Let’s begin with a word of prayer. Our Father, surely nothing in this life is more dear to our hearts than our homes, our families, our children. We thank you. We praise you that you, the creator of the family, have given us direction as to how we may succeed and raise our families for your glory and for our joy. We pray that you will help us this morning again to that end. Bless the parents of our church. Give them wisdom. Give them conviction—conviction to follow your word. Give them every grace needed to follow it. And we pray that you’ll give them success. Lord, we want nothing less than to see all of the children of RBC come to a saving knowledge of Christ. Use their parents, we pray, to that end. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
I want to thank also those of you for whom this subject is not immediately relevant. Some of your children are grown and gone. Some of you have no children. I haven’t heard any complaints yet about these four messages that we’ve taken. I appreciate that. I appreciate your patience with that. My trust has been that it is of value, though, for those with, particularly with young children at home.
And I’ll begin this morning with something a little bit on the facetious side. This is from the Houston Police Department. Decades ago, I think 1959, it was written. I’ve had this for decades. It eventually made itself to the internet. And then the Houston Police Department in more recent years was asked about it. They are not able to trace back to the author of it, but here’s what the Houston Police Department decades ago put out: a leaflet entitled, How to Ruin Your Children. Guaranteed 99% effective.
- Begin from infancy to give your child everything he wants. This way he will grow up thinking that the world owes him a living.
- Never give him any spiritual training. Wait until he’s 21 and let him decide for himself.
- Avoid the use of the word “wrong.” It may develop a guilt complex. This will condition him later when he’s arrested for stealing a car that society is against him and he’s being persecuted.
- Number five, pick up anything he leaves lying around—books, shoes, clothing, whatever. Do everything for him so he will be experienced in throwing the responsibility to others.
- Number six, let him read any printed matter he can get his hands on. Be careful that the drinking glasses and silverware are sterilized and that your house is nice, but let his mind feed on garbage.
- Quarrel frequently in the presence of children. Then they won’t be too shocked when the home is broken up.
- Satisfy his every craving for food, drink, and comfort. See that every desire is gratified. Denial may later lead to harmful frustrations.
- Take his part against the neighbors, the teachers, the policemen, and the preacher. They are prejudiced against your baby.
- Number 11, when he gets into real trouble, apologize for yourself by saying, “I never could do anything with him.”
- Number 12, prepare for a life of grief. You will likely have it.
Well, of course, that’s facetious; it’s tongue-in-cheek, but I think it makes a lot of points that the scripture would direct us to, and we’ll see some of that this morning.
We’ve been looking at the subject, the broad subject, of Christian parenting. We saw, first of all, and looked into the subject of the child’s foolish heart. This is something of the, we might call the obstacle of parenting. We must recognize that foolishness is bound in the heart of every child. It’s true of you. It’s true of me and every one of us. And it’s the parent’s obligation to recognize that and to do your parenting in such a way that steers the child away from that foolishness.
We looked next at the objective of parents, and that is to save our children. Our objective is nothing less than to make them disciples of the Lord Jesus, and everything—everything, everything we do as parents, every decision we make for our children, everything we do for our children—is within that framework. We want them to become disciples of the Lord Jesus.
And then we looked last time at the responsibilities of children, and their responsibilities very simply are: obey your parents and honor your father and mother. Now, that all presupposes that we have wise parents. It presupposes that the parents are preparing their children for life. It presupposes that the parents are steering their children, making decisions for their children that are responsible, that they’re establishing guidelines for the children, and they’re commanding the children accordingly. And then the children are responsible in turn then to say, “Yes, ma’am,” “Yes, sir,” and to obey and to honor.
Child Discipline And Spanking
Today, we look at child discipline and spanking. Not the cheeriest of topics, but a very necessary one. And we’ll look at it primarily from the book of Proverbs, where we find so much instruction in that regard. But we begin with Hebrews chapter 12. Here, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews draws from Proverbs on child discipline. And he makes it—his point here has to do with God’s dealing with his children, and so we begin here.
Hebrews 12, verse 1: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and the sin that so—that which clings so closely. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?”
