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you you you you you you you you you you you you you we set aside for solely Lord and thank you for all the salvation that we received God thank you for all that you do for us and I just pray that you bless the preaching and the music and the singing. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. All right. You can turn your hammers to number 327. And that's hymn number 327. Hymn number 327, Higher Ground. We'll write a scene together on the first. I'm resting on the upward way. New life I'm gaining every day. Still praying as I'm onward bound. Lord, plan my feet on higher ground. Oh, lift me up and let me stand. By faith on heaven's stable land. A higher plane than I have found. Lord, plan my feet on higher ground. My heart has no desire to stay. Where doubts will rise and fears will stay. Though some may dwell where these abound. I pray my faith is higher ground. Oh, lift me up and let me stand. By faith on heaven's stable land. A higher plane than I have found. Lord, plan my feet on higher ground. I want to live above the world. Though Satan's guards and me are hurt. For faith has caught the joyful sound. The song of saints on higher ground. Oh, lift me up and let me stand. By faith on heaven's stable land. A higher plane than I have found. Lord, plan my feet on higher ground. I want to scale the utmost high. And catch a queen of glory bright. But still I pray till heaven I've found. Lord, lead me up to higher ground. Lord, lift me up and let me stand. By faith on heaven's stable land. A higher plane than I have found. Lord, plan my feet on higher ground. Amen. Amen, all right. This time we'll go through our announcements. If anybody does not have a bulletin, just lift your hand up real high and make sure we get one out to you. You open up to the first page. I'll try to get through these a little bit quicker than I did this morning. We've got service time Sunday morning at 10.30. Sunday afternoon at 4. Wednesday night at 7 is our Bible study. We had to be in Isaiah 43 this week. It was out last week at 6. So make it here if you can. You can try to tune in. It's a great passage. Hopefully you'll learn a lot from Isaiah 43. I'm excited right now just to preach it. Soul winning opportunities are listed there. Salvations and baptisms. I forgot to count up the salvation this morning. So let's count up any salvations from the week prior to today. Anyone go out soul winning and have any salvations prior to today to report? Yes, sir. Thursday. Thursday. All right. And I spoke with Mark about yesterday. So he already told me that. Yes, sir. One on Saturday. All right. Amen. Very good. Excellent. One on Saturday as well. All right. Very good. Very good. And I'm always looking at comparing year over year, looking at last year. So we're doing well so far with the salvations. So keep up the good work on just preaching the gospel, especially on these off days. We go out as a church on Sunday in general. We have other times that we go. But there's a lot of people who still go soul winning, even at other times, that's going to work with their schedules. So, you know, God bless you and keep up the good work doing that and taking the initiative to do that on your own schedule. So keep it up. Now, how about for today? I know there's a lot of people that said they had some salvation. So just if you already told me, still slip up your hand. I'm going to count them all right now. Let's see. Brother Devin, you had one. One here. One there. One there. Brother Logan, I got you. All right. And I don't know if there's people still coming back or not. Maybe there's going to be some more salvations to report. Hopefully some people just got stuck out there in the middle of soul winning. So we'll find out about that soon. And then the offering total is listed down there at the bottom of the page for the month of February prayer requests. Brother Devin updated us this morning about Leon Matthews. He's not doing well at all. He's in ICU. He's in really poor condition. So pray for him. Pray for him just to, you know, get well and get better and God will heal him. We added Patty Hamilton. I mentioned that this morning as well. It's Emily's grandmother. So we'll pray for her health and for her salvation. And, you know, when we pray for salvation, I'll just make this point real quick. Obviously God doesn't just, like, choose people. Like, oh, can this person get saved? And God's like, okay, and just saves them. Obviously that's not what we're praying for. We want them to get saved. Everyone has free will. So what we pray for, some of the things I pray for when I want someone to get saved is that, one, that God will allow that person to hear, like, send messengers, send someone that's going to be able to preach the gospel to them. That's really important. And God does send people to minister and preach the gospel to the unsaved. So everybody has a minister by whom they believed. And as we pray for that, I pray for stumbling blocks to be removed from people's path. If there's something that's holding, preventing people from getting saved, maybe their own pride, maybe, you know, some other thing, something that's a problem for them to get saved, that God would miraculously do something. You know, if someone's real proud and they have a lot of money and riches and wealth and they don't think they need God, you know, I'll even pray that God will cause them to lose all of their wealth and go through really hard times and hit rock bottom just so that they can humble themselves and their soul to be able to just turn to Christ for a Savior. You know, I mean, it's worth it, right? No matter how rich you are, this world's good. It's worth it to lose everything if your soul gets saved. So this is the way that I think about when we pray for salvation for people. Like, whatever it is, God knows their heart. God knows what they need. So we just kind of try to think of things that pray that God can use that. And obviously, God wants people to be saved, too. So just a little bit of insight there. Also, you know, I didn't mention this, but one of the things that we do, we do this every year, and I enjoy doing this, and you can consider whether or not you want to do this for yourself, for your family, it's fine. When we do the prayer challenge, we pray with our whole family together, you know, pray out loud, and we take turns saying the prayer. And one of the things I like about this, one, it's family time, but two, it helps teach my children how to pray, so they hear other people and, you know, the older kids are better, you know, kind of know how to pray things better, and the younger kids start to learn. And when I was young, even as young as, you know, like 13, not that young, I had no idea how to pray. I remember wanting to pray to God, and I chanted the Lord's Prayer because I didn't know what to say. And obviously, that really didn't do anything, just some chant. So praying and knowing how to pray is good, and it's good to teach children, and I think this is a really good way to do it. But do whatever works for you and whatever you want to do with your family. We enjoy that, that's what we do. When we do the prayer challenge every year, so just wanted to throw that out there. Other than that, we don't really have a lot of updates. Rain is recovering. She's doing as well as you would expect for what she had done, but nothing too bad, but just pray that she'll get better and her pain will be relieved soon. On the next page, prayer challenge, already brought this. You can see the rules there. Hopefully, everyone's participating with that. Bible memory passage, Hebrews chapter 1. We've got two weeks to get this done. You get all of Hebrews 1 memorized and quoted verbatim. No mistakes. You will earn a prize for doing that. All the upcoming events are listed there. We've got a men's preaching class this Saturday at 10 a.m. right here, and then the homeschool field trip on Monday the 21st. The birthday bash is solid there that date, Saturday, March 12th. Baby shower on the 20th. Zoo homeschool field trip on March 25th. And as I mentioned this morning, they are requiring, supposedly, they're requiring masks inside of the buildings at the zoo. Don't know on how zealous they are with enforcing that, but that's what they state, so we're going to pass that information along to you, decide if you want to go or not. So in the marathon on the 16th and camping trip, the 9th through the 14th, and I just released the sign-up sheets for people who want to be involved with activities. If you want to sign, even just like one activity is great, right? Don't add some huge burden to do all kinds of things necessarily every single day. Enjoy yourself. Why not want to enjoy themselves? But if you want to be able to say, hey, I'm going to do this. I think this is going to be fun, and why not just set up a time and say, hey, I'm going to go do this then, and we can get other people to come along and join me on this and get a group, right? Or if you want to put in a little bit of extra time or effort, do something for kids, right? Just kind of, hey, this would be cool for this age group or this grade group, whatever, right? Sign-up sheets there. We appreciate all the volunteer help, and that's for the activities. There's also a sign-up sheet for the other work that's a little bit more important that just kind of needs to be done, and that's just regarding meals for pastors, clean-up, and doing some song leading and some sword drill and stuff like that. That's all related to service time, so more like evening-ish type things. So all of those are set up there, and you can go ahead and sign up for that. Keep the pens, if you wouldn't mind, up on the windowsill. We have children that like to get pens and scribble all over everything that's on that table. I keep forgetting to buy a little holder for these types of forms to have up on the wall a little bit higher to make it not as enticing for the little ones to draw on and make pictures and everything else. So it's okay if it