In this sermon, the speaker discusses the concept of presenting our children as living sacrifices before the Lord. The speaker emphasizes the importance of parenting and the responsibility to raise children in godliness and righteousness. The biblical mandate to train and nurture our children is highlighted, with the goal of preparing them for eternity. The speaker encourages parents to seek God's mercy and intervention in their parenting journey and reminds them that God is able to transform and raise up their children for His glory.

Patak, would you get me a water, please? We're going to talk about something today that you may have never thought about before. The reason that I say you may have never thought about it before, because I never thought about it before. And we're just sometimes a bunch of not thought about it before kind of folks. But we're going to talk about our children as being living sacrifices before the Lord, that we present our children to before God as living sacrifices. We're going to talk about parenting. He's like, oh, no, not parenting. Oh, yeah, parenting. Something's very, something that's very, something that's very burning and passionate in the heart of God. Raising up and training up a generation in the way that they should go, that whenever they are old, that they will not depart from it. I believe that as Christian parents, we have not only the responsibility, but the biblical and God ordained mandate that we train our children up in godliness and truth and in righteousness. I don't believe it's a suggestion unto us. I believe it's a divine mandate that we are to raise up our children to be like Jesus Christ. And, you know, and the young people that are in here, you may think, well, I'm a kid. I don't need to hear this. Listen, you do need to hear it soon. You're going to be a parent. You also need to know what your parents are responsible for, that your parents are responsible to present you before God as a blameless sacrifice, a blameless living sacrifice, and that your parents will answer to God for you. And it's a very serious subject. You know, time and again, we teach and we instruct in this local assembly about parenting. We constantly are dealing with children to obey their parents and to act the way that God would have them to act. And it's not simply because we don't like children. We love children because we love children. And because we love the Lord, we have a flaming and a passionate desire for our children at Pryor Creek Community Church to be upright and to be a blameless children. They can be and they're going to be because we all are going to obey the Lord because we love him. Amen. Lord, help me to speak. With the tongue of angels. And Lord, let it be seasoned with love so that it may profit. Lord, help me, Lord God, and use this mouth of mine to inscribe the oracles of your of your word upon the hearts of your people. Father, I'm not here to condemn. Lord, I'm here to exhort and to teach and to equip. Lord, anoint me with such grace that I may be able to do this under your glory. Lord, that everything be done today, be done under your glory. Lord, give us an ability to listen to hear with a teachable heart, Lord God, under your glory. And Lord God, that we will be soft clay that is moldable and pliable, that we may be vessels that you can construct into the very stature and image of Christ. Lord, give us attentive ears and minds. And Lord, let us not mentally drift. Lest the adversary steal away the good seeds of the gospel, the word of God, and that we might not be robbed of an inheritance that you've provided for us. Oh, Lord, deliver us from the evil one this morning. In Jesus name. Amen. In Romans chapter 12. In verse one, the Bible says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. That you present your bodies. A living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And I think us that are assembled together in the name of Christ in this room have. Enough awareness of biblical responsibility and biblical authority concerning parenting that we can understand that our children are underneath the canopy of our authority. And being that they're underneath the canopy of our authority, there is a certain responsibility, a biblical responsibility upon our shoulders that cannot be ignored. The Bible tells us that we are to present our bodies to the Lord as living sacrifices that are holy and pleasing unto God. But not only do we realize that we present ourselves before the Lord, there is a divine mandate and responsibility upon me as the head of the home also to present my children before the Lord as living sacrifices before God that should be spotless and without blemish. I'm going to take us to some scriptures in the Old Testament today that talk about the stringent requirements of God in the in the presenting of the sacrifices before him. And I know that our mind certainly began to drift into phraseology that we've heard before. This is what we are not under law. We're under grace. And as we were discussing this morning in our pastor's meeting, that grace requires more than law. Law requires divine and divine retribution or divine discipline. If you commit adultery on your wife under grace, if you just look at a woman. You're judged with that same strictness under grace. There is more of a responsibility and more of a divine mandate than under law. And somehow in the last century that all is turned around in this sloppy, easy grace. The word of God forbids over in the epistle of Jude, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness or lawlessness in this generation. We see that under grace, all things are permissible when that is not the case. That is a lie from the pit of hell. But understanding that I must present myself before God as a as a sacrifice, knowing the stringent requirements of God in the sacrifices that are given