And here he cites from Proverbs chapter 3: “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are an illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good so that we may share in his holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore, lift up your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.”
By way of a quick overview of this passage, chapter 12 of Hebrews, you remember the writer is writing to these Jewish Christians. They’ve professed faith in Christ. They’re pressured now, largely because of persecution, pressured to go back to the old ways and to forsake the way of Christ and the new covenant that has been fulfilled in him. And so he writes primarily to call them to perseverance in their struggles. And here in this passage, perseverance in their struggle against sin. And sometimes that struggle entails some severity and some suffering, but he uses Jesus as an example.
Verses three and four, he’s the model of perseverance, and he says in verse four, “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” That is, don’t make more of your suffering than you should. We tend to do that. Verses 5 and following characterize the struggle in terms of divine chastening. It is God training his children, and this is why he brings these pressures and sufferings and difficulties into our lives. It is God training his children.
And he gives the illustration then of fathers and their children and he says, so just as a father trains his child and he disciplines him at times as needed, so God also brings these into our lives to train us in holiness. Verse 12 then draws the final application: “Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.” That is, don’t wallow in your discouragement when you’re going through these difficult times. Recognize God’s purpose in it. Recognize his goal, the value of it then, and persevere through it.
Now in verses five and six, he recites Proverbs 3, verses 11 and 12. “Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.” Now here he’s pointing back to Proverbs 3. You might remember recently we surveyed quickly the opening chapters of Proverbs, Proverbs 1-9, where we have these series of lectures from the sage, these lectures to his son, and the burden of those lectures is to train his son and encourage his son to pursue wisdom at all costs.
This lecture, particularly in Proverbs 3, he’s dealing with the value and the responsibilities of wisdom. “Blessed is the one who finds wisdom and gets understanding, because long life is in her right hand, and riches and honor are in her left hand,” and he exhorts them with regard to the value of wisdom. You follow this, the way that God has laid out for us, it will pay off big time. And so he tells us then, if providence in all of that sends difficulty, it is to teach you to walk in wisdom. That’s God’s purpose in it. So don’t despise that discipline of the Lord, but walk faithfully through it in your pursuit of wisdom. That’s where that discipline is intended to drive you.
And then he tells us here in verse 7, Hebrews 12, that this discipline, in fact, is a mark of sonship. “God is treating you as sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” So this is the way of fathers with sons. Discipline the sons as needed. This is the way of fathers with sons. This is the right way. This is what fathers ought to be doing with their sons. It is the responsibility of fathers to train their children, even discipline, and spank as necessary.
Verse 8, in fact, he says, “If you’re left without discipline, then you’re illegitimate children, not sons.” If God didn’t discipline you, you’d have to wonder, “Am I really a child of God or not?” And verse 9 then makes the application by way of an illustration drawn from home life. “Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live?” First part of that verse is interesting. We had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Never, never were you more respectful of your father than when you were getting the spanking. If you had any sense, at least you were respectful at that point.
Years ago, Gina was just a little girl. She’s grade school age somewhere, old enough to show an attitude. I’ve told you she was our strong-willed one and she had to get a spanking for something. I don’t remember what the offense was. She had to get a spanking. As I recall, it was both Jim and Gina at that time. Gina got her spanking and I was letting her go and she decided to show an attitude and so, “No, no, we’re not done here,” and so she got more. And years later that became—she would laugh about that years later. She talked about, “What was I thinking, that Dad would put up with an attitude, that this would somehow help?”
When our fathers spanked us, we showed them respect. That’s his point in verse nine. Verse 10, he expands, “For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness.” That’s the goal. The point of the discipline is to enforce the rule and to enforce the exhortation to pursue wisdom. And so verse 11, he comes to the point, “For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant,” I guess so. Never when I received a spankin’ did I think it was pleasant. “For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” That is to say, there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned tune-up to bring about the peaceful fruit of righteousness. It wasn’t a pleasant experience when I was on the receiving end of those things, but I have to say, afterwards, it yielded the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
All right, there in a nutshell is what he’s saying in Hebrews chapter 12, both with regard to the disciplines of children, our children, and God’s discipline of his children—that’s us—in our pursuit of wisdom. Now, I was going to say this is way out of step with our culture. I think what I ought to say is that our culture is way out of step with what God has said here. And because it is so far out of step, and because we are so influenced by our culture on this score, I want to spend some time surveying some of the Proverbs that the writer here is pulling from.