has some scribble on it. We'll still use it. As long as we can still read it, we're going to keep using it. But it's helpful to put those things out of reach if you remember to be able to do that. And then, let's see, we've got the birthdays here. We sang to Lena this morning. It's her birthday. And then Brother Dodie's got a birthday tomorrow. Brother Carter, Gideon share a birthday on the 17th, and then Jaylene's on the 20th. That wraps up the month of February. Is there anybody here? Well, first of all, I think there's a couple people that might have returned now from soul-winning. Are there any more soul-winning numbers to report for today? Yes, sir, one? Do you have anything earlier in the week or no? One on Saturday. One on Saturday, okay. Cool. And then, prizes. Did everybody get their prize from Psalm 150 or the Bible reading challenge in January? Is there anyone who did not get their prize? That's a better question. I don't need to see everyone's hands that did. Anybody did not? Okay. Very good. I think we covered everybody. So, feel comfortable with that. And we're going to try to do things a little bit quicker this evening. Like I said, sorry, I don't normally keep running things as long as I did this morning, but sometimes it happens. So, this is what it is. Brother Carter, come on up. Lead us in the next song. Turn your handles to number 202. Once again, that is M number 202. M number 202, My Redeemer. All right, let's sing together on the first. I will sing of my Redeemer, and his wondrous love to me. All the fools once he suffered from the curse to set me free. Sing, oh sing of my Redeemer, with his blood he purchased me. For the cross he sealed my pardon, paid a debt and made me free. I will tell the wondrous story, how my Lord still saves the same. In his boundless love and mercy, he the rest of free he gave. Sing, oh sing of my Redeemer, with his blood he purchased me. For the cross he sealed my pardon, paid a debt and made me free. I will praise my dear Redeemer, his triumphant love I'll tell. How the victory he giveth, over sin and death and hell. Sing, oh sing of my Redeemer, with his blood he purchased me. For the cross he sealed my pardon, paid a debt and made me free. All right, let's sing it out loud. I will sing of my Redeemer, and his heavy love to me. He from death stood life and brought me, Son of God with him to be. Sing, oh sing of my Redeemer, with his blood he purchased me. For the cross he sealed my pardon, paid a debt and made me free. All right. We're going to take up our collection right now. Brother Brian, would you mind getting out the collection, please? All right, and while we're taking up our collection, if you can turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy, chapter 21, and our scripture reading will be coming from this evening. Once again, that is Deuteronomy, chapter 21. If one be found slain in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it, lying in the field, and it be not known who hath slain him, then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain. And it shall be that the city which is next unto the slain man, even the elders of that city, shall take and heifer which hath not been wrought with, and which hath not drawn in the yoke. And the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer unto a rough valley which is neither eared nor sown, and shall strike off the heifer's neck there in the valley. And the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for them the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister unto him, and to bless in the name of the Lord, and by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried. And all the elders of that city that are next unto the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer that is beheaded in the valley. And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Be merciful, O Lord, unto thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israel's charge, and the blood shall be forgiven them. So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord. Now goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands. And thou hast taken them captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her that thou wouldest have her to thy wife. Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head and pare her nails, and she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month, and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will, but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her. If a man have two wives, one beloved and another hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated, and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated, then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn. But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn by giving him a double portion of all that he hath, for he is the beginning of his strength, the right of the firstborn is his. If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and that when they have chastened him will not hearken unto them, then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city and unto the gate of his place. And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice, he is a glutton and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones that he die, so shalt thou put evil away from among you, and all Israel shall hear in fear. And if a man have committed to sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day, for he that is hanged is accursed of God, that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for your word, and thank you for an opportunity again to be here in your house this evening. I pray that you would just help our service to be blessed now. I pray that you would be with pastor as he comes. Help us all to have open ears and hearts to receive your word this evening, and in Jesus' name I pray, amen. Alright, we started off here in Deuteronomy chapter 21, and what I want to preach about this afternoon, the title of my sermon is Practical Advice on Disciplining Children. Practical advice on disciplining children. Now we're going to look at, obviously it's not just practical, we're going to look at a lot of scripture, we're going to see what the Bible teaches on this, but I want to also be able to provide the practical because, you know, people have probably heard, if you've been coming here for any amount of time, you've heard me preach on this subject in the past, it's something that I'm going to repeat every so often, maybe every year or something like that, these elements of our lives that we need to sometimes reexamine. The scriptures are very clear, but sometimes there's, you know, we end up finding gray areas in our life, not exactly knowing, well, is every single situation, when should I be doing this, when should I not be doing this, so we're definitely going to be using scripture to show you as much as we can from there, and then I'm going to offer also some practical advice as someone who has six children of my own that I've been raising, and hopefully demonstrate that I'm ruling my house well, as the Bible says that I ought to, and if you believe that to be true, then maybe take some of the advice I'm going to give, because that doesn't happen by accident. Children do not end up well-behaved by accident. It is always on purpose and with effort. Okay, raising children well, training them and teaching them and raising them to be good people, takes time, takes effort, and requires your diligence, so it's not something that will just take care of itself. We cannot be, you know, parents cannot be flippant with their children. Now, you might say, hey, I don't have children right now. Pastor Burzins, well, if you're young, you know, pay attention. Maybe you will have children, right? If you're way beyond having children, you know, it's still good. If you don't already have this knowledge, to be able to impart it on people, you can still help with this knowledge. So Deuteronomy 21, the reason why we started off here is I kind of want to show you where bad parenting can end up and how serious God takes a child that grows up to be stubborn and rebellious. They're not listening where chastening or disciplining doesn't work, okay? And obviously there's this whole spectrum of how well-behaved children are, right? You could have the perfect angel child, you know, baby Jesus over here, which is just like 100% perfect without flaw, like nothing is wrong with Jesus Christ. He's without sin. He did everything right. And then you've got the worst heathen child of the devil on the other side of the spectrum, right? Just some whatever, just total child of the devil. And then everywhere in between, you're going to have people just falling on this whole spectrum, right? So obviously we want to be as close to the good side as possible. But look what the Bible says here. We're going to start reading verse number 18. And a lot of people misunderstand this verse, and atheists and other people who hate the Bible will use these verses to try to attack God's word and say, oh, do you really believe this, that a child should be put to death? Yes, I do, but their understanding of what this even means is not the same as what it actually teaches. But let's just read it in context first. Let's reread this section. Verse number 18 of the Bible says, So here's someone, they will not listen. They're stubborn. They're rebellious. They want to have nothing to do with it. Mom, Dad, they're trying to teach them. They've chastened them. They're like, we've done everything that we can do, and this son is not listening at all. Verse 19 says, So basically they're going to bring them out to wise people, kind of some judges, to be able to hear what's going on. And it says in verse 20, And they shall say unto the elders of his city, this, our son, is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice, but look at the next part. He is a glutton and a drunkard. Now, this is key because it helps us get some insight into how old this son is. Now, when you read about parents and a son that's