unto him. But I must also understand that whenever I present all that is within the whole, the whole paradigm of my responsibility and authority, that my children as well must be presented before God as a living sacrifice that is blameless. Now, I think sometimes we we we train our children and we impart into our children and we discipline our children so that they may do well upon the earth. But beloved, as God's dear born children and God's called and elect, but we must train and nurture our children that God may be glorified, not just so that they'll do well in society. First and foremost, my job as a parent is to prepare my children for eternity. And beloved, it is in my hands. It is in my hands, as we will soon see. God requires our children as offerings. And we we see that in the Old Testament, everything is pointing towards the new. The Bible says everything that took place in the Old Testament is nothing other than an example for us that are living in this new birth, that are living in the end times, that are living in this covenant of hope, this covenant of grace. And these things that took place are examples for us. They're written in the Old Covenant as examples to admonish and to instruct us, to exhort and to encourage us and to teach us. And there was a certain event we're all very aware of in Genesis chapter 22 to where God required one of the great the great patriarch of the faith to present his son as a sacrifice. And we all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. And Isaac is the very promised of God. And we know that Abraham loved Isaac in a way that is unparalleled, really with earthly love, and it cannot really even be compared to earthly love. He loved him with a divine love. Abraham sought and believed God for 100 years for that child. Almost that long. But Abraham was 100 years old when the promise came to fruition. And he loved Isaac with not only a natural love, but he was the very fruit of the promise of almighty God. And we see here as a portrait and a picture of things to come, God requiring his child as a sacrifice. What does that got to do with us? It has everything to do with us because God still is requiring sacrifices and our children to be that very sacrifice. Now, we're not going to go and raise a knife and put them on a wooden altar as I did in the old covenant. But God has called us, as we see here in this first verse of the 12th chapter of Romans, they're living sacrifices that are wholly pleasing to God, wholly are set apart our children to be set apart for the glory of God. Every child that you have underneath your authority, every child that you have in your dominion is set apart for the glory of God. And as God's man, as God's woman, that is our responsibility, our divine mandate to bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord that our children may be that living sacrifice that glorifies and pleases God. You know, the chief end of my parental duties is not that my children may do well up on the earth, but that my children might glorify and please and honor almighty God. Turn with me to Genesis 22 right quick. We'll just read over that if you don't mind. In Genesis chapter 22, we start in verse one. It says, and it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham. And if you think, well, Pastor Derek, I read in the Bible that God doesn't test, tempt anyone. No, God put him to the test and God will put us to the test. Well, we'll see what our faith is made up of whenever it does happen. Amen. And he said unto him, Abraham, and he said, behold, here am I. And he said, take now thy son, thy only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest and get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell of thee. And so we see here probably something that shook Abraham to the very core of his faith. The one thing that he believed God for, for all of these years, God now is going to require of him. You know, when we think about this and we know the story so well, we know that Abraham had gone to the Mount. We see that Abraham had taken Isaac, his beloved son, his only son, and laid him up on that sacrificial altar and that he was raising the sword or the blade to come down and to spill the blood of his only son as an offering in an act of divine obedience to God. And God stays his hand. And he looks into the bush and in the bush is a ram with his horns caught. And God says, take the ram. And we know that ram is a type of Jesus Christ, the blood of another being substituted for the sins of our lives. But that also there is a picture here that we need not ignore, friend, that we need to pay strict attention to because it is a shadow for us and the new covenant and the new birth that God required Abraham to yield up his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. And we see that his blood was not required, but he was offered as a living sacrifice. This so correlates to Romans chapter 12, verse one, about us giving ourselves to God as living sacrifices. And I believe it is an excellent example as parents, the parental responsibility that we have to raise and to instruct and to discipline and to teach our children that our children might be acceptable sacrifices before God. That is pleasing in the eyes of God. And beloved, our children's blood is required at our hands. Leviticus chapter 21. Capture this moment in time when your pastor brings you to Leviticus. Leviticus chapter 21. How many of y'all want to be a good parent? We have the examples and everything that we need in the word of God. The word of God has all that we need. Everything that pertains to life and the godliness. Every answer concerning parenting is in the Bible. We just need to dig it out and to apply it. Leviticus chapter 21, verse 17. Speaking to Aaron saying, whosoever he be of thy seed in their generation that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach. A