So go back to Proverbs and we’ll survey some of these outstanding statements with regard to the discipline of children. Proverbs—we’ll start with the most famous one probably, chapter 22 and verse six.
Train Up A Child In The Way That He Should Go
Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way that he should go.” Now, the way that he should go in Proverbs is the way of wisdom. Train up a child in the way that he should go. Now, verse five above it, you’ll see it implicitly admonishes the youth with regard to the dangers of folly. “Thorns and snares are in the way of the crooked. Whoever guards his soul will keep far from—stay away from—the way of foolishness.” It’s not worth it. And then, verse 6, he gives instruction for parents. And their responsibility now is to steer their children away from that foolishness and toward wisdom. “Train up a child in the way that he should go.”
This word “train” here is rarely an imperative in the Old Testament. It’s rather rare that… The idea is to dedicate. Dedicate your child to the way that he should go. Train him in that direction. Make him go that way. You start from the beginning with a settled course in mind, where you want your child to go, and you direct him from his earliest days to go in that direction, the way of wisdom. So it speaks to the moral education of your children, and directing them the way that they should go.
So verse 6, at the beginning of the verse we have the admonition, “Train up a child in the way that he should go,” and then the rest of the verse we have the reason for it: “Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.” So not only when he is kept in line under the immediate supervision of his parents, but when he grows up and goes off on his own, he walks in the way of wisdom. So there’s a happy prospect that’s offered here. Train him up in the way that he should go, and when he’s old, he won’t depart from it.
Now drop down the page a little bit to verse 15. This is where we began our series. “Folly is bound up in the heart of the child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.” Well, this counsels the parents now to the same end as what we saw in verse 6: train him up in the way that he should go, train him away from the foolishness of his own heart. But verse 15 now escalates the matter a little bit, and it tells us to use the rod to enforce compliance. To protect the child from his own foolishness, to protect the child from the consequences of his foolishness, the wise father is willing even to inflict pain. He recognizes that foolishness is so lodged in the heart of that child that if he pursues it, it’ll lead to his utter ruin. And so the wise father recognizes that there’s one tool that he has to enforce the way of wisdom. And he says the rod of discipline will drive that foolishness far from him.
Effective training entails making the child regret the foolishness. He has to recognize that infraction of the rules, violations, disobedience are not worth it. It doesn’t end up well. Again, though, although it sounds so negative, it has a happy prospect. What the verse emphasizes is the value and the efficacy of a spanking. “Folly is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.” The child’s heart is bent on foolishness; it’s bent on—he doesn’t know it—but it’s bent on his own self-destruction, but the father’s rod can free him from that and it drives him away.
Now we’ll see this in many of the Proverbs, that the rod is offered as a—and I’ll say it this way—a means of grace, a sanctifying influence on the child, and this is all emphasized over and over again through the Proverbs. So the instruction so far is very obvious. Broadly, it is the parent’s responsibility to shape the child’s life and the direction of his life and the way that he should go so he walks according to wisdom. It is not—it is not your responsibility as a parent to allow your child to follow his every whim. It certainly is not your responsibility to teach your child to follow his heart. It is your responsibility to direct him in the way that he should go and enforce that in ways that become necessary.
Perhaps the most difficult part of parenting is resolving to curb that rebellion in the child’s heart and that tendency to disobey, to stiffen up and rebel. Perhaps, I think I said this earlier, perhaps the most difficult part of parenting is resolving that your will will be stronger than his. And it’s absolutely necessary. Now it sounds—I suppose it sounds too violent and confrontational at this point to say it—but it must be that you have to break their will. Now, when I’ve said that before in the past, I’ve always been careful to say you must break their will in such a way that you don’t break their spirit. And we’ll talk more about abuse later on and things like that, but it is the parent’s responsibility to curb that will. And you’ve got to resolve that your will will be stronger than his and you will enforce it and direct him at all costs to the way that he should go. Or in the words of Hebrews, you must be willing to enforce your directions to live according to wisdom in ways that for the moment do not seem pleasant but painful, but afterwards yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
All right, some other Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 13. I hope you’re following with me on these. Parents with children at home especially, you might want to be marking these. When my children were young, I went through all of these many times and spent long times thinking them through.
