Now in the 17th chapter of the book of Ezekiel is where we find our message this morning. I'm going to ask you each one to bow your heads in a silent time of prayer and ask that God would bless and use the word in our hearts and lives this morning. Except the Spirit of God teach us, we cannot gain. Father, we are grateful and thankful for your word, and we pray that you would use it in a great way in our lives today. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen. Now, the title of our message today is When God Spanks, and we're going to see a sample of God spanking here in the 17th chapter of Ezekiel. And we would like to look at that and consider it with you as a pattern that you might consider and think about in reference to God's spanking of His people and look at it as an illustration of the kind of discipline that we ought to be giving in our homes as parents. You know, God is our Heavenly Father and He is an example to us of the things that we can and ought to be doing. Now the 17th chapter of Ezekiel is where we find ourselves because we have currently been going through the book of Ezekiel. For the last two Sundays we have been out of the book of Ezekiel and have not been able to study it because of Easter and because of our speaker the Sunday before that, Brother Webster. But Ezekiel has been patiently waiting and we find him here this morning in chapter 17 and he's having another vision. My, what an interesting life Ezekiel lives. And in verses 1 through 10, he tells us about this vision, a very interesting vision. Now, there's an outline in your Bible, in your bulletin, and you might like to use that to make some notes upon this morning as we study through this particular passage of Scripture. Now, the first thing we note about this vision is that it is the word of the Lord. Ezekiel is not just having a nightmare or a strange dream because of something that he had for dinner or perhaps one of the pickles that his wife made and he unwisely put into a sandwich. But the Bible tells us without any equivocation, without any hesitation, that God is speaking to Ezekiel in this parable or in this vision. The word of the Lord came unto me saying, say, isn't it a wonderful thing to have God's word and comments on various things in life? Now, the word of God at this particular time was in reference to the nation of Israel, which was in captivity. There was a king named Zedekiah who was back in Jerusalem on the throne, but he was only operating under the permission and leadership of Nebuchadnezzar. And so we find that over in the land of Babylon, Ezekiel is prophesying to these captives that are in this particular place of captivity with him. And Ezekiel announces, I have a message from God. My, wouldn't it be a wonderful thing today if many of our statesmen could honestly say, I have a message from God today. Wouldn't it be nice if we could have someone who could tell us what to do? Or is there not a great deal of confusion? My, the different opinions we get when it comes to political decisions as to what should and shouldn't be done. but not just there. There are many areas of life that I'd like to have an absolute direct statement from God about. Wouldn't you? Would you ever get sick and go to one doctor and the doctor says do this and you go to the other one and he says do that or one friend says eat this and the other one says don't eat this and sometimes we don't know what to do or where to go. Isn't that right? Ah, there's one place we can always turn to and in the word of God we will find direct honest and straight answers for our lives. And so Ezekiel said, there's a problem that we're facing as a nation. Now he said, part of our problem is compounded because of the fact that we have leaders who are not serving God. Let's just look at the last three leaders that they had. We find the story of these leaders in 2 Kings chapter 23. Turn back there with me, if you will, for just a moment. In 2 Kings chapter 23 and in verse 37, we have a man by the name of Jehoiakim. Not Kin, but Kim. Jehoiakim is on the throne. And Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he began to reign. And he reigned 11 years. This is verse 36. Now I'm reading in verse 37. What kind of a king was he? And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. It is a sad thing for a government when they have evil men to lead them, men of no moral character and principle. You know, one of the things that we seem to have forgotten in America is this. that we will never solve our problems, we will never find ourselves coming out of the woods, so to speak, until we as Americans have leaders who love and do righteousness. It is hard to find a leader whose character does not have some moral blot on it, at least according to God's standards of righteousness. We have men in high places in our country today who have totally broken the laws of morality. And then we wonder why We have problems in our nation. You say, Pastor, who is that? Well, we have a man as the vice president of our nation. You say, I don't think you should take pot shots at Republicans or Democrats. I'm not going to take a pot shot at a Republican or a Democrat. But we have a man who is the vice president of the United States of America and who was acclaimed in that position by our Senate as a man qualified for the job who openly before a whole nation discarded his wife and stole another man's wife. We have other men running for office today who have the same background. We look into the background of men like Ford and men like Regan, and we find