blind man, a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or wow, or anything superfluous, or a man that is broken footed, broken handed, a crookbacked, a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or have his his stones broken. No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron, the priest shall come nigh or offer to the offerings of the Lord made by fire. He hath a blemish. He shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God. You're like, wow, like, man, that's pretty strict, man. Man, what if your kid's born with a flat nose? You won't be coming, bringing the offerings before the Lord. You know what I think, you know, it's hard for us to grasp the depths of the holiness of God until we start reading these stringent requirements in the offering of sacrifices before God. You think, well, how could anyone live up to this? Beloved, I want you to think about something. This points to something else. Beloved, the whole sacrificial system of things dying is done away with. The sacrificial system of living things has not. The Bible instruction teaches us that we're to present our children before the Lord as spotless, blemishless children before the Almighty. And beloved, listen, our children are underneath our authority and the responsibility and the answer that's given unto God will be required at our hands. And this needs to awaken every parent and every prospective parent and even our young people to see the requirement of parenthood and the seriousness of it and how God is serious about this to see that God has required us to bring our children, but not just any kind of offering is acceptable to God. And that's why he so emphatically through the scriptures imparts and teaches and demands that we raise our children, that we give them sound discipline, sound instruction, sound teaching that they might be accepted by God. Listen, not only will be our children that are cast out, but us along with them. You know, you may be thinking, you know, that your children have already raised and you'll go back over the time when so many mistakes were made. You may say, God, what do I do? You know what? We turn to him for mercy in this time. Beloved, we're talking about the now. But we can't go back and change anything that happened in the past, can we? Beloved, we just cry out for the mercy of God. We cry out for the mercy and the intervention of God. God's more than able to raise up these stones. God's more than able to call these bones unto life and to breathe upon them and to rise up an exceedingly army. God is able, God is more than able. The beloved, this time of instruction is for us in this now time that God is doing a work in our hearts and our lives to impart the very truth of the strictness of the requirements that God requires of us as parents to impart and to teach and to train and to discipline our children, because our children are going to be offerings before the Lord, living offerings before the Lord. And this is a very serious matter. It's not something that should be shoved off. It's not something that should be ignored. Listen, I'm not, I've not got anyone in mind here, but this applies to me. It applies to me. This word is going out to us as the body of Christ. I have tremendous concern for me. I have tremendous concern for my life and my children. I have a burning desire to present my children before God. So God, these are my children that by your grace and by your provision that I've raised up to honor and to fear you. And that within the very spirit of my two children and the third one that the Lord blessed us with for a season, that there will be a reverence for God, that there'll be a love for God, that there'll be an unbroken commitment, a faithful union, that I can present my children before the Lord as living sacrifices that are a sweet incense before God, because they are wholly given to the Lord Jesus Christ and their life is not their own. And they're very well aware of that. And they're living not for themselves, but for the one that has given his life for them. Our offerings must be without blemish. Psalms 127. And I know at times, just the repetitive correction, the repetitive correction, the repetitive correction. It sometimes can be exhausting, but beloved, you must remember that we are constantly working, preparing the sacrifice. We're constantly working that the sacrifice might be done, might be preserved, that the sacrifice might be presented to God in the way that God requires of us. And on those adolescent years, the constant training, the constant impartation, the constant discipline, the constant, constant, constant oversight. It can become so taxing. It can become very wearisome. But beloved, we must remember that we are working to prepare a living sacrifice before God. And it's a very serious matter that God will come requiring of us as parents. In Psalm 127, verse three, the Bible says, lo, children are a heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward. And now I somewhat baffled. The children are an inheritance of the Lord, of the heritage. I looked up in the Hebrew word and I can't pronounce it very well. So I won't pronounce it at all. But it means something to be inherited or something that you possess through inheritance. The Bible says in 1 Samuel chapter one, verse 27 and eight, and we see this wonderful woman of God that sought the Lord in her barrenness for a child. And we see that Hannah gave birth to the prophet Samuel. And she used the word that he had been lent. And that simply means to borrow. If you look that up in the Hebrew word, it means to borrow. And I wrote something else down here. Oh yeah, borrowed on request. Borrowed on request is what that means in its intent. And beloved, it's imperative that we recognize that these children the Lord has entrusted into you care. Are the heritage of the