Would you take your Bibles, please, and turn to Proverbs chapter 13? Proverbs chapter 13 as we talked today about Disciplining your children when I was growing up They used to say that there are three things you should never talk about in public Politics religion and money and I would say that sex and disciplining your children could round that out and Somebody who said that whoever came up with that little proverb had never read the book of Proverbs Because there's a five major themes throughout this this great book of wisdom how we approach God our religion How we interact with the king he's mentioned many times in the book of Proverbs the government How we handle our genders and handle our sexuality our child-rearing patterns and our personal finances I've also noticed that there's a lot of Conversations about the tongue in the book of Proverbs which are prized the preachers a
Word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear Like the cold snow and the time of harvest is a faithful messenger to those who send him he refreshes the soul of his masters Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of the gift he does not give With patience a ruler may be persuaded and a soft tongue will break the bone a gentle word turns away wrath There's also a lot of Talking the Proverbs about anger In fact, James as he combines these two subjects of Speaking and anger says know this my beloved brothers Let everyone be quick to hear Slow to speak and slow to anger For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God When I preach folks, I will not always get everything right in fact I'll often be wrong I preach in an errant word in an errant manner Which means that I often start out with good intentions and Somewhere along the line those intentions are mistaken I when I first came here to Christ covenant seven years ago Things were a little dicey and so I decided to just kind of be the rather Distant in the pulpit safe and I preach to Philippians and people complain that I never had any practical applications So I have increased my practical applications as I've gotten to know you and you've gotten to know me and now they say Your practical applications are wrong
They're two pointed they're embarrassing we had this a couple several weeks ago when I used the illustration of a teenage models and I want to apologize to you ask your forgiveness I'm really not trying to fend anyone Sometimes I use what I think is a pointed but safe illustration and it's either too brutal or too unsafe Now I want you to feel safe. I want you to feel that that the illustrations I use from the pulpit are not you That you can come and and we can struggle through things together and So, you know, I can assure you I tell my wife, you know, Janie I don't sit in the office at at 3 o'clock on Thursday and say now I haven't put anything in the sermon that would offend anybody and Then go back and add it in but sometimes that happens and I apologize when it does that's the last thing I want you to do I'd rather you leave here Thinking about things and feeling good about the word of God than troubled by my applications The tendency would be not to make any applications whatsoever, but then we'd go back to the criticisms I got before that I was too academic and so you can't win for losing I do have a lot of things on my mind folks. I just want you to know that we are being sued as a church I'm answering the complaint On behalf of our press very against our Presbyterie that will go to the General Assembly. I have to moderate the General Assembly for another month or so I'm involved in this issue with the Boy Scouts. I don't know what's going to happen to our Boy Scout troop or to Obama's health care plan how it affects us and our conscience concerning certain stipulations in that bill. I know that the City of Matthews is wanting us to do some different things with soar and with the school and On the board of covenant college as they go through a new time of transition with a new president and I could go on and list A number of things that are on my plate including churches that are troubled and are asking me for advice as the moderator and Discipline cases in our church, but you know the thing that bothers me the most In fact, I would say it's the only thing that I really lose sleep over and that is your children Not that your children are burdened quite the opposite. It's a delight to stand up here and see little ones and High school kids and college youth and to know that generation next is behind me Terrorizing people in the nursery It's great to have all these but I worry about the world we're going to leave them and I didn't use to worry about these things I began to worry about these things once I became a grandfather and I realized how precious and how fragile and How vulnerable little children really are and that was part of the motivation for me Asking the session if we could go through Proverbs this year, so I could equip you to help your children and grandchildren With wisdom for the generations So they would feel safe in their souls and be protected in this culture that Seemingly is determined to renounce Christ and move as far away from the word as possible Which will not really do a whole lot to me. I've maybe got a dozen years left and according to statistics I'll be dead in 12 years But your children have as much ahead of them in life as I have behind me and I am concerned for their future So we're going to talk about these Proverbs as we come along and we'll take them now in groups We've finished the first section of Proverbs, which is really a long introduction of nine chapters It has ten messages. We called ten emails to our children by Solomon a father