rebellious, your mind may think, what is it, two, three, four, right? I mean, you think about a two-year-old throwing a fit and banging her arms and everything up and down. That may come to your mind, but when you get to this part of the story, saying he's a glutton and a drunkard, you start to realize, oh, okay, maybe it's not a two-year-old. Maybe it's not a three-year-old. But see, the people who hate God's Word, they'll be like, oh, you think that just someone who disobeys the dead should just be put to death? Look, in this context, what the Bible's saying here, yes. Yes, I do. This is a righteous judgment in the law of God. I think that this is appropriate because God decided that it was so. Now, obviously, this isn't some law in effect in our country today, and I don't believe in usurping the power of the government to start instituting our own set of laws and start just doing these things and executing vigilante justice. I don't believe in that. So I'm not saying that we should just do this right now, but this is God's will for the governing authorities to be able to have authority to put someone to death for this purpose, as well as for any other capital offense. This is considered a capital offense. We start off with this because I want you to see how serious this is. In God's eyes, when a child grows up to be stubborn, rebellious, stiff-necked, they won't take punishment to the point where they're just some glutton and drunkard, and I don't care what you say at all. You failed as a parent, and this child deserves a death penalty. Again, child meaning a child of parents, not meaning child like three or four years old or something like that. Someone who gets to the point to become a drunkard and glutton. Let's put it that way. It says in verse 21, And all the men of the city shall stone him with stones, that he die, so shalt thou put evil away from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear. Now, obviously, none of us should ever want to be in this situation. We're in a horrible situation to be in, where the parents are going, look, I mean, we're at our wit's end, we've done everything we could. We try to discipline him, try to chase him. Nothing's working. And God says, you know what? Then this is what happens to that person. Well, you know, I know that parents love their children. Everyone who has a child, I mean, it would be hard for you to imagine a parent that doesn't have love in their heart for their child. Maybe they exist, but to me it just, I mean, it's a natural thing. You have love for your child as soon as they're born. It's just unconditional love. You love your child. No loving parent, at the very least, would want this to happen to their own children. So, this is an important sermon because we don't want our children to get to that point. This also shows how God feels about the gravity, the seriousness, of a stubborn and rebellious child. You can help solve the stubborn and rebelliousness in a child's heart early on. And the earlier you deal with this streak, this tendency, this sin, the better it's going to be for the child. And for everybody, in fact, everybody who has any contact with that child, it's going to be better to have that dealt with as soon as possible. The Bible teaches, we're going to spend some time in Proverbs. Go ahead and turn to Proverbs chapter 22. Very famous passage. Proverbs 22 verse 6 says, train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Great words of wisdom. We want to invest the time into training up our children in the right way, in the way that they're supposed to go, because that teaching and that training, I mean, you think about the word train, training requires effort. What comes to my mind when I think of training, I think of athletes, I think of sports, I think of, man, I need to really train. I need to work out, I need to get fit, I need to get into some training. And training is a schedule of pushing yourself, working real hard, investing time, investing effort to accomplish a greater goal. You have to put time and effort and energy into training your children. And we're going to cover a lot of disciplining in this sermon, that's a focus I want to have, but just understand that any one element is not sufficient to properly train up a child. Even if you say, well I spanked my children, spanking is not enough. It's important. I believe that it should be part of your disciplining, we're going to get to that real soon, but that's not the only piece. Training involves teaching, right, educating, showing the right way, not just punishing for the wrong way. It is important, all of it's important, which means you have to spend the time. Kids need to understand what they're being punished for, right? It's not enough just to punish them, if they don't know what it's for, you're not going to change their behavior. The purpose of disciplining and chastening is to change behavior, right? Don't do that again, or else this will happen. Psalm 94 verse 12 says, Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law. So the Bible says, the man that God chastens or disciplines, they're blessed. Let that sink in. You are blessed if God chastens you. If God disciplines you, man, I don't want to be chastened, that doesn't sound like fun at all. You're blessed. That means God loves you. Well, if that means that God loves the person that gets chastened, doesn't that mean that the parents who chasten and discipline their children also love their children? Of course it does, and we're going to see that again reiterated in Proverbs, but Psalms, right? Everyone loves how wonderful and smooth the Psalms are, and not offensive they are. Well, you know, blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law. So you've got the chastening on the one hand, as I was just saying, it's not enough just to chasten, but it says, and teachest out of thy law. That's part of the training. You're getting disciplined, you're also getting taught, hey, this is the right way, this is what you need to do, just follow this way. Don't go that path. This is the right way. This is what you need to do, and you do both. Verse 13 says that thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity until the pit be digged for the wicked. Disciplining, being chastened, will provide you with future rest. Disciplining your children when they're young, letting them go through a little bit of pain early on, will save them from potentially a lifelong struggle of getting into sin, getting into things they shouldn't get into, and then all the consequences that go around making bad choices. If you don't train a child the right way early on, it's a lot easier for them to get into the wrong way later on. And then have to figure everything out on their own. And I thank God for the upbringing that I had with my parents, but, you know, they weren't saved. I didn't get much Bible to guide my way and my path. I wish I would have had more. It would have helped me out a lot. I ended up faring okay, but there's a lot of things, unfortunately, that I had to learn by experience. And a lot of bad choices that were made because there's still a lot of training I was missing. Because this wasn't the primary source of my raising. And again, I'm not trying to bash my parents at all, you know, I appreciate everything they've done for me, but this is how we need to raise our children. It's with God's commandments and his laws and teaching them the right way from this book. It will provide rest in the future. Discipline can obviously take many forms. I don't think that there's just a one size fits all and that spank is the only way to discipline your children. I don't believe that. I do a few things, but I'll tell you what, the biblical method is a beating. That is definitely the biblical example and that is one that you should not forsake and not use. You may find it appropriate, and especially as children get older, to use other means potentially to meet out a punishment, but I don't think you should ever get rid of this one. Now, I'm not going to get too far into other means because we're focused on biblical teachings and that's where I'm going to stay. So, and when I say beatings, I mean spankings. Just in case you don't understand, we're going to get into that in just a minute too. You're in Proverbs, stay in Proverbs 22, I'll just read this for you from Deuteronomy chapter 8. Because we know that the goal of chastening or disciplining is the correct behavior. We need to make the child stop and think about what they're doing and to bring forward repentance. So there's a lot of things going on here with the disciplining. Behavior correction. Now, sometimes you get behavior correction without repentance. The goal is to have everything, though. We want to have repentance. We want them to be sorry for what they did and not want to do it again. Not just because they're worried about the punishment, but because it's just wrong and they don't want to do it. But sometimes in order to lead a child that way, whether you have the true repentance or not, you need the disciplining to at least be one more mechanism of keeping them from doing what they're not supposed to do. And especially when they're young, because you can't reason with little children. They just need to understand this is bad and I don't want to be punished, so I just won't do that. Even though I really want to. I just won't do it because I'm afraid of what's going to happen. Deuteronomy chapter 8, verse 5 and 6, the Bible says, Thou shalt also consider in thine heart that as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. Therefore, so because God chastens you, thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God to walk in his ways and to fear him. He's relating God chastening you like a man chastens his son. So for the same purposes, we should be chastening our son to keep our commandments, just like God chastens us so that we should keep his commandments and walk in his ways. Well, we discipline our children so that they'll keep our commandments, our rules, our laws for them and walk in