Lord. They belong to the Lord and they are yours in your hands. But they're just simply being lent to you. And we must be faithful stewards over what God has entrusted into our care. That we will impart, that we will teach, that we will discipline, that we will nurture, that we will bring up and train and impart our children. Our children might become a pleasing incense to almighty God, a living sacrifice without any wrinkle or defilement. That our children will be acceptable in the eyes of almighty God. I sometimes question how teachable we are as people. I don't want to make mention of something, but I don't want you to get angry with me. But for years and years and years, my wife and I have taught and taught and taught upon biblical parenting. And there's always a few that seems that it never sinks in. Because there's never any adjustment made to the parenting techniques. The children are completely out of control and unruly. Even in the house of almighty God, there's such an irreverence and such a parental permissiveness about it. Such children out of order, being undisciplined. And we warn, we teach from the Bible what God says. And the very same people that lift their hands up and shout the praise of God, their children are headed towards hell and they're not even aware of it. And I wonder how teachable we are when we come and we listen to the divine precepts of God about parenting and teaching and child raising and the importance and the eternality of it and how we take it with such a passive reception. And I read a passage in Proverbs chapter 14, verse six in the Amplified Bible. And it says, a scoffer seeks wisdom in vain for his very attitude blinds and deafens him to it. But knowledge is easy to him who being teachable understands. A scoffer seeks wisdom, but it's in vain. This is what a scoffer does. Listen to me, friend. A scoffer will hear the good sound exhortation on the word of God, but it won't modify his lifestyle. It won't modify the actions. We might assume that the word is good, but it's not good enough to change the practices that we now embrace. And you may not see yourself as a scoffer, but as scoffing. A scoffer seeks wisdom. Yeah, we want to hear it, but it's all in vain because we deny the practicality of it. Or we come up with a gospel according to me or a gospel according to need, but you don't understand my children. Beloved, they're all cut out of the same stamp, rebellious and wicked. I know they're cute and cuddly and cool in the first couple of years, but they turn sour after that. The Bible says very clearly that foolishness and that word foolish there correctly revealed to us is wickedness is bound in the heart of a child. The Bible says a scoffer seeks wisdom in vain for his very attitude. Sometimes what do we do? We make excuses. We begin to defend ourselves. We begin to defend our children, even when they're wrong. I know parents that have their children, their twenties and thirties that are living in sin, that are bound by narcotics, bound by drugs. They're abusive. They're devilish. They're filled with every demonic spirit and their parents are still to the very day defending their actions. With ice cream man back when they were seven years old, wouldn't sell them an ice. All they had was a nickel and the ice cream had gone up to six cents and they denied them an ice cream. And ever since then, he's just been this way and it's not his fault. You know what I'd say to that parent? It's not his fault. It's your fault for permitting it. And that movie, A Few Good Men, as Nicholson so eloquently stated it, you can't handle the truth. You know what we've done? We've turned God into a big old sweet marshmallow that doesn't come requiring, that has no strict ordinances, that has no statutes that must be obeyed. If we see God's love is something that constantly wavers depending on our mood, depending on what we want at the moment. Beloved, there is a word that comes underneath the banner of love and it's called discipline. Whoever the Lord loves, He chastens, He disciplines. And without discipline, there is no love. Isn't it amazing that whenever children are obedient and orderly, how pleasing and sweet that is? And whenever they're irreverent and vile and completely out of control, how distasteful that is? Why? Because God put His law upon our hearts and it is wrong in the eyes of Almighty God for children to be out from underneath that umbrella of obedience into lawlessness and rebellion. And it leads to a totality of a lifestyle that ends in the very depths of hell. And Christian people just ignore it. Knowledge is easy to those who are teachable. Knowledge are easy to those that are teachable. And beloved, the question is, are we a teachable people? Or are we obstinate? Or as our hearts become hardened as granite to where we hear the word, we assent to the word of God. But whether it be the blindness or the laziness, whatever it is, the unwillingness on our part to change to where we might bring our children to a place of obedience that God might be glorified and that their souls might be saved and rescued from hell. Beloved, we got the word of God to shake us. We've got the word of God to form us and instruct us. I made mention a while ago that they're all born broken. Proverbs chapter 22, verse 15 says this, foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. Go ahead and turn over with me to Proverbs. You say, pastor, I already know that scripture. Do you really? I remember a citation from the Lord, a people that says, Lord, we know you. The Lord says, depart from you. I don't know you. There's a difference between knowing and knowing. But we didn't know in the way that where we're changing so much to where there is an absolute turning away from everything that is unbiblical in our parenting to everything that God requires of us as parents. And that we do so