and a king and it has three speeches by Jesus Christ who is Lady wisdom personified now we're done with that now We enter into what is the heart of this book chapters 10 to 29 Which is wisdom for life. It's difficult to preach through because with rare exception the Proverbs are not grouped in a thematic way. They're Randomly scattered throughout the book it appears so what we're going to do for the next 15 weeks the pastors and I we're going to Take certain subjects and Preach through them. I gave the pastor since I'm going on sabbatical I gave them a list of 15 topics to choose from that they when I would take the ones that were left and guess what was left Disciplining your children My pastors are so good to me when it comes to Lattering the ball to me. So there's nine Proverbs I want to read through and we'll look at a couple this morning about Disciplining your children Beginning in Proverbs 13 verse 24 Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him or Rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool Discipline your son for there is hope. Do not set your heart on putting him to death Blow is that would cleanse away evil strokes make clean the innermost parts Train up a child in the way he should go and even when he is old he will not depart from it Folly is bound up in the heart of a child with the rod of discipline drives it far from him Do not withhold discipline from a child If you strike him with a rod he will not die if you strike him with a rod you will save his soul from sheolar from the grave The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother Discipline your son and he will give you rest He will give delight to your heart Now if we take these nine Proverbs probably they're probably more in the book of Proverbs, but these are the obvious ones to talk about Disciplining a child Then we group them together They really say there are three different things that we need to address in the discipline of our children and I've called them the rod the regimen and the reproof and they almost are
Sequential in the way we work them out in our children's life when they're little we use the rod Throughout the majority of their life there is the regimen of training and teaching And even when they're older when they are the parents of children, but we are still their grandparents We use reproof. So I'm going to look at these three things The key verse of course on the rod is this verse that we've looked at here in chapter 13 verse 24 Whoever spares the rod hates his son But he who loves him is diligent to discipline him now first of all When we read the word discipline and we hear it it has a negative connotation to us we think punishment and Then unfortunately is one of the definitions that explains the word discipline in the our dictionaries, but it's incorrect Discipline is not punishment Discipline and discipleship Come from the same word and discipline is not punishment. It is training It is the shaping of a life whether it's self-discipline Or a discipline of study like the discipline of math or science or history Some academic thing. You're training yourself to be an expert in or The training that comes as a rule a set of governments for an institution Or whether it's just the control gained by enforcing obedience first from external internal and then internally out Discipline is a good thing It comes from the lat word discipline of that means teaching And a decyclist is one who is a pupil 99% of discipline is positive you are being disciplined right now Because we're in a process here of discipleship Go and make disciples Go and make discipline people by teaching them all that I have commanded you So most of our discipline is positive as a point of constructive discipleship, but sometimes It needs to be negative And Solomon talks about this when he talks about the rod Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him blows that wound cleanse away evil strokes make clean the uttermost parts Folly is bound up in the heart of the child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him Do not withhold discipline from a child If you strike him with a rod he will not die if you strike him with a rod You will save his soul From death the rod and repute give wisdom But a child left to himself bring shame to his mother Now for centuries even for millennia Parents around the world have seen the rod or the spanking stick whatever we want to call it As a way in which to shape the conduct of little ones. I have been in Almost 50 different countries around the world And I have seen people from England to Australia from Malawi to India spank their children in public and in private As an old Russian proverb love your children with your heart, but train them with your hands So that rods are used in every culture the old English proverb Spare the rod and spoil the child comes from An old translation of proverbs 1324 now There is some question today about whether Solomon meant Corporal punishment or not and I think the answer is yes, he did This is the clear and consistent meaning of the rod and the five proverbs. I just read It is commentary on Proverbs Robert Alden says the Bible definitely recommends physical discipline of children Spanking for instance is proof of a parent's love for his child in the sense that he cares enough for the child to discipline him It is far better for a parent to be accused of Corporal punishment than to be accused of ignoring or not caring enough about his children The rod in this verse is not merely a figure of speech But the combined weight of parallel passages and proverbs support its literal meaning Solomon uses things like stripes or strokes or beating Which seem to be Severe