our ways that we're teaching them. And it says here and to fear him, fearing God, right? Why should we fear God? Because God's able to chasten us and discipline us. That's why. Of course we should. Well, our children ought to have a level of fear for their parents as well. Now, just because a child has fear of their parents doesn't mean that they're terrified to even go near their parents, like as if there's no love there. That would be weird and bad and wrong. Okay, a child should not have a trembling fear to ever go in the presence of their parents. Okay? They need a healthy fear that knows the love that mom and dad give. And this is, again, you can never just have one side anything. Part of training your child, besides instructing and disciplining, is love. Giving them affection and giving them love and giving them your time and encouragement and support and edification and building them up. Those are all very important, too, parts of raising children. Very critical aspects to raise and train children the right way. They can't just know the bad. They can't just know the negative. They have to know the love more than the negative. I mean, that should outweigh it. But you can't leave the disciplining out. And this focus, again, I need to touch on that and make sure that's clear, but I need to focus on the negative part because I think that's the biggest problem area with the most amount of people is not incorporating their punishment appropriately at home. I'm going to assume for the sake of this sermon that there is the proper amount of love in the home. Okay? It's vital. It needs to be there. We understand that. But we're going to focus on the other side of things and that is the fear. So the fear, it's the same way that we fear God, right? I mean, can you fear God and love him at the same time and feel love from God even though you fear him? Of course you can. Of course you can. Right? I love God. And I know that God loves me. And I know he's shown me grace and long suffering and mercy and so much and has done so many things for me. Yet at the same time, I fear him. At the same time, when temptation comes, I better be thinking, oh, you better not do that. Because God will rain down on you if you go down that path. I mean, you better believe that I'm terrified of what God might do if I were to break my vow of consuming alcohol or something like that. Don't want to be there. Doesn't mean he doesn't love me. It means he actually does love me. And since I know that he loves me, he's really going to come down on me. In fact, I already felt that once, which is one of the reasons why I gave it up. Because God, out of his love for me, he already had to smack me around to get my attention and to get off of that stuff. But it's better to learn by reading than by doing. It's better to learn this way than having your rear end handed to you because you just wanted to do it on your own and figure it out. So the Bible is making it obvious, you know, a man has rules for his son. He's going to chasten his son if he disobeys. And it also implies there ought to be a fear of punishment as well. It's the same way with us and God. It's the way we should be with our children, right? They should know you and love you and be able to come to you for all their needs and everything else and be confident in you. At the same time, be afraid if they're going to go and do something that they know they're not supposed to do. Proverbs 22, look at verse number 15. The Bible says foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. All children do foolish things. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. I mean, that's what they do, right? You don't have to teach children to do foolish things. They do it. Naturally. It comes naturally for children to do foolish things. So we expect it, right? And when it comes to, for example, a setting like church, a public setting or something, we're going to have grace and mercy and long-suffering in general, especially for other people's children because we know that foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. Right? We understand that. So we're going to show extra grace for children doing foolish things much more than if, say, an adult were to do something as foolish that a child would do. It's like, wait a minute, what are you doing? You should know better. Children, we expect that. But just because we accept the fact and we expect to see that from time to time doesn't mean that we want to allow it to continue. Right? And this would be especially from the parent's perspective because someone, some other person that's not the parent, you can't really do anything about that. I don't believe in other people, you know, beating someone else's kid. I mean, if you were to give someone that authority, okay, but I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't feel comfortable allowing someone else to punish my children that way because I know that I love my children and I know what I give them is going to be appropriate and definitely because of my love for them. But, and I'm saying when we're here, you don't have that authority over someone else's child to start beating them. And again, I'm going to get into the words I'm using here. Hopefully, you might be going like beating, beating, beating, like what are you, you know, passive versions, you are abusive and I don't like your language. The reason why I speak this way is because that's the word the Bible uses. Honestly, this is an example of me using biblical terminology because this is where my heart is when I'm studying and this is what the Bible says. So, you may think in your mind when I say beat, you might think of like someone getting knocked out by Mike Tyson and what they would look like afterward, like man, they got a beating. That's not what I mean at all, like not even a little bit. Okay, so I'm talking about a beating. You could replace that word with spanking is probably the best way to put it. Oh, okay, yeah, spanking. Yes, I call it a beating because that's what the Bible does. Foolishness is bound to the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. And this is just our first little inkling of the proper type of discipline to help remove foolishness when it says the rod of correction. How many options do we have for what that rod is going to be doing to correct a child? Now, the liberals are going to try to tell you, man, I don't have a rod up here. What happened to that spoon? Is that up at the front table still? Someone asked me today, like, is this yours? I'm like, I don't know. We have many variety. Oh, yeah, my wife's got one. Can you grab that one for my wife, Brother Micah, please? Can you grab that from her? This is going to be great for illustration purposes anyways. Thank you. This is the one. Yeah, this is ours. So this is my example of a rod. Now, it's a spoon, right, but it's pretty close. I mean, what am I going to do with the rod, even if this was a little bit long or short, whatever, right? There's a rod. I mean, am I going to be like, no, son, and use this to move their head this way or that way? I mean, why would you need a rod to do that? All right, excuse me. Go this way. Why don't you go over there? Like, how is the rod of correction going to drive? I mean, think about the word drive, right? Is it going to drive it from him? What's a common use of the word drive? How about when you drive, like, a bunch of horses or drive cattle? When a person is driving them, what are they normally using? Right, or driving, or, like, on a horse, they might have a rod, like a jockey will be on there going, right, using a rod to drive that horse faster. Right, just hitting the rear end of the horse with a stick to drive it. Well, this is why the rod of correction is going to drive the foolishness out of a child. Because you're going to use something like this on the rear end, and they're going to go, ow. And they have to put the two and two together that I did this, now this is happening. They don't even understand what the word foolishness means, but they're going to stop doing those foolish things because they're receiving the correction, the rod of correction. Now, flip back to Proverbs chapter 19. If you pass the burden, that's crazy, this doesn't say anything about spanking. Just wait, we've got a lot more scripture to get to. Proverbs 19 verse 18, chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. So there's two aspects here we're going to look at real quick. The first one is while there is hope, and I want you to keep this in mind because we're going to go through another verse real quickly that's similar to this. Because there is going to come a time when there is no hope, which would be the example that we started off with in Deuteronomy. The son that ends up being gluttonous and drunkard, and they say we've chastened him and he's still not listening. So there can come a point in your child's life where you say, well I'm going to start following the Bible now, I'm going to start doing things the right way, and you might start to chasten them and try to do it the right way, and I'm going to give them a spanking, and it does nothing. Because there could be a point they get to where they're beyond hope. Where it's just too late. It's too late. And I'll tell you what, by the time kids start to get in their late teens, I mean, I'm not saying you don't discipline them if they're living under your roof and they do something wicked or something they're not supposed to be doing, but at that point, I don't know how much value and correction it's really going to accomplish. You might just be at that point. And obviously, every child's going to be different, there's not an exact thing on that, but you've got to just keep that in mind. There is going to be a time where there is no more hope. And then the second part says, let not thy soul spare for his crying. So it means don't withhold, don't spare because of the crying. And this is important, first of all, especially for new parents, because everything is new with raising a child, you haven't