that there's a background of mixed up marriages there too. You know, we don't think about those things much anymore. Fifty years ago, you couldn't run for office. and have a hope of gaining office with any kind of an entanglement like that in your background. And yet nobody thinks about those things anymore. Has God changed? Are these still things of morality? They are. They're in the Word of God. They ought to be considered. The Bible tells us that Israel had problems because they had leaders that were wicked. leaders who did evil in the sight of God. Say, what else did this fellow Jehoiakim do? Well, notice that in the third verse of the next chapter, Surely at the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, to remove them out of the sight for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did, and also for the innocent blood that he shed, for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the Lord would not pardon. Well, God dealt with Jehoiakim and he was removed. Now let's look at the next king, Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim is the son of Jehoiakim. Chapter 24, verse 9. What kind of a king was Jehoiakim? He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. He was just as wicked, just as immoral, just as evil. And so because of his wickedness and his evilness, God allowed the king of Babylon to take him captive off to the land of Babylon. And in his place was Nebuchadnezzar put his uncle, a man by the name of Zedekiah. And Zedekiah, whose name had formerly been Madaniah, was now placed on the throne. And Zedekiah, we read in verse 19, did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim, Kim, had done. And so one after another, they had leaders who were wicked men. How wicked was Jehoiakim and Zedekiah? Well, turn, if you will, to 2 Chronicles 36. And in 2 Chronicles 36, we read in verse 10 about Zedekiah, Verse 11, that he was 1 and 20 years old. When he began to reign, he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. Now notice what it says. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God. And he humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet, speaking from the mouth of the Lord. Not only did he not humble himself before Jeremiah, but in Jeremiah 37 we read that when Jeremiah told him not to join hands with the Egyptians, that Zedekiah had Jeremiah thrown into prison. and put him on a ration of bread and water. That's how wicked this man was. He rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God, and he stiffened his neck, and he hardened his heart from turning to the Lord God of Israel. Now these are the kings that were operating in the land of Israel during the time that Ezekiel was prophesying. Now we're back in Ezekiel 17, and we're going to look at the parable that God sent. God said to Ezekiel, Ezekiel, would you like to know how to solve the political problems of Israel? Well, here's the answer. Here's the answer. And he gives to him this parable. And Ezekiel said, I saw a huge eagle appear. And we find this eagle pictured for us in verses three through six. An eagle with great feathers and wings, full of feathers, various colors, And he came to Lebanon. Now Lebanon was this place where these beautiful cedar trees grew. And people came from all over the world to get lumber from these beautiful tall trees of the cedars of Lebanon. Solomon had imported these trees and timbers to build a glorious temple and his palace. And he said, I saw this eagle come, and he cropped off the top of the young twigs of one of these cedars, and he carried it into the land of trade, and he set it in the city of merchants. He took also of the seed of the land, and I saw this eagle take a seed, and he planted it in the middle of a field, right by where the waters were nice to water it and make it flourish. And he said, I watched, and the tree began to grow like a willow tree, and it began to expand, and it lifted up its branches, toward the eagle who had brought it into being. But he said, in verse 7, he said, as I looked in my vision, I suddenly saw another eagle come. And it had great wings and many feathers. And he said, I watched, and suddenly the little tree that the first eagle had planted began to turn its branches now toward the second eagle. He said, it became a fickle tree. And it left the one who had given it substance, and it now began to turn itself toward the second eagle. The first eagle had planted it, in verse 8, he says, in good soil by great waters, so that it might bring forth branches, that it might bear fruit, that it might be a well-favored vine. Now, he said, Ezekiel, I'm going to ask you a question. Verse 9. Is it going to prosper, that little tree? Won't the first eagle come back and pull it up by the roots and cut off its fruit that it wither? And the answer comes back. Indeed, it will wither all of its leaves, even without great power or many people to pluck it up by its roots. Yes, behold, being planted, shall it prosper? Why, it shall not. Shall it not utterly wither when the east wind toucheth it? It shall wither in the furrows where it grew. He said this tree is going to be destroyed because of its fickleness. What in the world is this vision about? What does it represent? You know, a parable is open to many interpretations. You know, a lot of people are very interested in dreams and it's quite interesting why, you know, if you listen to one who interprets dreams, you would find that you can take your average dream to 10 different dream interpreters and get 10 different interpretations. Did