Proverbs 13:24: “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” Boy, if there is anything that’s out of step with our culture, it’s that one. Whoever spares the rod hates his son. You ever hear, “Oh, I love him too much, I couldn’t spank him”? And it’s exactly the opposite from what God says. The child’s inclination will be to lead himself to ruin, and a loving parent and a wise parent refuses to allow that child to send himself to ruin. And it’s the unloving parent who turns his back and allows the kid to follow his own heart and walk off into foolishness and ruin himself forever. And so the loving parent and the wise parent, the one who loves his child, will apply the rod as necessary to enforce the walk in wisdom.
Look over at chapter 19, Proverbs 19 verse 18: “Discipline your son, for there is hope. Do not set your heart on putting him to death.” Notice the contrast, the alternatives here. Discipline your son; there’s hope. You don’t discipline him and you’ve set your heart on his death. You have become a willing party to his ruin.
You know the name Bruce Waltke; he’s written the most outstanding commentary on the Psalms. It’s a massive two-volume work. It’s the high standard of commentaries on the Psalms. He has a wonderful comment here on this verse. Remember to keep the verse in mind: “Discipline your son, for there is hope. Do not set your heart on putting him to death.” And Bruce comments: “Psychologically healthy parents do not consciously desire to kill their children, of course. But if they do not employ the God-given means of verbal reproof to prevent acts of folly and corporal punishment to prevent their repetition, they are in fact unwittingly party to the worst punishment: his death.” That’s Proverbs 19:18. It is the neglect of discipline that is unloving and it contributes to his ruin.
Maybe the next page, Proverbs 20, verse 30: “Blows that wound, cleanse away evil. Strokes may clean the inmost parts.” Blows that wound, cleanse away evil. Strokes make clean the inmost parts. So here he’s speaking to the effectiveness of corporal punishment. It steers away from evil. It cleans up the life from the inside out. I’ve said already that these passages emphasize the efficacy of spanking as almost a means of grace, a sanctifying influence. It doesn’t take the time to explain for us psychologically how that works. I’m not sure how it was that pain on my backside cleaned up the inside and made me walk straight. But that’s what he is telling us here. Blows that wound, cleanse away evil. The strokes may clean the inmost parts.
Chapter 23, verses 13 and 14: “Do not withhold discipline from a child. If you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with a rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.” So here we have a command but it’s coupled with a caution to weak-souled parents. “Oh, I can’t hear him cry.” And so he gives you that caution. Don’t withhold discipline. If you strike him with a rod, he won’t die. This is not the end of the world. This is for the overly sensitive. I’m sorry, ladies—it’s usually the mother, not always, but usually the mother. “Oh, I can’t do that to him.” And so this is given with that caution. Don’t withhold the punishment. If you strike him, he won’t die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol. So keep the objective in mind, and the death in view here, Sheol, is more than just clinical death in the grave. Speaking of life after death and the ruin that he will come to, and your objective in it all is to drive him away from that which would lead him to his eternal ruin.
Proverbs 29, verse 15: “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.” Again, the point is the utility or the effectiveness of discipline. Here it’s set in terms of the alternative. The rod and the reproof give wisdom, but you let him follow his own heart and make his own decisions and decide for himself, it’s going to bring shame to his mother. And then verse 17, just below: “Discipline your son and he will give you rest. He will give delight to your heart.” So the same as what we’ve seen before, he’s looking here to outcomes and he’s cautioning the—against—you don’t want to become the mournful parent, you don’t want to be the fretting parent who can’t apply the spanking like it should be given because you’re so sensitive. You’re not thinking then of him and his destiny and his life; you’re thinking of yourself and your own emotions.