done it before. And everybody's first child is raised different than the rest of their children if you have more than one. The first one is the test. The first one is your way to learn. It's the guinea pig, right? Like, okay, what do we do? And oftentimes, parents end up being all over everything. The first one does, and the first time they cry, like, oh, man. Because you don't realize how brilliantly God made children and how resilient they are. And you want to be there for every problem and everything like that. After a while, you start to realize, like, oh, yeah, it's not that big of a deal, you know, whatever. Okay, they fell down and it'll be okay. You learn these things. But with the first one, too, and this is important for disciplining, because you do need to find the right balance. As I said before, I am not for child abuse of just, like, you know, injuring. And that's what I would say, if you injure your child, that's abusive. You should not be inflicting injury. There should be no broken bones. There should be, you know, nothing that's going to cause, like, damage to their child. The point of spanking is, one, first of all, it has to cause some pain. Because otherwise, why would they be crying if you just go, oh, don't do that. Like, okay, spare not for their crying. What are you talking about? Like, they didn't even cry. It has to have enough force to cause pain. So what you're trying to do is inflict a little bit of pain so they understand. And also, they can make the connection, when I do wicked, there's painful results. This is a deep teaching that is going to stay with them. That, one, that's one of the few ways they can understand as a younger child, even to know the right from wrong. But as they grow older, will stay with them. That connection, when that's made early on, hey, when I do bad things, when I do wicked things, when I disobey the commandments, then painful things will result. It is a very broad teaching that gets formed from a young age. And it's extremely important to have that connection. So don't spare for their crying. Don't withhold from their crying. Now, the amount of force that you would use, and remember, I'm trying to be practical here, the amount of force you're going to use when punishing your child is going to change with their age. Because when your child is young, they don't need much force at all. One, I mean, when babies first start to get spanked, and again, there's not a specific age per se, but I'll just cover this right now. The age that I think is appropriate for a child to start receiving some form of chastening in the form of a type of a spanking is when they can understand what you're saying. They may not be able to speak full sentences or anything like that, but they can understand what you're saying. So if you say to do something or do this, and they're able to respond, and you know they're understanding what they're saying, and then you can see that they are choosing and having their own will to do what you're saying or not do what you're saying, when they start growing a will to just, like, I'm not going to do that, even though they understand you, I think that's appropriate to start correcting them. Now, that varies with children and what age that is, because children develop different. So there isn't a set age that I can say, but take it for what it's worth as far as just being able to see. And you'll start to notice, too, when they start to, like, wow, they actually understand what I'm saying. And when they're at that age, which is still pretty young, they don't need much, because they get all nonstop love and affection and attention their whole life up until that point when they choose to be disobedient. So even a smaller on the diaper, they're like, what was that? You know, like, even just the thought that you might be upset with them is just too much, right? So, and then as they grow, you'll start to realize, okay, well, now it's not a rare thing or a new thing that they're going to receive a little bit of correction, but, you know, the smaller they are, be aware, you know, they just, they're smaller, they just need a little bit, that's enough, right? A little bit of sting, a little bit of sting on a smaller person, sufficient. And then as they continue to get older, you will increase the amount of force required to inflict the sting that they need to feel. I mean, if you're giving your child a spanking and they're, like, laughing at you, you are not doing it right at all. Not even close. And parents, you know, I understand you don't want, no loving parents are going to want to injure their child. I didn't either, okay? But you have to be able to, one, and understand this, especially new parents, when you do start to spank them, they're going to, they could scream and howl like you cut off one of their fingers. But they're okay. So you don't want to say, man, I don't, I mean, I must have really hurt them. No, the younger they are, the less temperate they are, the less control they have over their emotions and things, so that's going to happen. Just expect it. They're going to freak out and scream and cry, but honestly, this is one of the things that prevents parents from wanting to continue spanking their children because they don't like that they scream and cry when they get a spanking. And they don't want to hear it or they think that, oh, this is horrible, how can I do this to my child? You doing that will help them. That's why we do it. I take no pleasure in seeing all the tears run down my children's face and them having to feel, you know, a stinging on their rear end. But I do it because I know that it's good for them. I know that it's required. I also see the results. I see the results. I can see and quantify how often they do the things that I tell them not to do after they've received punishment for it. It's amazing. It works. And praise God, because why would you want them to continue doing whatever your rules are that you don't want them to do? Because you don't want them to do it for a reason. I also say this, you know, we're going to see the rod, the rod, the rod multiple times. You can use your hand, but I do believe in using an instrument and not just your hand for a couple reasons. One is because, like I said, I think it's easier to control this and the amount of force that you're going to give and the location. And it's going to help you from, also prevent you from injuring the child. Because you can kind of flip your wrist different than the way that you use your hand. When you use your hand, you will give more force going forward as opposed to being able to do something like that. Because your hand is going to bring more force, which could end up pushing bones around or doing something like that that you don't ultimately want to do. So you want to be able to inflict the pain without that. So that's one of the reasons why I believe it. It's because I want them strung up and like lashing their backs or anything like that. It's because it makes sense to use this and there's a reason why the Bible talks about the rod of correction being used. So that's some of the why behind it. Flip over to Proverbs chapter 23. Proverbs 23 verse 13. The Bible says withhold not correction from the child, colon. This is what it means when it says withhold not correction from the child. For if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. The correction is beating with the rod. So if you say you beat your children, I do. But in the biblical sense, not in the beating them up sense. This is why I use this word. People freak out about this. But it's in the Bible. I mean, do you believe the word of God or not? Is this wisdom? Is this God's word? I believe so. Look at verse 14. Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell. That's a great result, delivering his soul from hell. I mean, what parent doesn't want that for their child? People love the result, but not the process to get the result. When you look at some of the most well-behaved children, except for it doesn't happen by accident. It's funny when we get we get complimented frequently when we go out and eat a restaurant or whatever, because unfortunately, there's a lot of parents that don't do this anymore. The world's teaching you not to spank. It used to be way more commonplace, but now not so much anymore. So people will give me a compliment. I'll just be like, wow, your children are well-behaved. I'm like, yeah, they better be, right? And then people are like, they don't know what to say to that. Well, of course they are. I mean, yeah, I mean, what's the alternative? They're going to get a beating, right? And again, I don't mean punch in the face, but they're going to get a spanking. But I like what the Bible says here. Look, if you beat them with the rod, look, he's not going to die. And their language is like, look, get over it. Don't spare for the crying. They're going to cry, but it's going to be OK. You can give them the spanking. You give them the whooping that they need. They're not going to die. They'll get over it, right? It'll be fine. Give it a little bit of time. They'll get beyond it. Don't worry about it as if, oh, man, the child's going to die. They may be screaming like they're going to die, but they're not really going to die. And that's why you're, look, thou shalt beat them with the rod. You say, well, passive breathing, how does that work? Why is it going to deliver their soul from hell? Here's what I believe about this. My interpretation, my understanding about this is, as I was mentioning before, you know, when people understand from an early age and can tie together the consequence for their actions, I do wicked. I do wrong. I am in pain. It's easier for people to then grasp and understand the concept of hell, of being a place of torture and punishment for your sins, even just coming to that realization of being like, well, yeah, of course, there must be a real place called hell because that's what you've experienced and what you've known your whole life is I do bad things and something bad is going