you know that? And frankly, I don't think we should spend much time with our dreams, because our dreams are not like Ezekiel's visions. But listen. God gives us the interpretation of this. And you know, you'll find in the Word of God that most of the parables that are found in the Word of God, that God gives us the interpretation of the parables. You know, that's nice, isn't it? That God has done that for us. And certainly in this case, there's no doubt at all what this vision that Ezekiel saw is all about. For in verse 11, notice what he says, Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Say now to the rebellious house, Do you know what this parable is about? And they had the same answer that you had. I don't know what he's talking about. I can't imagine what this parable, this vision is picturing. And if we were left just to ourselves, why, we could come up with A hundred different interpretations of this parable, couldn't we? And some would say, well, the eagle represents Alexander the Great. And someone else would say, no, the eagle represents Turkey because of the feathers. A joke. OK. And someone else would say, no, the eagle represents the Persian Empire. But we don't have to worry about it because verse 12 tells us that the first eagle represents the king of Babylon. Notice what it says. Tell them this. Give them my interpretation, Ezekiel. Say, behold, the king of Babylon has come to Jerusalem and has taken her king and her princes and led them with him to Babylon. He said that eagle, that first eagle, is a symbol and a picture of the great empire of Babylon. This is not the first time that the eagle has been used to represent Babylon. In Daniel chapter 7 verse 4, write that down on your notes. In Daniel chapter 7 verse 4, the eagle is used there as a representation of Babylon. Three symbols in Daniel picture Babylon. The golden image, head of the image, the lion, and the eagle. Now that we know the eagle is a symbol of Babylon, let's look back at verse 3 and see what kind of an eagle it was. It was a great eagle, and Babylon was a great empire. There has never been an empire where the king had such power and might as the emperor of Babylon had. The Bible says there never will be another man with that kind of power and control over other people. The Bible says to us that so great was the power of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, that every man in the country lived or died according to his word. Now that is control. If Nebuchadnezzar wanted you to live, you lived. If Nebuchadnezzar wanted you thrown into the furnace, you went into the furnace. If Nebuchadnezzar said go out and be in the front lines, you went into the front lines. Whatever he said, God gave and allowed this man to have power over an empire which no other man has ever come close to or will come close to save one, and that's God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And as we see the story of the nations unfolded in the book of Daniel, we see that there is a descending scale. They begin with gold, silver, brass, iron, and then iron and clay mixed together at the feet. And they symbolize to us that as each empire came along, the control at the top was diminished and the people had more and more of a part in that empire. Now, So it's Babylon, and he tells us here, he said Babylon was a great empire, and he said it was an eagle with great wings, long, full of feathers, which had many colors. And so he tells us that that eagle was a picture of the fact that the empire of Babylon was spread over many, many countries and peoples. And there were people of all different kinds of languages and all different cultures and stripes that had been captured and had been made slaves and citizens by force of the Babylonian empire. Then he said, that eagle came and took off the young twigs and carried it to the land of trade. And he tells us in verse 3, he said, yes, he said he came and he took the king and he took the princes and he led them to Babylon. And he said, that's a representation of the deportation and the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar when he took away all of the young men. And Ezekiel, he said, that's when you came, Ezekiel, to Babylon. in 597 BC when Jehoiakim was the king. And because of his wickedness, God allowed Nebuchadnezzar to come in and capture the city of Jerusalem. And he took Jehoiakim back to Babylon. And he took Ezekiel and many of the young men back with him at that time. And by the way, Jehoiakim remained alive in the land of Babylon Until all the other kings had died, he was eventually set free for a while in Babylon by the Persians after they had overtaken the Babylonian Empire. But he died in exile in the land of Babylon. And so, he said, verse 4 is a revelation to us that the twigs symbolize then Jehoiakim's captivity. And then verse 5, that is a representation and a picture of Zedekiah, the man who was on the throne in Jerusalem at the time of Ezekiel's writing. And he said, Ezekiel, I want you now to predict the future of Zedekiah. He said, Ezekiel, Zedekiah, has taken of the king's seed, and he has made a covenant with him, and he's taken an oath of him, and he also hath taken the mighty of the land, that the kingdom might be based, that it might not lift itself up, but by the keeping of his covenant it might stand. Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem. He captured Jehoiachin, but he took Zedekiah, and he put him on the throne. And then he said, he grabbed him, as it said there in 2 Chronicles 36, by the back of his neck, and he pushed him down to the ground, and he said, I want you to make a covenant with me. And the language there in the Hebrew means that Zedekiah said, all right, I will do it. I will make a covenant between you and God. As God is my witness, I will serve you, Nebuchadnezzar, and I will lead the city of Jerusalem after you. I will govern the land as your vassal, so to speak. And he made this as a covenant before God. But a few years later, we read here that the second eagle came along, and down in verse 15, we read, But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors to Egypt, that they might give him horses and many people. Shall he prosper? Shall he escape? That doeth such things? Or shall he break the covenant and be delivered? Now God tells us here, he said, but Zedekiah had made a covenant. He said, Nebuchadnezzar, before God, as God is my witness, I will pledge to be faithful to you. But then he heard that Egypt might help him overthrow the Babylonians. Jeremiah was prophesying at this same time and in the 37th chapter. And he heard what was going on and he ran to Zedekiah and he said, Zedekiah, don't let the Egyptians come. He said, if you let them come, You will lose the kingdom, for you have pledged before God to be faithful to Nebuchadnezzar. But Zedekiah said, Away with that man, Jeremiah. Throw him in prison, and give him bread and water. Isaiah had prophesied 200 years before. He said, Never trust Egypt. In Isaiah chapter 30, verses 1 through 6, and in 36.6, he said, Why? He said, Trusting Egypt is like a man who leans to rest on a stick and instead he finds it's a spear that goes through him as he puts his weight on it. And he said, don't trust Egypt. Egypt is always a symbol in the word of God of the world and of sin and of Satan. If there is one principle that is taught from Genesis to Revelation, it is this, that God wants his people to always operate and live in separation from the world. Do not expect to join hands with Satan to do the work of God. You cannot serve God and Satan at the same time. And you cannot bring God and Satan into a coalition program. And so God said, don't trust the Egyptians. Jeremiah said, don't join hands with the Egyptians. Ezekiel in Babylon is saying, don't go with the Egyptians. And Zedekiah went with the Egyptians. And he had success. Why, the Egyptians came up, and when they arrived on the scene, Jeremiah 37 says that immediately when they arrived, all of the Babylonians left. And Egypt came in. And they were there. And Zedekiah, my, how he strutted. Ha ha. Now look at us. You all, all of you old prophets, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, you said it was going to turn out wrong, and it's turned out right. Well, it turned out right for a year, but at the end of the year, the folks from Babylon came back, and this time they came back with the full army. And as soon as they arrived on the scene, the Egyptians took one look at the Babylonians, over the other side of the hill and took off as fast as they could go. And they ran back to Egypt and they never came back. And the Babylonians came into the city and they surrounded the city of Jerusalem and they destroyed the city of Jerusalem. Now that's what the second eagle is all about. In verse 17, he said, neither shall Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company help him in war by casting up siege mounds and building forts. seen he despised the oath by breaking the covenant, when, lo, he hath given his hand, and hath done all these things, then therefore Zedekiah shall not escape. Therefore saith the Lord God, in verse 19, As I live, surely mine oath that he hath despised, and my covenant that he hath broken, even it will I recompense upon his head. God said, Zedekiah, I'm going to deal with you, I'm going to spank you, I'm going to bring judgment into your life, because you have disobeyed me. and because you have made a covenant with me and you haven't kept it." As we read this story, we find that it is singularly a story of God's judgment against one king, Zedekiah, and we find that God spanked Zedekiah and he spanked him severely. The story goes this way, that Zedekiah was captured by the Babylonians, they carried him outside of the city, they brought his sons in front of him, and they killed his sons in front of his eyes, and then they put his own eyes out and took him back to Babylon. That's the story of the Word of God. A very severe spanking. A very severe time of discipline. And why was it administered? For one reason, and for this, as you see it there in verse 16, verse 17, verse 18, and verse 19, because Zedekiah had made a pledge to God and he hadn't kept it. He hadn't kept it. Dear friends, if there's one thing that you can count on, it is this, that God will keep every promise that he has made to you. You know, there is no requirement that God lays upon you as a Christian. Did you know that? Not one. Salvation is by grace, through faith, plus nothing. It's a gift. Any man who wants to can be saved by reaching out and believing and receiving God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as his Savior. Salvation is a gift. But after you receive salvation and become a child of God, then God asks you if you will give various parts of your life to him. In Romans chapter 12, he said, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present to me your bodies as a living sacrifice. You don't have to do that, but God asks you if you will. And God asks you at various times in your lives to give to him various things in service. And many times we