All right, well here’s just a brief survey of what Proverbs has to say about the subject of child training and discipline. Now you have to see all of this in contrast to contemporary attitudes towards spanking. In our culture today, spanking is considered psychologically harmful. It’s considered to be abuse. You will be told that spanking teaches your child violence. And that one always—it just boggles the mind that they continue to say that, that spanking your child teaches them violence. They’ve got a track record now of a couple of generations of not spanking your children, and we’ve seen how violence has grown. It is just like the world to have it exactly backwards, but that is what we’re being told today. It’s being insisted on; always the evidence is against them, and yet they continue confidently to insist that they’ve got it right, God had it wrong.
And parents today are so influenced by their culture that I think there are even Christian parents who instinctively feel that spanking is wrong. And if that’s what you feel, you need to get that notion out of your head. Of course, it should not be abused, and we’ll talk about that a little bit in a moment, but determine that your mind will be influenced by what God has said, not what the world and the culture has said. I think I said it in the first message in this series: it worries me, it concerns me when I see Christian parents reading secular counsel on how to raise your family. They’ll get it wrong. If they get it right, you didn’t need it because you had it already. Don’t go to them for counsel. Look what they have done with their children. Determine that your mind will be influenced by what God says. And what God says is that it’s the neglect—the neglect of discipline—that is disastrous for your children. Don’t be naive and think that the world’s experts have outsmarted God on this. The creator of the home has given us direction.
Now, let me go back through these and just give some highlights of what we have just read in these Proverbs on discipline.
God Intends Spanking To Be Part Of The Normal Course Of Child Training
Number one, God intends spanking to be part of the normal course of child training. This, of course, is because foolishness is bound in the heart of the child. But God intends spanking to be part—not all, part—of the normal course of child training. Proverbs is, as you know, inspired wisdom, guidance for life. These in particular are wisdom for parents and how to guide their children and how to train them correctly. And spanking is not only part of the normal course, it’s not only expected, but the neglect of it is forbidden. And our minds need to be shaped accordingly.
Now, I want to throw this in because it’s been brought up before even here. I remember some time years ago, some have brought this up. There’s been an effort to scoot away from this obligation of corporal punishment by saying, “Oh, that’s Old Testament.” Now, one, I don’t quite understand that thinking that God’s moral guidance for us in the Old Testament is somehow irrelevant to us. I don’t understand that. But this is one reason I began with Hebrews chapter 12, where you can see that the writer there to the Hebrews presupposes that all of this instruction given us in Proverbs carries over today as the normal course and the expected course of parenting today.
And more than that, we can go to another if you’d like. Why don’t you look at Ephesians chapter six. And in fact, I want to spend a little bit of time there on one of the verses in particular. Ephesians chapter six, verse four. In the opening verses, we had the exhortation to children to obey and honor their parents. And now verse four, we have a caution that’s given—that’s given to fathers or parents—to prevent an abuse of their authority. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” the discipline and the instruction of the Lord.
These two terms here in the second part of the verse, “the discipline and the instruction of the Lord,” bring together what we find in the book of Proverbs. The discipline here is a word that has to do with child training and it entails all that goes into child training: exhortation, corrections, rebukes, cautions—all of that—but its primary focus is discipline. Teaching in every respect, but even corporal punishment. You’ll have expressions like “the rod of discipline” and so on. That’s the word that’s used here, and its primary focus is that of discipline, not just instruction. And then the second term, the instruction of the Lord or admonition of the Lord, and that’s exhortations, rebukes, corrections, that kind of exhortation with regard to—and warnings with regard to—their behavior. So the idea there in these verses is shaping life with all of its appropriate cautions and warnings and corrections and rebukes, and also corporal punishment as needed.
And then we have the caution in the first part of the verse, and this is given to protect the abuse of the authority. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.” Or some translations render it, “Do not exasperate your children.” Mothers, you shouldn’t exasperate your children either. Fathers are specified here as the leaders in the home. This applies, of course, to both. Now, what does that mean? Don’t provoke your children to anger. Well, it clearly does not mean don’t make any decisions that he disapproves of. You’re told in the second part of the verse, you bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. It does not mean that you have to let them make their own decisions. It doesn’t mean that you should let them follow their own hearts. You still make your decisions, you still establish the rule, but you don’t frustrate them and exasperate them in it.