hastily. Oh, pastor, we got to implement a little by little. Remember that part about being teachable? Listen to me, if you're riding your horse towards the edge of the Grand Canyon at three in the morning, do you want someone to step out incrementally and tell you that the Grand Canyon is awaiting you with a 5,000 foot drop off? Or do you want them to stop you abruptly? Let's just veer the horse off at about seven degrees. Yeah, seven degrees and 30,000 feet down. And you better hope your horse has wings or a parachute. Proverbs 22, 15 foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it. Far from him. I was reading about one of the Puritans making comment on this passage. And he says, foolishness is not only found within their heart, but it's bound within their heart. Interwoven into the very corruption of their nature. Foolishness, sinfulness, inward corruption. This commentator said, it's a lover's knot. Y'all know what a lover's knot is? Anybody ever fall in love before? That's ooshy-gooshy good, isn't it? A lover's knot where you just can't be away from one another. With all of your drive and all that you have and all that you are, you want to be with the other. Come on, y'all know what it's like to be in love? I hope you still are. But it's a lover's knot in a child's life tied between the soul and sin. The soul and the sin become one flesh. And then the old Puritan commentator said this, and our parents listened to me. This is so imperative that we grab hold to this. It will not be got out. This love union between sin and soul will not be broken. This bound corruption will not be got out by fair and gentle methods, he says. There must be strictness and there must be severity and it must cause grief. The word of God says in the 12th chapter of Hebrews, if you want to turn there about correction and discipline. Hebrews, who brews? All right, so all you husbands will be brewing the coffee for your wives in the morning. Hebrews chapter 12, verse nine. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us and we gave them reverence. We gave them reverence. But is there not a mandate on the behalf of God towards the children of God that we give what? That we give discipline, correction to our children that they might be reverent, they might be respectful, that they might learn. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits and live? For they verily after a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. No chastening for the present seems to be joyous. Mom and dad, look at me. If your children are delighting in your discipline, we need to have a talk with you. There's something about the old Puritan that made sense that struck a bell of harmonic rhythm within me that discipline must be severe. That this yoke that children have with sin, this wickedness, this love between the soul and evil, he's not going to respond to a nonchalant passivity in correction. You and I are living in a generation that's being taught to be liberal left wing, that we're all to be quasi tree huggers and that you cannot correct a child in an aggressive way and be loving. Beloved, that is new age, that is rubbish, that is refuse. The word of God says that we are to discipline them with severity. So all pastor, you don't know, you don't, I don't want my child taken away by DHS. I've never seen in 25 years of law enforcement, DHS take away a child from a parent because a parent disciplined their child with severity. The Bible nowhere forbids beatings. You know, well, pastor, I read my Bible says this. If you beat your child, they won't die. If you go and look that up and in its correct form, it doesn't mean beat like you think beat the blood. If you're not getting their attention, you're wasting your time. And I know sometimes culturally that we've not grown up in the home with biblical parenting. And sometimes we base the way that we train our children upon the way that we were trained as children. But as listen to me, friend, but as believers in Jesus Christ, aren't we to abandon our culture and to follow Christ? Aren't we called to abandon those practices and follow Christ? And I was blessed to grow up in a home where we had very stringent discipline. And I thank God for that now. I was begging God about it years ago that it may cease. Oh God, make you stop. You know, it produced a reverence in me. And I remember my mom and dad, we were little children, were four of us. And it didn't matter if there were four, two or 44 of us, we would have acted properly because there were strict rules. And if they were violated, there were dire consequences to follow. And my parents, thank God, loved me so much that they held me to accountability and to a standard of obedience. That my parents could have taken us four children into the president's home and we would have been respectful. We would have sat there on the floor with our little hands in our lap and our little legs crossed and we wouldn't have spoke a word unless we were spoken to, unless our parents gave us permission to do something else. I remember as children, and my mom and dad will remember this, I remember as children, them taking us to places and that we would get comments constantly on how well behaved we were. Is that right? Constantly. But if I'm not mistaken, I don't think that there was any other choice for us. It was fill in the blank and not multiple choice. But that's godly parenting. It's godly parenting. Beloved, and when our children are out of line, we have a divine mandate through a strict and severe discipline to bring them into obedience. I see kids that are wearing their mommies and daddies out. But the severity needs to step up. The severity of the child's action is overriding the severity of the parent's response. And beloved, it needs to turn right side up. You are the parent. Get them under control. Don't let them wear you up. You wear