words to us, but the key word that he wants us to focus on is the word Muzar and USA are which means discipline or instruction or training or correction he uses We in our English translations use all four of those words drawn from this Hebrew word Muzar which means that it is the father's business to shape Physically and spiritually if necessary the course of the moral and spiritual direction of his children A wise son and a father's discipline go hand in hand like a horse and carriage in the book of Proverbs Bruce Waltke says one who holds back his rod of remedial punishment is one who hates his son But the one who loves him in spite of the difficulties involved seeks him diligently to discipline him Loving parents seek to correct the faults of the children because of the preceding unit And it shows their children's lives favor protection healing dignity and prosperity or its stake Unloving parents turn their back on them and refuse to engage in the messy business of discipline Does that mean physical discipline? Well, that is the majority opinion of scholars Conservative and liberal Trump or Longman says in this case since the rod is mentioned the discipline in mind here is physical but it's not an extreme Physical discipline If we read Solomon's Proverbs in their context and in their total He says that they these These disciplines these physical spankings that we may administer Are to be administered in the spirit of self-control In handling our children with love and with a father's tenderness to realize that they are just little human beings They are small and fragile and easily shaped There are some people who don't believe that One commentator says this verse can never be taken to support Corporal punishment of children And I would say that that man is speaking more from the culture than he is from the scripture He's not letting the Bible speak for itself He's following the teachings quite frankly of Dr. Benjamin Spock Who wrote a book back in 1946 the common sense book of baby and child care It's sold 50 million copies and but translated into 49 languages and is led to the outlawing of children being spanked by the parents And 24 countries and possibly in the next year or two in 32 And yet when we look back on Dr. Spock's legacy in his own marriage and family And the legacy that this undisciplined idea of letting children throw their tantrums and grow out of their own infantile ways We find that what we have as one person said is nothing but a generation of rowdy and rebellious youth Defying the authority irritating their elders and insulting their parents with rebellion
We had a Conference share a few years ago and there was a man who was going to come He'd written quite a controversial book about spanking and I asked the people Not to invite him and not to have that book because we're not looking For controversy concerning this What we're looking at is to look at spanking the way that Solomon presents it. I want you to listen carefully Solomon says That four things have to surround the rod one The rod it belongs to the father and the mother and not to anyone else not the school or the church and certainly not the state Secondly, it is to be used for a child Not an adolescent not a young man or woman It is to be used thirdly as a last resort in the case of extreme importance when death The death of the child his spiritual or physical ruin Is at stake and fourth it is intended for little ones Who cannot yet understand reason, reproof correction or instruction will it hurt? Yes Will a harm not if it's done correctly It must be done with godly love He bruised 12 for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives It has to be done with tenderness and restraint realizing that we're dealing with children not felons Fathers do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord it must be done In moderation and not to an excess that would exasperate and frustrate the children Colossians three fathers do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged We should remember That they are little in frame and mind and soul but They're full of sin Folly is bound up in a heart of a child But the rod of discipline drives it far from him And we need to remember the old English proverb Better a child weep than an old man better to discipline him now Before the sorrows become greater And the issues become much more devastating Jane and I spanked our children, but you know we did it very rarely And it was easy they hardly cried Now the problem when they were three or four they didn't feel like that But we did it to get their attention realizing that this rod is only a tiny part And the last ditch effort In a whole lifelong process that I'm calling the regimen of discipline Turn if you will the proverb is 22 Because Solomon seems to measure on the rod but really he doesn't He mentions the rod five times he mentions a lot more The process of training and correction and discipleship for a young child or an adolescent girl or young man in his early age of adulthood And in Proverbs chapter 22 verse 6 probably the most famous proverb about discipline He says train up a child on the way he should go And even when he is old he will not depart from it here Solomon turns to positive discipline training up His synonyms for this training or many Instruction discipline correction righteousness and so forth A wise son here's his father's instruction but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke Solomon prevents a very comprehensive picture Of how this discipline process is to take place This discipleship of a child first it's always to be done in the context Of a strong marriage and a loving family it is the family That is the primary