So what does that mean? Well, one, of course, it clearly prohibits abuse. There’s a way to use the rod in a responsible way. And what the world will have you to do today is look at abuses that have come up where children have been clearly, harmfully abused by corporal punishment. And they hold that up as the only alternative and say, “Then you shouldn’t spank at all.” This verse does exactly that: prohibit abuse, cruelty, excessive punishment, punishment that’s out of proportion with the offense. All of that is prohibited here.
Let me give you just a list of things that came to mind of what this also entails. Another thing that would exasperate your children is inconsistency in discipline or favoritism in discipline, where you do not treat the children evenly. Disproportionate discipline will exasperate your children, where the punishment comes in a severe way that’s way out of proportion with the offense. Another thing that will exasperate your children: unreasonable demands, legalism, unreasonable expectations. Another is an unpleasant atmosphere, where Dad’s grumpy, moody. Mom or Dad has a short fuse, easily provoked. There’s yelling and there’s screaming and kids end up feeling like they have to walk on eggshells, lest Dad or Mom gets set off. Don’t exasperate your children.
Another: unwillingness to admit wrong. We’ll all make mistakes. We got to be willing to say so. Another thing that would exasperate your children is humiliating them, mocking them, putting them down, perhaps chastening them in front of others that would humiliate them. Another: nagging them, constantly finding fault without positive praise for what they’ve done right. Another, I’ll just call it unrealistic expectations, not letting your child act his age. I want my child, if he’s six years old—I want him to act like he’s six, but I should not expect him to act like he’s 10. Don’t be unrealistic in your expectations. I’m not going to allow him to act like he’s four, but neither am I going to demand that he acts like he’s 12. Don’t be unrealistic in your expectations. Let them be a child.
Another thing that will exasperate your children is a negative comparison to other kids. I’ve seen that in children and my heart just breaks for them. “Why can’t you be like so-and-so?” Another: lack of parental harmony. Mom and Dad are fussing at one another and arguing and fighting. Or, lack of parental harmony in discipline, where one wants to enforce discipline, the other lets it go, and the child ends up being confused and frustrated. Another that will exasperate your children is ignoring them, neglecting them, not showing interest in them as children. Not keeping your promises will do it.
And then another big one, huge. This is not usually the problem, but you’ve got to know it. What will frustrate your children is a lack of affection. They have got to know that they are loved, overwhelmingly loved, or your discipline will not take root. I’ve told you before that I had four kind of categories for parenting, four essentials. One was discipline. One is discipleship. One is love and one is fun. Not necessarily in that order. Any order you please. Discipleship—there’s your overarching goal. You want to make them disciples of Jesus. Discipline—you’re going to enforce that however it takes. But that discipline will not take root if it is not in a context of overwhelming love.
Our children grew up hearing Dad and Mom say, “I love you,” probably a hundred times a day. It’s what you want for your kids: to sense that they are loved overwhelmingly, that they are protected, and that there’s nobody out there that likes them. At home, they’re loved and protected in every way. And then fun—well, that’s part of the love. You want them to be happy. You want the home to be joyful. In our home, the fun was my department. I took care of that and we were just always having laughs and doing something that was crazy and fun. And I think with those kinds of parameters and guidelines, it is a recipe for some success.
The point here then is: don’t exasperate your children. Maintain your control. Enforce your control, even. Rule your home. But rule your home in such a way that it evokes love and respect. You’re not looking for your children’s approval in your decisions. Don’t do that. But neither do you want to establish yourself as a tyrant in the home. Don’t treat them in a way that is either physically or psychologically harmful. Protect them from abuse of all kinds. Lead them in the way of wisdom, establish the rule, enforce the rule, but protect your child. In other words, love your children. See to it that they feel that they’re loved, they feel that they’re accepted and protected in every way. Maintain your parental authority, maintain proper discipline, but always in such a way that they’re drawn to love you and respect you for it.