them out. You've got the anointing of the Holy Spirit for it. DHS is not going to take your kids away. Mike and Brandy called me. Can I tell the story, please? You still love me? I'm telling this in a good light, OK? Brandy called me on the phone freaking out because Michelle has kind of progressed from the cooey, cooey, gooey, gooey into that Proverbs child with folly bound in her little heart. And she was raising holy Hades at home causing grief for her mommy and her daddy. And that happens. There's nothing wrong with that child other than she just normally, a normal child born in sin. And Brandy says, what do we do? Yeah, timeouts don't work because that's not biblical. It's more of a, it's more of a paddle out. And so that's right. And so Brandy called and said, you know, what's the godly thing? What's the Bible say that we should do? And I said, Brandy, you need to get a paddle and spank her. And she was worried about the DHS thing. And I gave her some instruction, the same instruction I've given to many of you. And she's like, I'm afraid Michael beat her to death. And I talked to Mike and they didn't call back. So I got a little curious. So I called back. I said, who won? Brandy said, we won. There was no screaming in the background. She called me. I mean, it was, I mean, it was, it was war. It was war. And I knew that these two young parents were at their breaking point. They had had it. The timeouts weren't working. You know, listen to me, a timeout will not fix the, the, the, the binding of foolishness or wickedness in the heart of a child. They'll just sit there and time out. Whenever you let them up, then it's back to the same old wickedness. The Bible says the rod of correction will drive that from the heart of a child. That's what God says. So it doesn't work for us. Are you saying God's a liar? The problem is with you, not with God. The problem is with me and not with God. When God says the power of sin is broken in my life, the problem is not with God. If I'm still struggling with sin, it's with me. We got to quit blaming God for our misconduct and for our inappropriate, inappropriation of his word. She was, she was a new child. She was pleasant. She did. In fact, the, the punishment was severe. Brandy was a little concerned it was too severe. She, her butt was still red. Well, I can tell you, I remember from the public schools that two weeks later, my butt was still purple and green. Amen. Proverbs 23, please. Church, are you teachable? Church, are you teachable? No, I must give some practical advice. You can make discipline severe. You can make a paddling and the Bible ordains the use of corporal punishment. The Bible says use a rod, a rod and you strike. That's why God put that back there. You put it back there because that's where you put the paddle and it must hurt. And I've gone out on many, many cases of child abuse because I was a child crimes investigator for years and years and years. Not one time have I ever seen DHS take children into custody because they got a spanking. I've seen children taken into custody for sexual abuse, physical abuse, bloody noses and broken lips. And that's not appropriate. The rod, not the hand. Listen to me, parents, never, ever strike a child with your hand. These are for love. The instrument is for discipline. The child will associate the aggression with the instrument. If you use your hand, they'll associate it with you. Use a, use a rod and there must be severity. If you look in your bulletin, you'll see something, I think that is just so powerful. In fact, I'll just read it to you right quick. I've got a bulletin right here. It says God calls his children to be obedient and respectful. Obedience is the act. Honor is the attitude. And both must come into compliance. The act and the attitude. A lot of parents fail in that. They stop at the act. The act comes from the attitude. There must be a change in the attitude. There must be brokenness. In Proverbs chapter 23, starting in verse 14, the Bible says, thou shalt beat him with the rod. That's spank. With appropriate discipline to the buttocks. Amen. And that will deliver his soul from hell. Look at me, friend. The souls of our kids are at stake. The souls of our children are at stake. So pastor, when do I start disciplining them? Whenever they start throwing fits and rebelling. I was counseling a middle-aged woman in my office a couple of weeks ago that had a 16-year-old that was absolutely out of control, striking her mother, drinking. She's finding alcohol in the house and her little child's belongings. Said, I can't say anything to her because she just blows up and she gets violent. Said, how come you won't blow up and get violent? She just looked at me. Their eyes got big. Said, if my children blew up and got violent, there would be such a blow up and violence on my part that they would, to this very day, tremble in fear. I am the parent. God forbid that I cower down. She said, well, she's bigger and stronger than me. I said, call the cops. I remember one time, I don't know if she was with me, Chooch. Not, but we had some children that were unruly. And I remember wrestling a teenager down, holding him down. I said, now you spank him. It's a little bit unorthodox. But we never got called back to that house. Was you with me on that? We had a lady in the church and Stacey knows where I'm going with this. And she was a single woman and she had three children, boys, and they were running all over her. They were just running all over. And the other dad was out of the picture. And she called me one night that she had had a big blow up on her little boy. He was, what, eight years old? Assaulted her, was cussing her, calling her every foul word. I'm like, I didn't even know eight-year-olds knew those words. So I went to the house. He's locked himself in the bathroom. He's sitting on the toilet stool. He