feel the voice of God and we turn to the Lord and we say, Oh God, I'll give you what you ask. Yes, I'll give you my body. I want to dedicate myself totally and completely to you. You don't have to do that. But once you make that pledge and once you make that covenant, God says, I, as your loving father, am going to hold you to it. I'm going to make sure that you carry it out. And if you disobey that covenant, if you disobey that promise, then God says, I will reach in and correct you and spank you. You know, there are many Christians who have pledged things to the Lord and then taken them back. And as I preached this morning, I want to ask you this. I want you to review your own life. Are there things that you have told God that you'd give to Him and then you later on have stepped back? I knew a young man who came to me once and said, God has called me to preach and I've given my life to God to be a preacher. But time went on and I talked to him later and he said, I said, remember that call? He said, well, he said, I have other things now. He said, I'm not going in that direction anymore. Praise God, two years later, he came to me and he said, he said, you know, he said, I'm back where I was before. He was back in the past and God picked him up and took him and used him in a great way from that time on. But the other side of the coin is this, that there are many Christians who think that making a pledge and a commitment to God is something that you can make one day and then take back the next. The Bible says not so. The Bible says that when you make a pledge to God, there's one thing that you can be sure of, and that is this, that God will keep his part, but God will require you to keep your part too. A commitment to the Lord is very similar to a commitment with the banker. You don't go down with a down payment and get the car, and then take it home and drive it, and after two or three months decide, well, I don't think I'll make any more payments. And when the banker calls you up, you say, oh, I've decided not to keep my end of it anymore. I've decided to back out of that agreement. The banker says, very well. We have decided not to. And there will be a day of reckoning, won't there? And so it is that many people say, all right, God, I'll give you my life. I'll make that commitment. And then a year or two later, when something comes up that they want to do, they come back and they say, oh, God, I've changed my mind. I've decided that I want my life back. Was it a guy here is a tremendous example to us of the fact that God says, no, you don't. You don't have to make the commitment. But God says, when you make the commitment, then God says, as a loving, responsible heavenly father, I'm going to see that you keep it. And if you don't keep it, I'm going to spank you. You say, well, wait a minute, Pastor Graves. I haven't, I haven't kept some commitments that I made to the Lord and I haven't been spanked. Well, it took about 11 years before God finally spanked Zedekiah too. Yes, he was King 11 years before God finally spanked him. But when the spanking came, it hurt. Let me say this to you this morning, Christians, it's a very serious and dreadful thing to make commitments to God and not keep them. And as sure as I'm standing in this pulpit this morning, if you have made a commitment to God and you have fallen short of keeping that commitment, God will eventually reach down into your life with judgment and spank you. Now why does God spank you? Hebrews chapter 12 tells us that God spanks his children because he loves them. The primary motivation of all of God's punishment and spanking of his own children is love. Whom the Lord loves, he chases. And we as parents can take a page from the Lord's example right there. Every time you exercise any discipline toward your children, the only motivation of that discipline should be love. You should never ever discipline or speak to a child in anger. Now I'm here this morning to testify that kids can make you mad. There have been many times when I have been angry with my children. They are very infuriating. Kids, if you think your parents make you mad, you ought to see how mad you can make them with your ornery, disgusting little ways, your impudence, your defiance. And many is a time when I have had to stop and go off and withhold discipline, sometimes for several hours, until I could come to the place where I could come into that room and discipline in love. And there have been times when I've disciplined in anger and I've had to apologize to my child for doing such a thing. Every time God disciplines, His motivation is love. God spanked Israel because he loved them. Your discipline should be administered in love. That child should know and understand that, clearly and simply. And if you are administering any other kind of discipline, you are hurting that child, and you are ruining your testimony as a Christian parent. Did you know that? Someone said to me, Pastor, I can't discipline them unless I'm angry. That's the key right there. Someone says, how can you be sure whether it's anger or love? If it hurts, it's love. If it's easy, it's anger. That's the criteria that I use. If it's easy to apply the stick, I'm satisfying my own anger. But if it's hard, if it hurts, Then I know that it's love. Isn't that right? And the Word of God reveals to us that whenever God administers discipline on one of his own, it hurts him. Oh, how it hurts him. The Bible said that the Holy Spirit of God is grieved when we sin. The Bible says that Jesus Christ looked at Jerusalem, that