to happen, which illustrates just the truth of the world anyways. It's not just something that's programmed. It's something that exists in reality. Even if someone receives no discipline, you will experience that fact of life that when you get into wickedness, you will go through harder times and be punished and have bad things come your way. You're going to reap what you sow. And then at the end of the day, the reality is hell is a real place, and people may want to reject it, and more and more people might think, well, I think hell is here on this earth. I think hell is this. I think hell is that. I don't think hell is real. I don't believe that. Therefore, it doesn't exist. Look, it's real. And when you give the children that understanding as they grow up, punishment comes when you do bad. That's going to help to deliver their soul from hell because just as they don't want to receive that physical punishment, they're not going to want to receive the punishment in hell, and, well, how's my way out? I'm taking that way out. Jesus Christ. Amen. Right? To me, that makes the most sense is why this says you're going to deliver their soul from hell. Flip back to Proverbs chapter 13. So we're very excited. We've seen spare not for their crying. We've seen beat him with the rod. He's not going to die. And then verse 24, Proverbs 13 says, he that spareth his rod hateth his son. So all these references to the rod, beating, it's talking about spanking. You know, it's funny how people will want to take and refute the Bible. Well, this isn't talking about spanking. And they'll go to like one of these other verses, like one of the few that I brought up, that doesn't literally say to beat them. Like the one we just read. To try to explain, oh, this means something else. But they're never going to go to, well, what do you say about Proverbs 23, 14? They're going to have to find some perversion of the scripture that just completely obliterates that to be like, oh, well, it doesn't say that. I mean, that Bible is just wrong. That's going to be the only response that someone can have. Because it's so clear. Proverbs 13, 24 says, he that spareth his rod hateth his son. And let that sink in, too. You know, people want to think they're so loving, oh, I love my child too much to spank them. I mean, I can never inflict any type of pain on my child because I love them too much. Well, that's not what the Bible says. If you're not willing to be able to allow them to go through some pain and to inflict a little bit of pain on them, then you don't love them. The reason why is because that is what's needed to teach them the right way. God designed it. He's instructing us. Let his law and his light light your path on how to live and raise your children. He that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Now, sparing the rod. Why would someone spare the rod? Well, one, like I said, they think they can never do anything like that. But number two is because it requires effort. So take this to heart when you're exhausted, you're tired, and your kids have been up for too long, and they need to go to bed, and you're tired and you want to go to sleep, or whatever, and you've got a bunch of other work to do, and you're doing something else, and you're busy, and they're running around and screaming and tearing up, and they're acting crazy because they're just like, they just need to go to sleep. So if they finally just lay down, they'd be out in like a second. And every child that just gets beyond tired, they all act nuts. This happens. It's reality. But you still need to deal with the problem, and when there is a problem, you know, don't be so self-absorbed that you spare the rod when it's needed and when it's appropriate. Now, the summer situation I'm talking about, the kids are running around acting nuts. They might not need a spanking. So I'm not saying that they automatically just need a spanking because they're kind of acting crazy and need sleep. If you know that they need sleep, then just put them to bed. Like, just make them go to bed because you're the parent. Now, if they continue to just disobey and they're not staying in bed, then you spank them so that they listen to you and obey you and know you're going to bed. Right? So, I mean, take the... For what it is, like I said, it's... The other thing is, not sparing your rod, be consistent with your use of punishment. Be consistent in the sense that, you know, appropriate levels of infractions get appropriate discipline regularly so a child knows where the line is and how things work. And one of the ways to do that also is you need to be in control and temperate yourself. Right? And not just let some little thing make you go off the deep end where you're giving them a much more severe punishment that really doesn't deserve that. Be consistent so that they know what, you know, what they've done and how bad it is and whatever. And also, don't just threaten, but follow through. Right? So if you threaten your child with the spanking, say, hey, you do that again, you're going to spank him. And then they do it again? You have to follow through. Because then your words become meaningless if you don't. Now, the primary reason, and I do this, of not giving the spanking the first time is because you don't want to. You want to give them a warning. Maybe you want to show them a little bit of grace. Say, don't do that. You know you're not supposed to do that. Don't do that. You get spanking. But if you say that and they do it, you got to follow through. Otherwise, it's going to make it harder for you. It does. It makes it harder for you to teach them and train them and get them to obey you and listen to you. Because we ought to have our houses in order and your children, it's not just for pastors, it's for all Christians, ought to be able to, you know, men ought to be ruling their house well with all gravity and having their wives and children in subjection unto them. That is a biblical household. And that goes for everybody. Now the other part of this verse, it says, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. That word betimes means early. It means early. Start the chastening early. Similar to, as I said before, while there is hope. We need to start the disciplining betimes while there's hope. We need to do it early, catch it early on before it gets out of control. And I already brought up when to start spanking. I think it's, when it's evident that they understand what you're saying and then they start becoming defiant is the time to start introducing your punishment and then as they continue to grow, you know, the amount of force or seeing that you use in the spanking is going to increase to the appropriate physical size of your child and what that's going to require, right? Now, there's different reasons to start spanking also. One, very important, especially at a young age, betimes, early, is to keep them from danger. To keep, to teach them about danger. Thankfully, where we live right now, our area, our street is pretty safe. We live on a cul-de-sac that kind of like dead ends. So we don't have a lot of traffic of cars driving out in front of our house. But when we live in Arizona, we live on a street where sometimes people would like fly down this street and we were on a curve and it wouldn't always be easy for the car coming to see if there was a child like in the street. So it was a big risk for us if a child were to get out our front door, right? We had a backyard, we let them play in, it was all fenced in, but anyone with kids knows, you know, sometimes they get out. Just like anyone who has pets knows, sometimes they get out, right? And they just seize the opportunity to get out an open door or something's not closed all the way, it happens. So, you don't want harm to come to your child. We didn't, and the way that I would train my toddlers, they start learning how to walk, they get out and they're going, and just start darting for the street, is, you know, you chase after them, I tell them, don't go into the street, you go, if they stop, great. If they don't, they're getting a spanking. Right away. Why? Because I love them, and if, you know, that pattern, that behavior, if they start, you know, they need to learn that once, when they start running towards the street, something bad's going to happen. And they're going to get a spanking. And I make sure they feel it, right? And then tell them, you can't go out, you know, don't go running in the street, cars come by, you get hit. That's one. Number one, you don't want your children to get into physical harm, physical danger, it could be something similar to say, how about a pool? Right? You don't want them to drown? How about a hot stove? You want them burning their hand? These are the types of things that, if you see it happening when they're young, give them a spanking. So that they don't do that. Number two, as I mentioned before, is willful disobedience. Right? That one's pretty obvious. Yeah, you give a spanking when they're just completely being defiant, when they're being stubborn, when they're being rebellious at, you know, whatever age they are, you're going to get punished for that. And then three, of course, was punishment for just doing something bad. Biting, lying, you know, punching, stealing, whatever, anything that just, against the rules, shouldn't be doing, and they caught doing for, then you punish for that. Those are reasons to get them on the right path. Turn, if you would, to Psalm 6. I'll try to quicken this up a little bit. You never want to spank your child in a rage, or when you're out of control. Now, hopefully, you don't let yourself get out of control. And if you do, you can recognize it, so that you do not choose that time to punish your child. This is important, very important, because that's going to be the time you really want to discipline your child. You walk in on something that you don't expect, and it angers you that your child has done whatever it is that they've done. Right? They've blown up your kitchen or something, you