won't let anybody in. I'm like, open the door. And he starts lashing out, cuss words at me. I said, bring me a butter knife. So we're in the trailer house and I got the butter knife and I got the doorknob. And I fling that door open and there he was. Sitting there with his britches down around his ankle, sitting on the toilet. And I mean, a manifestation of the devil. I tease this kid about it now. He's a grown man now. I mean, the devil manifest. There's like, yeah, you know. And I'm like, what? I tackled that kid off the toilet. Got him down to ankles, a little bare butt right there. And I screamed at his mom and said, come beat him. We wore him out. Wore him out. And I tell you what, he started crying and he got up and he hugged my neck. And he apologized for being so naughty. And he apologized to his mama for being naughty. And that's the last time she ever called us to come to her house. Of course, she may have been thinking these people are crazy. Dear beloved, the rod of correction. Don't withhold discipline from your children. Don't withhold. I'm going to give you seven points of discipline. You ready for this? When you look back over these things, that wasn't real funny then. Well, it kind of was. Let's just also look back. You see, the principles of the word of God do work. Respect for you is not born into them. You create it within them. You create it. And they're not going to respect you for letting them get by with what they want. They'll respect you for setting up parameters and guidelines and then sticking to your guns. You know where I see parents fail the most? That they give up. They get tired and they just give up and they quit. Come on, folks, let's don't give up and quit. The souls of our children are at stake. You'll deliver their soul from hell. Beloved, God's called us to present our children as sacrifices, living sacrifices before him. This all has to do with the honor and the glory of God. I'm going to give you seven points of discipline. Number one, discipline must be biblical. Write it down. Write it down in front of your Bible. That way when you, I can't remember where I laid that. It's in the front of your Bible. Write it in your Bible. Seven points of discipline. It must be biblical. Number two, it must be consistent. I have a Jewish friend that's a physician. He's a pediatrician. He was there for both of my children's births. A dear friend. He's Jewish. And he told me when I was a young parent, he said, Derek, be a wall. Don't be a door. I said, what's that mean? He said, if a child sees the door open, he'll work until his fingers bleed trying to get it to reopen. But if he runs into a wall, seeing that the wall will not move, he'll never run into the wall again. He says, be a wall, not a door. Be consistent. Listen to me, mom and dad never side with the child. Always stick with each other. Stick with each other. Never be divided. Listen, there's been times when Stacey thought I was way over the edge disciplining the children, but she never expressed it in front of the children. She may later say, I think you were a little bit too far. And then we talk about it. But there was always a submission on her part to go with the way I felt as the leader of the home. God will come requiring of me as the head of the home, be in agreement. My children were never able to get us divided against each other. You get together with your spouse and you get a biblical plan for parenting your children and never say never, never deviate from it. Number one, it must, this one must be biblical. Number two, it must be consistent. Number three, it must be unpleasant. It must be unpleasant. Number four, it must deal with the added attitude. It must produce contrition. It must produce humility and it must produce brokenness. You've got to understand something that that evil actions come from evil thoughts and evil imaginations from an evil heart. This is coming from within. You must deal with more than the action. You must deal with the attitude. Number five, it always must be an act of love and nurture. Parents, let me give you a little bit of a biblical insight into discipline. Never discipline your child in your anger. Never discipline your child in your anger. You all know the knife story where Cody beat my $300 knife to giblets. And I told Stacy, I can't. I mean, we're talking about an hour of police interrogation to get the truth out of this boy. I had to implement police interrogation tactics to get him to confess because he knew what was going to happen when he did. And finally, we had a full confession of the crime committed. And I was so angry. I sent him to his room. I told Stacy, I can't lay a hand on him right now. I'll beat him to death. I was so upset. More with the lying. The knife was important too. But more with the lying. And so I waited probably an hour. And I'm sure that was probably the longest hour of Cody's life. And then went in a sober frame of mind to discipline him severely. But yet, without being angry. And parents, when you spank your children, then love them. Encourage them that they can do better next time. Because discipline must be done in love. Not spite or anger. Amen. And then say this with me. I have a teachable spirit. Amen. Number five is an act of nurture and love. Number six, it's an act of divine obedience. It's an act of divine obedience that God will hold us responsible for the commands and decrees that he has set before us in his word. Not only do I know that it's best for my child. But I do this because God has commanded me as a parent. Beloved, it does no good for me to lift up my so-called holy hands under the Lord. While I'm disobedient before God in raising up my children. That I will not obey his word in regards to discipline and instruction and nurture. And beloved, I want to be balanced in this. We must love our children and instruct them. We must