school for Christ that shapes a young child's heart, soul, mind, and even his body The family is the locus of instruction It's the key place where a child learns right and wrong not the church But the family Children should respect their parents according to Solomon And receive their instruction to prove correction and rules because They believe their parents love them and are doing difficult things but good things for them Parents must love their children Discipline only works Listen to me folks According to Solomon discipline only works if the child knows you love them And have their best spiritual interest at heart There's a tenderness and an affection that must go along with all kinds of discipline and discipleship Parents according to Solomon must model what they're asking the children to do And Solomon says It takes a community To help you discipline and discipleship your children Although the primary responsibility is a father and mother That's not the primary resource They have family extended family church, school, coaches, friends Even the corporate community around them I recently watched ESPNU where a young man Declared where he was going to go to play football in college And they asked the young guy how did you arrive at this decision in your life And he smiled and said well It takes a village My parents and coaches and others have helped me All along the way to discern God's will for me And that young man is right It was his mom and dad I know them as godly people He has brothers who are Good Christian young men who've encouraged him His fellow players his Christian coaches Pastors of the churches. He's gone to bible study leaders Upper classmen even the coaches who we're recruiting him many of them were Christians and Parade with him and encourage him to make his decision based upon what God wanted him to do And I didn't choose a high state so the system failed No, seriously he made the right decision Because he had this village of people around him Helping him Training him and all these kind of encouraging and positive ways And that is something folks that we don't take advantage of enough Consistency in Christian community Is the key to proper Balanced biblical effective childhoodering let me say that again Consistency in community Is the key to proper balanced biblical and effective child rearing Raising children in the ways of the Lord is not easy And and I apologize to you for all those books out there that give you the three keys the great kids are the seven steps To wonderful family life and the two you know they don't work Life isn't that simple In fact see us Lewis in his book mere Christianity says It is not good asking for a simple religion After all real things are not simple They look simple, but they are not a child saying a child's prayer looks simple to us But if you are content to stop there And to look into what's happening You will find as you go on and on and ask what is really happening That there is something profoundly complicated and difficult Going on in the soul of that little one If we ask for something more than simplicity it is silly than to complain that something more is not simple Religion is not simple because reality is complicated It is not an easy thing To rear children But Solomon says look Train up a child in the way that he should go And even when he is old He will not depart from it I think That is the one verse in the Bible that people have asked me more questions about than any other verse in the Bible Pastor is that a guarantee that all my kids when they get old to be saved? No, it's not It's a rule of thumb That if we train up a child in this lifelong regimen Of learning from the community of faith and all of the people helping us around us More times than not Can I say the vast majority of times when he is old He will not depart from it takes time to process a child Into the ways of the Lord And that means that even when he is older Discipline continues Not in the wrong or the regimen, but perhaps the reproof when an adult A grandparent says to a child who is a parent This is what you need to do look at Proverbs 17 verse 10 one of the Proverbs we read earlier Proverbs 1710 A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding Than a hundred blows into a fool Look again Proverbs 1710 a rebuke Goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool Proverbs says that we should correct and approve and rebuke and discipline children on a regular basis And it never says that we are to stop When they graduate from college In fact, Proverbs 17 says There are certain things that you can say hard things to a young man that you couldn't say to a child A child hasn't reached an age of understanding But a rebuke goes deeper into a man not a child into a man of understanding Than a hundred blows Spankings into a fool This common sense here Rebuking a child is not as effective as rebuking an adult That's one of the problems with Spock's whole theology That you can reason with a four-year-old like it can a 40-year-old But it's not true But there's also this myth we have that once our children get older and their adults Whenever we determine that is that somehow They're not subject to their parents anymore. We have nothing to say about them And Solomon would say we'll find out especially next week that is Exactly the wrong way to think It's the glory of an old man in his gray hair That is an asset to the young parents with little children When does your mother and father stop being your mother and father I think the answer is never So when do you stop being their child and the answer is never Do they boss you? Do they spank you? No But they have a right to say to you in fact a responsibility to