know, whatever. Their bedroom is just, like, what did you do? How did you even do this? Right? This is going to take me a week to repair. Whatever, right? You get really angry. Don't discipline your child if you just are going to blow a gasket, because what's going to happen is you're going to have adrenaline pumping because you're angry, and you may not be able to control yourself, and you have a possibility of injuring your child. You don't want to do that. Because you love your child, right? You're like, oh, I need to discipline them right now. Look, take a few deep breaths and discipline them, yes, but not under those conditions. Look at Psalm 6, verse number 1. The Bible says, O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thine hot displeasure. The psalmist knows, I don't want to get chastened when God is just, like, enraged with me, because it's going to be really bad. Give the appropriate punishment for what was done, but don't do it in your hot displeasure. The Bible says here, Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak. O Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed. And think about that, too. Obviously, this is a totally, you know, kind of a different situation. It's more spiritual. It's an adult. This is, you know, probably David here speaking to the Lord, but children are weak, right? Their bodies are frail. You know, you're an adult. You're way stronger than them. Consider, hey, they're weak. Heal me, my bones are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed, but thou, O Lord, how long? Verse 4, Return, O Lord, deliver my soul. Save me for thy mercy's sake, for in death there is no remembrance of thee in the grave. Who shall give thee thanks? You know, the child might be thinking this, going, like, don't kill me. Verse 6, I am weary with my groaning. All the night make I my bed to swim. I water my couch with my tears. Mine eye is consumed because of grief. It waxeth old because of all mine enemies. Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord hath heard my supplication. The Lord will receive my prayer. Now, here we see he's done wrong, but then we also see that he's weeping. He's crying. And there's times with children that you don't want to hear them crying. And a lot of people will then turn to just start spanking them because they're crying. But crying is not a, I don't believe it's a sin or a spank-worthy offense. Okay? Hearing crying, first of all, is stressful. You hear crying from children. I'm talking about children. Okay? When your children start crying, stress level goes up. Any loud noise and things like that, it's going to start getting on your nerves. Right? It's going to start putting us in a state that is going to, it could put you on edge. I remember our firstborn, Elizabeth, again, dealing with new things and new children and everything else. She would wake up, it would be the middle of the night, and she'd be screaming her head off. And I would take her, and it's just like, what do I do? This child won't shut up. I mean, you try to like put a pacifier in her mouth, and it's just screaming. And I'm going like, nothing is working. Now, she was little. She was a baby. I would not spank her at this age anyways because she was just too little. It's more of a newborn coming home, right? So maybe a month old or something. I'm not going to even think about doing anything like that. But what I'm talking about is the stress level goes up to where you're just thinking like, I want to throw this child out the window because I just can't take this noise anymore. It just won't stop. I mean, my alarm clock, I could go like this, and it's going to turn off. I could do everything else with any other noise in the house, but I cannot stop this child from screaming. It gets on your nerves. It's stressful, right? As a parent, you have to deal with that and deal with it appropriately. Now, for small children, babies, crying is actually their only way to communicate that something is wrong, right? So some people who get way out of control on the spanking thing want to start spanking their infants because they're crying because you shouldn't be crying. Well, you know what? That's the only way they can tell you that they have a wet diaper or that they're hungry or that they have some type of pain. It's going to be through crying. Like, that's what's going to happen. That's the only way you're going to know. That's how you know. Oh, the baby needs to be changed. It's like, oh, the baby's screaming its head off. Well, check the diaper. Nope, not the diaper. Okay, well, feed the baby. Give it some milk. Oh, yeah, that's it. Fine. Or maybe the baby's experiencing some other pain. Sometimes, oh, the baby just needs a burp, right? The baby screams its head off like it's going to die, and then it burps. It's like, oh, okay, I'm better now. That's what you get with babies. Now, listen up. Hopefully, young couples, you may not have ever dealt with this before. That's going to happen. So get the knowledge and say, oh, okay, that makes a lot of sense, but there's nothing wrong with it. It may make you stressed out, but that's not a reason to punish, right? And as children grow, obviously, they learn to communicate by other means, but also don't forget their age. So while they may have learned even how to speak, but if you've got like a three-year-old or four-year-old or two-year-old or whatever, like they're not emotionally developed, and they're going to cry for dumb reasons. I don't think you should necessarily be spanking and disciplining your child because they cry, because they're still like really young, right? We do things that are appropriate, and especially, you know, if you inflict pain on someone, I expect them to cry. Now, you may need to control them as far as like, okay, you know, my eight-year-old can't just scream or stink and head off like a fire engine if I spank her butt. I'm going to make her have to control that so it's not just out of control, but, you know, and maybe that will just be like, look, if you keep on screaming like this, you're going to get another spanking. That could work, but you deal with that with the older ones that you're going to be able to communicate with and talk to. The little ones aren't going to know. Like if they're young, they're not even going to know that you're spanking them because they're crying. Like it's just going to be like, what did I do now? So keep that in mind. And also, this is important, too, like Brother Devon preached on, you know, hit on this on Wednesday. I was already planning on preaching this here on this Wednesday. We have to always keep this in mind as a parent when you're disciplining your children. You know, Matthew 7 says, Judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged, and with what measure you meet, it shall be measured to you again. And as a parent, we need to be able to keep that while, yes, you want to be a good judge at home and, you know, you broke my commandments, you broke my rules, you're going to get punished with the allowance of long suffering and mercy and forgiveness also, right? And if you're going to be a real stickler on every little thing with your children, God's going to hold you to that level of standard when it comes to your walk with Him. He's going to see the way that you treat your children and go, hey, look, I've given you a lot of grace. Very important on determining how you discipline your children. Okay, now, look, I know on one hand we've had grace in the sense that Jesus paid for all of our sins, amen, but that's not the level of grace I'm talking about because it's the grace of a day-to-day walk with God where God's going to chase at you, God's going to discipline you, as He does with people who are saved, people who are His children. Yes, there's times where God is going to come down and you ought to be fearful of Him and He's going to discipline you and punish you because you should not have done that. Okay, there's lines that you shouldn't cross, but it's not every single transgression that you have against the Lord. I mean, can everyone agree with me that, yes, there's been times where I've, like, sinned and don't feel like I've received the punishment from God? Probably because I was sorry and I didn't mean it and, you know, whatever, like, I screwed up. God gives us leniency and we ought to be able to balance while, yes, you need to teach, yes, you need to guide and instruct and give the appropriate discipline, you also need to consider, okay, am I, you know, am I taking things too far by being too strict? And also, the Bible says in Colossians 3, 21, fathers provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Right, so there's a time where you can just end up discouraging your children and just make them angry instead of being, teaching and training and edifying, ultimately. Now, I'm going to skip this last passage, going longer than I want to. Bottom line, okay, bottom line, and more, just the last of the practicality stuff. Mom and dad both ought to have control over their children. Both parents. When mom says something, children ought to obey. When dad says something, children ought to obey. If you have children that just are not listening to you at all, when you tell them to do stuff, it's time to chasten them. Okay, if you could just say, son, do this, son, do that, do that, do that, and they just, it's like in one ear, out the other, and they just ignore you, you need to start disciplining your child. It's not enough just for one, because there's plenty of families where, oh yeah, they're scared of dad, but mom's like nothing. Because dad may give the punishments appropriately, and mom doesn't. They're going to start respecting you more when you're consistent. Yes, you may have a lot of things going on at home. Yes, you might have five things that you're trying to keep going because you're running the house, but when the child needs to be disciplined, they need to be disciplined because it's going to cause you more problems when they don't listen to you than when they do. You need to