children. They didn't break things. They didn't rip stuff off the coffee table and throw it. They only did it once. And they didn't tear up somebody else's house either. When my daughter and son were small enough to crawl, and you're going to think I'm terrible, but I really don't care. And they went to go toward an outlet to stick their finger in it. Now I had covers over there. I didn't have anything childproof that would endanger them, alright? But we weren't going to put everything up just because we had a kid. And they started crawling toward that outlet. I'd take her little hand and I'd smack it and I'd say, no. She'd reach for it again. I'd smack it and I'd say, no. I didn't beat her. I didn't knock her. I didn't hit them. I just popped that hand. I said, no, better, better to feel a little sting on the hand than to electrocute themselves in an outlet because we may go somewhere where they don't have something plugged, a cover over their outlet. Child left to himself. It takes time. It takes consistency. It takes effort. I didn't do everything right. I failed in a lot of ways, but you don't get any do-overs. So you better work hard at it the first go-round. Let me tell you two reasons why you ought to do this. Number one, the wheel is more flexible. A twig is much easier to bend than a tree trunk. In the early years of a child's life, the heart, the will of that child is like clay. It's pliable, it's workable, it's moldable. It is when they're young that you're able to set their ways. For when they get older, their ways become set. That's why the Bible says in Proverbs 19, 18, Chasten thy son while there is hope. Time may come when he or she seems hopeless and we as parents feel helpless to do anything about it. We don't know what to do. And the problem is we may have missed the opportunity that we had to set their ways in the early stages of life. The most impressionable years of a child's life are from infancy to six years of age. By the time they reach the pre-teen years, behavior patterns are already being formed. By the time they reach their full teen years, they are set. You've got an angry teenager, you'll more than likely have an angry adult. You better get a handle on it now. Reign it in. Teach them consequences to anger. Teach them consequences to actions and attitudes. There's still time, there's still hope, but it's easier when they're young than when they get older. The heart, not only is the will more flexible, jot this one down, the heart is more tender. Not only are they more tender to your care and correction, but more important, the younger they are, the more tender they are to God. That's why the word train has the idea of dedicating. It's dedicating something in a certain direction. Dad, Mom, you don't just educate, you dedicate your child to the Lord early in life. Do you realize some of history's greatest Christians were saved in an early age? The great American pastor that was a part of the first Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards, was saved at 8 years of age. Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, was saved at 12 years of age. Matthew Henry. Many of us are familiar with Matthew Henry's commentary that was popular in the 16th-17th centuries, probably 17th-18th centuries, and he was saved at 11. Polycarp, the disciple of the apostle John that was martyred for his faith, was saved at nine years of age. You say, Preacher, why is this so important? I did a little research this week and I wanted to refresh my memory about the age that most people come to Christ. You realize that 85% of the people who come to Christ do so between the ages of 4 and 14. Only 10% of people between the ages of 15 and 30. After 30 years of age, a person only has a 4% chance of ever coming to Christ. That's why when someone with gray hairs fills our baptistry, it's a miracle. Because our hearts are hardened. We're more resistant to God. We've gotten used to saying no. They now call it the 414 window. In missions it's called the 1040 window. The least evangelized areas of the world are in the grid, the 1040 grid. Okay? And latitude, longitude, 1040 grid. The least evangelized nations in the world. Can I tell you? What's the word I want to use? The most easily or the most fruitful evangelistic efforts takes place in the lives of children between the ages of 14 that are in the 4-14 window. It's the most important years for influencing our children for God. But yet many times, many times, that is the hardest years for parents to become faithful to God. On a given Sunday, You'll have many more of your older adult Christians that will attend the Sunday night services than you will the Sunday morning services. So far it's coming back. Because it's harder for these young couples. You know why? The world's got more for them to do. And it's distracting them. The most important years for influencing that child for the Lord and many Christian servants, missionaries, pastors, youth pastors will testify that God began calling them during that 4 to 14 years of age period. Church, can I tell you something? That ought to impress upon us the importance of our children's ministries here at Calvary and the energy and the effort that we want to put into them. When you look at the average church budget, The children's budget is usually the one that's overlooked or robbed to feed the other budgets. Can I tell you, if we don't reach them as children, it doesn't matter what kind of teen ministry you got. I don't understand why there's not more men surrendering to be children's pastors. It could be some of the most fruitful years ministry-wise, fruitful ministry in the life of a preacher is to invest in the lives of children. How important that is. God just didn't call me to do that. Not only is there a principle of affection and principle of direction, there's a principle of correction. The key word here would be accountability. Not only affection and acceptance, but now I want to hold my child accountable for their actions. Look with me if you would to Proverbs 22 and verse number 15. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. Now, can I help us understand something tonight? I am not an expert. I haven't written any books on parenting. I'm not an expert parent. All I'm doing is preaching the truth and wishing that I knew when I was young what I know now. But you have an opportunity to know. When I was young, nobody preached on parenting. Nobody preached on family. I never heard a message on it until I was 19 or 20 years of age. had no idea about these things. How many of you growing up, older Christians, do you ever remember hearing a message on family, parenting, or marriage in your early years? Only a few. Most of us never. It's not preached on. It's not taught. It's an area of the Bible that's not even went to very often. And therefore, many of our parents are just trying to find their way through it. We parent like we were parented, or what we think is right, or what the world says, but have very little understanding of what God says about the matter. You have an opportunity tonight to tune in and say, listen, I'm going to learn and I'm going to grow and I'm going to make changes where I need to make changes. And I'm going to be the parent that God wants me to be. Best I know how because I'm responsible to God for my children. Grandparents have an opportunity to influence their children. Look at Proverbs 22 verse 15. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. That word foolishness is not the idea of joking and playing. It's not the idea. Foolishness, it's a reference to the old endemic sinful nature. It literally, we would say rebellion, is bound in the heart of a child. We hear about the rebellion of the teen years. No, all that is, is now they're old enough to where they're letting it come out. It was there all along. Every one of us have a rebellious heart. We do. Every one of us has one. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way. And God said that a child has a sinful nature. There's natural tendencies within the heart of a child just like every one of us to rebel, to despise discipline, to disrespect authority. It comes from that old Adamic nature, that old sinful nature. And God said that it needs to be driven from the heart of the child. Can I help us to understand that the terrible twos is not just a stage. that they grow out of. It is the child first expressing the sinful nature. Pushing the walls to see if they move. Pushing the boundaries to see if they move. It begins the battle of the wills. The will of the child against the will of the parent. And the idea is that we want to reign in that will without breaking the spirit of that child. Abuse will break the spirit of the child. Discipline will train the will of a child. There's a difference. were to direct a child from where he would go on his own to where he should go. And the Bible said, rod and reproof. Rod and reproof. Rod is the shepherd's staff. That's what we would understand corporal punishment. We live in a day when society has jettisoned the Bible. Here's what they say, that if you spank your child, your abuser, that is a lie. If you fail to spank your child, you're abusing your child. I didn't say beat the child. I didn't say slap and hit and knock. I'm talking about biblically disciplining that child. Better to feel the pain of a paddle than the pain of hell. Better to feel the pain of a paddle than to hear the jail cell bars clang on your child. You say, preacher, you're just going a little far out there. I wish I were. I wish I were. I was preaching a revival of maximum security spreaders in a prison in Alexander County. After I finished the sermon, a young man came up to me, a clean-cut looking young man. I'm thinking to myself, what are you doing in here? You realize he was a Bible college student. at a reputable Bible college that I had preached at many times. He told me this. He said, you know what? He said, I just was kicking the traces. I was at a school that my mom and daddy made me go, and I didn't want to be there, and I got home from the summer, and I just let it go, and I got with the wrong friends, and I'm in here for the next 15 years for armed robbery. I didn't have the gun. I was just in the car. And for the next 15 years of his life, he was behind prison bars just because he picked the wrong friend. Because possibly, not in every case, a parent failed to direct a child in the way he should go. reproof, verbal instruction. They go together. Discipline is a two-edged sword. You correct the child when they go in a wrong way, you direct them in a right way. Never hit my child. But I did biblically correct them. I taught them accountability. That actions have consequences. We give the child a realization of responsibility. That they are responsible for their actions. Do you know what's the matter with America today? It's everybody's fault but ours. We're blaming everything. Society, homelessness, this, that. It's not anybody's fault. Yes it is. I'm responsible for what I do. We fuss at the television set at a George Soros backed DA that will allow a murderer to go free. And then we'll hold accountable people that are defending themselves. You say that's twisted. You're right. It's twisted. There's no sense of law. But yet, you understand, they've been raised with the idea that it's not that person's fault. It's what society has done to them. And they never learn there's consequences for their actions. But there'll come a day. Now listen to me, church. There'll come a day when they stand before God and there's nobody to blame but themselves. And everybody's going to stand before God. And I have to do the hard work when the children are small to teach them now that they need to be accountable. So that I prepare them that they're accountable for their actions because when they learn to become accountable to me or to you as their parent or they to me as their parent, they learn to become accountable to God for their actions. Accountability is where love is combined with limits, someone said. Limits without love leads to rebellion. Love without limits leads to license. Just do as you please. Rules are not the centerpiece of the home. Love is. That's why the Bible said, "...he that loveth his child, but chasteneth him betimes," early, consistently. It involves love and submission and obedience. One of the reasons God put children in a home is because every child is born with a sinful, rebellious nature. Proverbs 51, 5, David said, Behold, I was shaped