Now I emphasize that—perhaps we should have had a separate message on that—but I emphasize that because the culture that we are in will make you think that if you spank your children, if there’s corporal punishment anywhere involved, you don’t love your child. They’ve got it exactly backwards. And I would maintain that apart from firm discipline coupled with love, you’ll lose your child’s respect and they’ll turn. I don’t know if I should say this or not—Jim and Marina, if they don’t want me to say it, they can forgive me afterwards, I guess—but one of the most gratifying, wonderful compliments I think I’ve ever received was sort of secondhand. Marina’s parents asked her one day, “What is it that Jim’s parents did that made Jim love them so much?” So here he is grown and with a family. You gotta know, I loved hearing that. But I think this is it: you have to have firm discipline, but it’s in a context of overwhelming love. You earn their love and their respect.
God Stresses The Value Or The Benefits Of Spanking
All right, number one, then I said, spanking, corporal punishment, discipline is part of the normal course of parenting. With all the cautions given, it is to be part of the normal course.
Number two, God stresses the value or the benefits of spanking. You’re being told today out there that spanking doesn’t work. You’re being told that it’s harmful. But all the evidence is against that, and more to the point, God affirms over and over and over again its value and its efficacy. And you need to shape your minds according to what God has said with confidence that the creator of the home knows best how to direct your home.
The Proverbs that we have read say that this kind of discipline cleanses away evil, drives away foolishness, saves his soul from death, imparts wisdom. It is effective in curbing the child’s natural waywardness. A parent has to recognize that. The rod becomes, in a sense, a means of grace and a deterrent, so that I’ll shape their lives the best I can while they’re here, so that when they leave, they’ll continue to walk in the way of wisdom. And in fact, these Proverbs emphasize several times that it’s the neglect of the rod that results in continued rebellion and foolishness, eventual death and destruction and ruin. Proverbs 19:18: neglect the rod and you become a willing party to their death.
With all of the contrary counsel that is bombarding you from our culture, you must reshape your thinking and you’ve got to settle it in your mind: who knows better—today’s experts or God, the creator of the home? And shape your parenting accordingly. The Bible emphasizes over and again that for the child’s good, it is a means of hope, and a sober recognition of the child’s foolishness in his heart requires these sometimes extreme means, seemingly extreme means.
Even a casual observation, I think, will reveal to anyone looking on objectively that undisciplined children are unhappy. Again, the world’s got it exactly backwards, but it’s undisciplined children who are unhappy. They’re not as well adjusted. They’re not as good dealing with others. They’ve become the kind of children that other mothers cringe at when they see them coming to play with their kids. They immediately have to resort to tantrums. When they can’t get their way, they can’t function when things are unpleasant because they’re undisciplined. A self-disciplined adult can deal with it when things don’t go his way. But an undisciplined child becomes an undisciplined adult and can’t deal with it when things don’t go his way. And a well-disciplined child—in this context of love and all of that that I’m talking about—a well-disciplined child is a happy child.
I was reminded of that this week. Our daughter-in-law was in the hospital; we kept the kids for a few days. We had them, so we’re back into parenting this week. And it was kind of neat, but I was reminded how, what happy, exuberant, zestful kids a well-disciplined, loving home can make a kid. That was just a little light.
When you think of this then in terms of the child’s development, this toddler who can’t control himself when things are unpleasant will not control himself as an adult when things are unpleasant. And this child, this toddler, who can’t do what he’s responsible to do because he doesn’t feel good, when he becomes an adult, won’t do what he’s responsible to do because he doesn’t feel like it.
Practical Suggestions
So some practical suggestions before we close.
Number one, begin immediately. Begin immediately. And what I mean by that is, number one, when your children are very young, and number two, if your children are already grown out of that very young stage, begin where you are, but begin and get at this immediately. Proverbs 19:18: “Discipline your son for there is hope. Do not set your heart on putting him to death.” As soon as that child can rebel and stiffen up and resist you, he can learn that he shouldn’t do that because it doesn’t work out well. It might mean that you have to let him cry. I think it was Jimmy when he was little decided that he didn’t like it all of a sudden when we put him to bed, put him in his crib, and he decided that’s not where he wanted to be. So he cried. And we thought, “Okay, here we go.” And the first night he cried for, I don’t know, I’ll say an hour. He got over it and got to sleep. Next night, he cried for about 45 minutes. The next night—within a few nights, he’s got this and he’s down and you gotta let him go. Begin immediately.