correct it, and they need that teaching from you as well. Both ought to be giving out the punishments, both ought to know what their children are doing, by the way, you know, primarily the Bible teaches that women are to be, you know, raising their children, but that the men, the husbands, are in charge of the whole family. So, you know, you both ought to know where your children are and what they're doing, and you need to train your children how to behave both at home and in public, because there's a difference. You may allow more things to happen at home. You may allow, say, for more rowdiness to go on at home. That's kind of normal, right? I mean, we allow our kids sometimes to jump on couches and do things like that, but you know what? When we come to church, I better not see my kids jumping on the couches, and you know what? If they do, then that's a shame on me. Maybe it happens. I haven't seen them do it, but maybe they're doing it. I mean, their kids are not going to be perfect. Don't get me wrong. Like, there's going to be a time or something when someone may do something wrong, but what, you know, what you allow, they need to know the difference of what's appropriate and what's not. And, you know, knowing where your children are at and, you know, the rubber's going to meet the road here. Parents, there's a busy street out here. You better make sure you know where your child is and do not let them get out that front door and start heading down to the street. If they're able to do that, you're not watching your children well enough. Now, you don't have to hover around them everywhere they walk, but have enough presence of mind to know where your children are and at least to some level what they're doing. Part of being here, we're a family integrated church. And I love it, okay? We love, I love having the children in church. This is a training ground for children to be able to come in and sit still and learn how to behave in church. Now, the young, the really little ones, they're going to have a hard time with this, which is why we have this room over here. So, train them in there where you can not interrupt people and distract people as much with being able to tell them, but obviously there's different ages, you know, a six-month-old or one-year-old, it's going to be hard to get them to sit still for an hour or an hour and a half in church, right? That's just a fact, okay? It's just not going to happen at that age. But once they start getting to an age, like maybe around two, they start to learn and start teaching them how to sit down and not just in church, but at home. This goes back to training up a child in the way you should go. So, take a little bit of time at home where you have time every day where you can teach them, now is the time to sit. And they go through training. And maybe it's just for ten minutes and you set up time to train your child, okay, we're going to sit now and you're going to listen to the Bible or you're going to listen to me read a book or you're going to listen, you know, and they have to just sit still. And you start small and you increase and increase and increase between here and at home, that's going to be how you're going to teach your children to sit and sit well in church. You also need to train your children to keep their hands off of things they're not supposed to have. And that goes, and look, all kids do this. You say, Pastor Burns must be really mad at my child for doing this. No. Okay, there's a lot of grace that we're giving because I understand that children do foolish things, but what you need to do is when you start to see that behavior is to correct that behavior, when it's wrong, when they shouldn't be doing that. If they're doing something they shouldn't be doing, correct it. So it doesn't happen again. If your child continues to do bad things repetitively over and over and over again, you've got a problem with your rearing of your child. Train your children, obey your commands, and I'm not trying to toot my own hoard at all by any means, but I just had this situation with my two-year-old, two years old, okay, far from perfect. There's a reason why people call terrible twos, right, because they get into all kinds of mischief. They get into all kinds of problems, all kinds of trouble, so I am not saying to my child oh, she doesn't do anything wrong, but here is the level of discipline and control that I have in my house is the other night she didn't want to go to bed and she wanted to leave the room and I was up working on something and I was like, I said, don't open the door, and she put her hand on the door. I said, you open up that door, you're going to get a spanking, and she's looking at me and she's got her hand on the door and she really wants to open the door. And I remind her a few times, you know, because then I don't say anything for a while, she starts to get a little bit more bold, thinking like, all right, I'm going to do this. You open up the door, the head is going to spank your butt. And she kind of cried, she really wanted to leave, but then she didn't. Now, there may be a time where she's going to open up that door and go out because she's two, right? And I'm not saying that I'm the perfect parent or that she's perfect, I'm just saying this is what you want to try to be able to at least do with a two-year-old. If you could do that with a two-year-old, how about a three or four-year-old? Or a five-year-old or six-year-old, right? Like, it's not, it requires effort, but it's really not that hard. If she would have opened up the door, guess what I would have done? I would have had to stop working, put my laptop down, get up, and give her a spanking because that's what I said I was going to do. And that's how you're going to get them, then the next time you say, don't do that, or else this is going to happen, to not do it. It's possible it requires work. You may end up finding that you have to give more spankings than you thought, at least at first. Because here's the good news, when you start early, there is so many less discipline spankings required the older they get. I mean, exponentially, way, way, way, like my older daughters almost never are getting spanked because they've already gone through their share when they were younger. And I'm not saying they're perfect either. It's just, this is what happens though. That's how you raise obedient children. Because they already have enough fear. And look, can they be sneaky sometimes and try to get around dad's rules? Of course. Yeah, you better believe they're going to try to get around my rules sometimes. Because that's what children do. But I'm going to catch them. And they're going to be punished for it when, you know, if it's appropriate, whatever. So, you know, I'm trying to bring up things that are practical, and I use a little bit of my own examples of what I do and giving you a perspective from that because we need to take the Bible and apply it in our life. Right? We need to say, I mean, you could say, okay, well, I see I need to spank my children because the Bible says so. Okay, but, you know, how exactly? What's really appropriate and when? Hopefully this has helped someone a little bit with understanding that. Nobody is going to be perfect at this. I'm not perfect at this. But look, if you're having problems with your children and you kind of need a little bit of advice, you know what I suggest? Look to the people whose children are very well behaved and everything is going really smooth and ask those parents, how do you raise your children? There's a few people in church I know of, right off the top of my head, I'm not going to list off their names, but you can identify for yourself who you think comes in here and their children are extremely well behaved. Talk to those parents. And I'm sure they'll be happy to tell you what they do. You want to talk to people who are successful at what they do, not people who fail. Don't ask the person whose kids are hanging from the rafters and, you know, like, there's always something going on. That's not the best person to ask. Anyways, let's probably have a word of prayer. Let's probably have a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we love you. Thank you so much for providing us with enough insight and information to be able to rear our children godly. Lord, we love you. It's not easy task having children, but they're totally worth it. Help us to be good parents, Lord, and to be able to raise our children well and that they can bring us honor and joy and gladness and not shame. Lord, and just help us to be able to apply your word in our daily life appropriately and that we wouldn't go to one extreme or the other on this teaching of either just not disciplining our children at all or you're going way overboard and being just way too strict or aggressive, Lord. Help us to find that good, the good balance of what's righteous and to have that understanding. Lord, we love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, we're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed. Brother Carter, you can lead us, please. Alrighty, you can turn in your hands for our last song, number 169. Once again, it's hymn number 169. Let's get 169, Come Thou Fount. Alright, let's sing it out together on the first. Come Thou Fount of every blessing To my heart to sing Thy praise Streams of mercy never ceasing Call for songs of loudest praise Teach me songs that alone is sung In song like flinging tongues above Praise the mount I face upon it Mount of Thy redeeming love Here I raise my Ebenezer Mittered by Thy help I come And I know by Thy good pleasure Safely I'll arrive at home Jesus swarming when a stranger Wandering from the fold of God Need to rescue me from danger His earth holds His precious blood O to grace how great a debtor Lately I'm constrained to be Let Thy goodness, like a feather Bind my wandering heart to Thee Won't you wander, Lord, I feel it Won't you lead the God I love Here's my heart, O taken, seal it Seal it for Thy courts above Thank you for being here this evening.