in iniquity, in sin did my mother conceive me. He didn't mean that his mom and dad were sinful in the fact of his conception. He's saying at the moment I was conceived, I was a sinner. Job put it this way in Job 58 verse 3. The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. Isn't that interesting? Do you know infants lie? They do. They're screaming at the top of their lungs. They're not hungry. They're not dirty. They just want to be held. But they're screaming the daylights out of them like something's killing them. They're getting mom's attention. They're getting their way. It starts at a very early, early age that the Adamic nature begins to come out in our lives. Preacher, how do I biblically dissend my child? Can I give you some ways real quickly? I just want you to jot them down. If you're interested, if you're not, that's fine. First of all, you begin by speaking to them, not yelling at them. I didn't always do it right. There's times I yelled when I should have spoke. A soft answer turneth away wrath works in your home just like it works anywhere else. A firm, soft answer. Don't have to scream and yell. When we begin to establish the authority early in the life of a child, you avoid much of the spanking. Too often we fly into a fit of a rage and when they are spanked, they're just being thrashed on out of anger. Not disciplined because we love them. Because we got sinful natures too. And we lose it. Can we just be honest? I've done that. You ever done that? Sure. That's when we get right with the child that we didn't do it right. We were wrong. Biblical discipline is deliberate and consistent. God never flies off the handle at you. He doesn't just get mad and zap you. There's a purpose to the discipline and the correction. Then you give them some Scripture. God commands me to do this. That's why it's better not to discipline. It's better to get the attention, stop, but maybe not to discipline at that moment because you may be too mad. Calm down. Lower the decibels in your life. Give them Scripture. This gives you time to calm down because you're angry. Tell them the authority that God's given you as a parent, that you're acting for God, and you're doing this because you love them. Now listen, listen. I a bit more believe my mom and dad than the man on the moon when they told me, now this is going to hurt me more than it hurt you. I'm saying, yeah, will you let me get on the other end of that thing? You don't love me, but yet they did love me. They did. And I said the same thing to my children. And you said the same things to your children. You're doing it because you love them. Because you love them too much to let them destroy themselves. That's what you're saying. And you spank them. So you give them Scripture, show them where the Bible teaches whatever, and then spank them. The Bible said a rod, not a shovel handle. It's a paddle. Proverbs 10.13 talks about the back. It's a Hebrew word that means the middle of the back. If you take a tape measure and measure a child from top to bottom, you'll find the middle of the back is just about where they sit down. It's that padded area there. God gives them a little shock absorber to handle that. The discipline should be measured. It shouldn't be, Until you get tired, it ought to be measured. You did this, I'm going to give you this. Lying held the highest penalty in our home. You lied, didn't matter how sorry you were, you were getting disciplined. Don't matter how much you cried, you were getting disciplined. And then you give them the shoulder. You love them. You assure them of your forgiveness and acceptance. Can I tell you something that children crave parents to discipline them? You say, Preacher, you're nuts. No, they're really not. They want their parents to love them enough to care. The kid whose parents don't care what the report card said wish they had a parent that cared what the report card said. Can I help us to understand that consistency is the key? You have to be consistent. You get tired. You work hard. You get frustrated. All of these things. But you can't allow that to keep you from biblically disciplining your children. Alright? Let me give you the next one is the principle of authority. So we've talked about affection. We've talked about the principle of direction. Affection, direction, there's acceptance, correction, there's accountability. I'm holding my child accountable because there's a responsibility for their actions. Okay? Would we not agree with that? Alright? And then lastly, there's the principle of protection. This is authority. You're establishing authority in the home. Alright? Let's look at a couple of verses real quickly. Look at Proverbs chapter 23. Alright? And find verse number 13. Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest..." Now, can I tell you, we're not talking about beating the daylights out of a kid. That's not what the verse says. He's saying if you spank him with the rod, he shall not die. "...thou shalt beat or spank him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from..." What, church? Hell. The word chastise means to reprove or to force back in the right way. We take the time to teach the child how to get right, be right, and stay right. This verse cuts to the heart of the matter of disciplining the very soul of the child. The soul of a child. There was times that my children would feel like that maybe a teacher was unfair, or a principal was unfair, or this was unfair, or that was unfair. You know what I told them? I said, God loves you. What? I said, God loves you. Well, I'm being picked on. I'm the only one that's getting so-and-so. They did something and I'm the one that got caught. And I said, did you do wrong? Well, yeah. Then I said, you should have got caught. Doesn't matter what happened over here. God loves you too much to let you go on your own. God's helping you to understand that wrong has consequences to it. God's building character in your life. God's teaching you the importance of living life in a proper way. I didn't make excuse. It didn't help them to make excuse for them. It didn't help them to say, well, you know, I understand so-and-so, they're doing that too, and it's okay for you. No, it's not okay. They should have got caught too, but they