Number two, and I’ve already said this, but I wanna say it again: don’t abuse it. Don’t abuse it. Punishment should be commensurate with the offense. You don’t handle accidents that happen in the home the same way you handle rebellion. Don’t abuse it and don’t over-punish.
Number three, when it is administered, keep in mind number two, “Don’t abuse it,” keep that in mind, but I want to say this also: when it is administered, do it well enough to accomplish the purpose. Oh boy, is this out of step. Let me cite a couple of Proverbs here. “Do not withhold discipline from a child. If you strike him with the rod, he will not die.” Proverbs 20 verse 30: “Blows that wound, cleanse away evil, strokes may clean the inward parts.” So you’ll hear someone say, “Well, spanking never worked for her. We tried it, it didn’t work.” I think that says more about Dad and Mom than it does about the child. You’re not doing it well enough. Some parents only spank long enough to make the child mad. I told you about Gina doing that once and deciding she needed more. We can have specific discussions on this. I’d love to do it. If you have questions about it, I’d love to talk to you about this. This isn’t the place for a Sunday morning sermon, but please talk to me about that. There’s a way to do this well enough to accomplish the purpose. It must be done.
Number four, don’t use the Bible as a club in discipline. Now, you might think this is odd to hear this from a preacher saying, “Don’t use your Bible when it comes time for discipline.” But I think, at least in most cases that I have seen it, those who use their Bible at the point of discipline do it in a way that is simply turning their kids off. At the point of offense, it is enough that my child knows that what he has done was wrong and he’s incurred the consequences. He doesn’t need for me to throw the Bible at him. He already knows all that. Don’t use the Bible as a club. You teach them and you show them what the Bible requires of them, what God has said and all of that. But at the point of discipline, be very careful how you use your Bible, if at all.
And number five, this is last: keep it in perspective. Keep the discipline in perspective. And what I mean by that is its value, its efficacy, and your goal in mind—its value, its efficacy, and the goal that you have in administering it. All of these passages that we’ve looked at offer a happy prospect that we ought to be convinced that God has directed us. This is how we should parent, and we ought to have a happy prospect that if we are diligent about this, we can have a happy outcome. The Bible even cautions us against the overly sensitive parent who won’t discipline well enough. Follow God’s instruction with confidence that this is for your child’s good.
And keep in mind what you want most as a parent. You want to rescue your child from the foolishness of his heart. You want to rescue him from the consequences of his foolishness. You want your child to grow up to be a responsible adult, you want him to be the kind of person other people enjoy being with, you want him to be a responsible citizen, productive in society—you want all of that. But what you’re after above all of that—what you’re after is to see him bow the knee before the Lord Jesus. You commit yourself to God’s design for accomplishing that goal. Don’t think that you know better. Commit yourself with confidence, praying that God will use this to direct your children to Christ. And you keep that end goal in mind.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, we know. We know that that step of bringing them to faith in Christ and bowing before it—we know that that’s God’s doing. Reformed Baptist Church, we know that, right? We ought also to know that God uses means to accomplish his decreed ends. If you don’t have all that figured out, that’s fine, join the club; we can talk about that another time. But all we have to know is that God uses means to accomplish his divine ends. We’ve talked about that recently in reciting our catechism, that God has his decreed ends; he uses secondary causes to accomplish those, and here is one in terms of the home. It is God to bring them to faith. It is God to bring them to bow before Christ. It is ours as parents to direct them there as well and as faithfully as we can.
We want to curb their stubborn will. We want to teach them respect for authority. We want to teach them the value of wisdom. And all the while we pray, “God, take them that next step that they’ll bow before Jesus and follow him.” As they learn to submit to our authority, as they learn to submit to authority generally, as they learn—being enforced, if necessary—to walk according to wisdom, we pray that God will bring them to that final step of bowing before Christ so that they live for him. May God have it. So what else do we want as parents, right? Let’s pray.