say son That's not the way to handle your my grandchildren That's not the way to speak to your wife You're not living up to your Christian convictions and calling They have a right to speak into our life and the fool proverb says is the one as an adult of understanding who refuses to understand them Children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right Honor your father and mother This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land that I'm giving to you There is no time frame on that I don't care if you're 60 65 and 70 and your mother of father is 85 90 and 95 They do know more than you do and you'll never catch up to them. They're always 30 years ahead of you And they have as a responsibility to speak into your life. Listen to me folks Especially for the sake of your children who are their grandchildren They do see things as an older adult that young parents don't see I remember one time my Son-in-law was having a battle of the wills with one of these children about cleaning his plate This thing went on for hours The child was sobbing the food was nauseatingly cold It was getting to be bedtime and the kid was still sitting staring at this plate And I said to him Can I say something? He said sure. I said why don't you just cover that plate up with cellophane and put it in the microwave and Heat it up tomorrow and he'll get hungry and eat it and let him go to bed So he did And the next day for lunching heated up the plate and the kid cleaned it and asked for more And my son-in-law said How did you know that? Because I said I did the same stupid thing to your wife when she was five years old I made you want to sit there till she sobbed herself to sleep over green beans You know, I don't care if your mom and dad you don't have it all right Grandmas and grandmas have learned the hard way and they still need to speak into our lives The rearing of children is not simple. It costs for true biblical realism It is a process suited to the child's needs capacities and his maturity whether it's sitting on a stool Standing in a corner getting a spank and keys taken from him and too. We progress to the point where we can say son I really think this is the right thing to do. It's a process It can only be accomplished well in what Hillary Clinton called the village She was right. It takes a village to raise a child a community of believers That becomes the family for your family and necessitates parents and grandparents working together To shape the souls of their little ones The strength and energy of young parents and the glory and maturity of the old gray hair It is a fluid Life long touch and go process. There are no easy steps no simple rules for discipline It's a life on life process But it works 99% of the time It works Hebrews 12 says my son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord Nor be weary when reprieve by him For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chases every son whom he receives For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant But later on it yields the peaceful food of righteousness to those who have been trained by it You know who Hebrews 12 is speaking about Speaking about God the Father disciplining Jesus Christ his son For in that same epistle We were told that Jesus Christ learned obedience from the Father through the things that he suffered So he is able to come to the aid of those who are in trouble you and I You and I draw upon Jesus Christ the Son of God as the ultimate resource For the discipling of our children It is Jesus Christ who will work in their hearts and in yours and in grandma and grandpa's heart It is Jesus Christ who becomes the model and paradigm the older brother It is Jesus Christ who works in an amazing way through the wisdom of his word and the community of his church And this sacred institution of marriage and family to bring us all to the point where eventually when we are old Healed forth the peaceful fruit of righteousness because we have been trained by the disciplines of God through his son through our parents
And that is a promise We can claim I don't think there is anybody in the Bible who loved children more than Jesus Christ Let these little ones come to me he said For to them belongs the kingdom of God So Paul is right Children obey your parents and the Lord For this is right Honor your father and mother That is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you And that you may live long in the land fathers Do not provoke your children to anger But bring them up Train them in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord Let's pray Father, we thank you that you love us enough to make disciples of us To shape us by your rod of discipline and by your life of training by the reproofs and convictions of the Holy Spirit Shape us into little Christ until We grow to the full measure of the stature of the man that belongs to Jesus Christ As Paul put it in Ephesians You are a loving father And a faithful father And while it was concerned about delivering our souls from death and the grave from hell Through this process of discipline and discipleship even now As we come to this table and To this sacred desk we experience the shaping grace of the Holy Spirit And the the training hand of the Lord Jesus Christ as you bring us under the disciplines of the church So that we can grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior and be blessed by him Thank you for this and we ask that you would strengthen us and empower us To be more Christ-like in the treatment and in the rearing and the discipline of our children For their sake Because the children belong to you And your kingdom belongs to them So we pray this in your name. Amen