city which he was going to destroy and ruin, and he said, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. And he cried and he wept as he knew what he was going to have to come to that city by his own hand because of their sin. It hurts God. It pains God to discipline his children. And it ought to pain you to discipline your children. And whenever God disciplined, He always disciplined with full knowledge. You know, God didn't pounce on Zedekiah out of the blue, but God had given instructions to the nation of Israel over and over again. If you obey me, I will bless you. If you disobey me, I will spank you. And this is exactly what we need to do as parents. We need to give our instructions clear to our children so that they will know exactly where they stand. If you do, if you obey me, we will have a good time together. If you disobey me, this will result. And then we need to keep our word. We need to keep our word. And then the last thing is this, that whenever you have discipline, that discipline is not completed until you've had a chance to talk to that young person or that child afterwards and counsel them together about the future. And you know, that's exactly what God did here. Because you notice in verse 22, that as soon as God finished spanking Zedekiah, he then turned to Ezekiel and he said, but Ezekiel, he said, I want you to know that one of these days I'm going to send my king, the seed of David, and he's going to bring a great and wonderful rule and reign of righteousness into the earth. He said, there's a great day coming. He said, the kingdom will come back to Israel one day when the great king, Jesus Christ himself returns. with his rule and reign of righteousness over all the earth. And dear parents, when you discipline your child, it ought to be a threefold experience. First of all, you discuss it ahead of time, you administer it in love, you apply the correction that is called for, and then when the tears are over, you sit down and you counsel with them about the future. You know, some people's parents have said to me, well, my child is only two. I don't think you can do that. I'll tell you this, friends. I found that if you do it, they'll understand it. Did you know that? My children are just average. They aren't any smarter than anybody else's, as far as I've been able to tell. Perhaps a little duller in some areas. Who knows? Poor kids have to listen to this from the pulpit. But I'll say this, that when they were one and a half and two, able to talk, that when I had times of discipline, And they're here this morning, you know, I'm glad I can preach about this in front of them, and they'll know that dad isn't making something up because they can remember these times. And I've practiced it this way, that I told them, I'm going to spank you because I love you. You say, well, I don't think a two-year-old can understand that. Oh, yes, they understand it very well. Because many of the time when they said, couldn't you just not do it then? I said, I'm going to spank you because I love you, because you have to learn. And then when the spanking was completed and the tears had finished, then I took them in my arms and set them on my lap. And we talked about why it happened and how we could make it not happen in the future. We counseled them concerning the future. Now that's biblical discipline. That's the way God does it. There isn't any of this hitting a child in the face. Whenever I see a parent slap a child, I know right there that there's a parent who is out of God's will, who is wrong in what they're doing. Discipline doesn't take place in front of the family. It's a private matter. And it's handled in love. It's handled in firmness. And it's counsel at the end. You apply this kind of discipline to your children and God will bless your family. I can testify to that. Everything won't be perfect. I don't have perfect kids. The reason is because they don't have a perfect parent. But I do know this, that biblical discipline will produce results. And a lack of biblical discipline will produce horrible chaos and tragedy. Parents the younger your children are the better it is for you and those of you that are expecting your first start right away with biblical discipline And you'll see how that God will bless it in the lives of your families. Shall we pray? Father in heaven, we thank you for your word this morning. We pray that you would use it in our lives. Lord, if there are Christians here today who have gone back on commitments, God, may they repent of their sin. May they come back to that place where they once stood. May they say, Oh, Lord, I'm giving back to you those things that I once pledged. and have not been faithful in keeping. Help none of us, Lord, to withhold you and to take back to the place that Zedekiah did, to defy promises and covenants that we've made, to seek to forget them. Lord, help us, each one as Christians, to say, God helping me, I'm going to be faithful to every pledge and commitment that I've made to my Lord. And God help us as parents to administer godly discipline in the lives of our families. and to our children. Help us to discipline them in love as God did and does. These things we ask in your precious name. Amen. This message has been brought to you by the Santa Rosa Bible Church. Our mission is to see the lost reached and believers transformed by Jesus. You can find out more information about us at our website at srbible.org. Or you can visit us in person at 4575 Badger Road in Santa Rosa, California. You can also reach us by phone at 707-538-2385.