just didn't. I say God loves you enough to let you get caught because He's trying to keep you from going down the road that will destroy your life. Parent, you ought to be thankful your child gets caught. Thankful your child gets caught. Thankful. You say, why? Because God loves your child and He's trying to help you direct your child in a way to keep them from destroying their own life. You want to establish the authority because if they don't respect your authority, they're not going to respect anybody else's authority, even God. If they don't listen to you or obey you, they'll not listen to God and obey God. It's just a small step from rebelling against parents to rebelling against God. Let me give you some dangers to avoid and I'm going to be done tonight. I'm going to move quick. You want to danger the authoritarian. There's a difference between establishing authority and trying to be an authoritarian. Strong control with little love. Creating intimidation in the child. Usually it leads to over-discipline. There's no relationship and it leads to rebellion. You want to avoid the authoritarian mindset. The flip side of that is the other ditch. That's the permissive parent. That strong love with little control. Don't want to hurt their children's feelings. They don't want their child to be upset at them. But I can't get my child to do anything. There's no control. The children goes wild. The child left to itself bringing in some other shame. The parents get mad. They can't stand it. It gets to a point where they can't stand it. So they yell and scream at the kid. And then they go back to doing what they were doing before because there were no consequences. The child knows who's in charge. It's not the parent. It's them. Guard against both ditches of authoritarianism and permissivism. Some parents are neglectful. This is the passive parent. Just lets it go. It's different because they do do some correction, but they're just neglectful. They're not consistent. Little love with little or no control. It's sort of an absentee parent. As long as you're not bothering me, do what you want to do. But then lastly is where you want to land. That's the authoritative parent. This is the correct balance of love and control. Children need boundaries because it protects them from themselves. I mentioned this morning a young boy by the name of Samuel, didn't I? His mom only had him for three to five years, but yet he turned out to be a giant for God that turned a nation back to God. She poured her life into the child. You say, well, I know, but they had it different back then. I know. They had no electric appliances. None. None. They had no conveniences. None. Everything was done by hand every day. You went to the market, and you bought what food you bought for that day in the average family, and you went home, and you had to sift it, and prepare it, and grind it, and cook it, and do all the things that you did. It was a different day. Remember, it's a different day. But the Bible says of Eli's sons, Hophni and Phinehas, that he restrained them not and down the road God had to take their lives because they were bringing such reproach on the nation of Israel and bringing such blasphemous actions to the worship of God. God said, I'm telling you Eli, I'm going to judge you boys because you restrained them not. You had no boundaries. You had no fences. You had no discipline. Children were on a playground near a busy highway and they noticed the children were reluctant to play. They stayed near the building. Later the school put up a fence and the children radically changed in their play. They went all over the playground. You know why? They felt secure. When you biblically discipline your child, you're bringing security to the life of your child. You're restraining them. You're giving them the limits. Be careful that you don't always move the boundaries. They will push as long as you move them. There is a place for mercy, right? But there comes a point the boundaries don't need to move. Susanna Wesley, the mother of John and Charles Wesley, raised 17 children. Here's what she said about raising children. The parent who studies to subdue The self-will in his child works together with good in the renewing and saving of a soul. The parent who indulges it does the devil's work, makes religion impractical, salvation unattainable, and does all that in them lies to damn his child's soul and body forever." I'm just trying to tell you that parenting matters. And how we direct our children matters. It matters. And the outcome is important. Now I know parents that have tried to do it all right, best they know how. And their kids went away from God. They've done the best they knew how. Godly people love the Lord. Because I love how Brother Main always puts it, there's a wild card in the picture that God tells us about. It's the heart of the child. The heart of the child. I remember preaching one time, and I close with this. I remember preaching here one time that you can lead a cow to water, but you can't make it drink, or a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Meaning that you can lead a child in the direction they should go, but you can't make them choose Christ. They have to choose them on their own. I love what one of our farmers told me. He said, yeah, preacher, you're right. He said, but you sure can't make them thirsty. I want to be in a church, and I want to be in a place I don't want to set things before our children that makes them thirsty for God. I don't want to be in a place that's dead and dried up and God never moves. I want to be in a place where God's real. Don't you? And that's our job, church, is to have a vibrant church where God is real so that they can see God at work in people's lives. Amen? I'm not your enemy tonight. I'm your friend. I know we were down tonight. I'd much rather preach this on a night when I had a full crowd. But this is the message God gave. This is what He wanted you to hear. It's out there. Our people can get it if they want it. It's there for them. But you know what? We just need to respond and hear from God. Nobody's going to get it perfect. Nobody is. But let's do our best to do things God's way. Amen? And let's pray for a great outcome in the lives of our children.