nurture them. Bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. That beloved, I see more parents failing in the correction business. Because our society teaches that that is aggression. And aggression, all aggression is bad. Beloved, if it wasn't for aggression, your country would still be under the tyranny of England. And number seven. And I want you to put this in bold. It must be proportionate to the offense. Listen, because the kids don't do the dishes. We don't grind, we don't ground them until they're 104 and beat them for two hours. It must be proportionate to the offense. I told the woman that was in my office a couple weeks ago. I said, where were, where was your plea? She told me, she said, my child's been a hellion since she was born. And I go, where was your cry for counsel when she was two or three? Why did you wait for 16 years? There was no answer. And as Brandy and Mike have learned, you establish biblical parenting and biblical discipline in a young age. And the frequency of the utilization of that discipline will become less and less. I have a teachable spirit. Amen. Listen to me. There's nothing that comes from this pulpit in spite. There's nothing that comes from this pulpit to try to destroy and to put people down. I'll tell you the motive in my heart is that your family might glorify God. That you might present your children because that I'm responsible for you and what I've taught you. I hope that you can sense there's not any condemning spirit about me in this. And if you failed your children in discipline, set them down and repent before them. How many times have we done that over the years? Many times repented to our children for failing them and then begin anew. Discipline must be proportionate to the offense. I'm going to give you a couple scriptures and then I'm going to close this down. Ephesians 6, 4 says, Fathers, we need to bring up our children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. Not only is there to be discipline, there's to be appropriate training and teaching of our children in the biblical principles of Christ. And I made mention to you a few weeks back that it's not Vernon and Sabrina and Terry Henry's responsibility or Chooch's responsibility to teach the Bible to your children. That is a biblical mandate upon the parents. It's a biblical mandate to the parents. They will, Pastor Derek, I don't really know that much. Get in there and read and become a student. Teach them what you're learning. Go to the dentist office and ask them where they bought that Bible stories book and go and order one on Amazon or eBay and read Bible stories. Your children teach them, teach them biblical principles. Listen, whenever you're giving your child a spanking, don't say I'm spanking you because you stole a dollar from me. No, you take the reason that you're being disciplined is, is that we're to glorify God. And you're not glorifying God by stealing a dollar out of my wallet. The Bible says that in the Ten Commandments that it's wrong to steal. We show them that what the Bible says in Ephesians, let him that steal, steal no more, but work with his own hands that he may have to give liberally. Show him the Bible. So I'm disciplining you because you have violated the ordinance of God and that you grieve the spirit of God. And we're disciplining you because there's always discipline for for variance from the word of God, the violating principle. And instruct them. Now, don't give them a seven hour theological. Disposition, but just teach them that they have, they've, they've broken the word of God and there must be discipline. Colossians 3, 20, 21, provoke not to anger. And it says children obey because it's well pleasing to the Lord. Doesn't that tie right in? We're teaching our children to obey. Why? Because it pleases God. It pleases God. God's called us to glorify him. And we are God's looking and yearning for children that will obey their parents and also obey him. And parents don't ever think for a moment that your children will obey God if they won't obey you. Because you're God's frontline authoritarian. You are, you are God's Joab on the front lines. And if they will not obey you, they will not obey God. If they will not obey man who they can see, a parent who God has put an authority over them, they will not obey a God that they cannot see. I believe that obedience to the divine begins its work of grace through obedience to parents. And the Bible gives mandates to pastors that my children must be in control. I must rule my children as it says. And that my house must be in order before I can be over an overseer of the house of God. God takes child raising and discipline very seriously. And then the historic passage in Proverbs 22 is that you train up a child in the way that they should go. And when they're old, they'll not depart from it. Parent, your child is a living sacrifice to God. God has set forth mandates in his word about how those sacrifices are to be given in the condition that they're to be in, blameless. It's our responsibility as parents to equip and to train, to exhort, to nurture our children that they may be before God, acceptable sacrifices, wholly pleasing unto him, for this is our reasonable service. We're gonna always continue to intertwine godly parenting in the corporate assembly. And we've done this since the beginning of time, the time here. And we're gonna continue to do so because, you know, it's needful. These are fundamentals of the Christian faith. And we care about you, and we care about the honor of the Lord in such a way that we refuse to hold back, but to tell you the truth and to train you in biblical parenting. Amen. I have a teachable spirit. Amen. We all receive the instruction of the Lord in love. Listen, if you're failing in areas as a parent, don't receive this as condemnation. Receive it as exhortation and instruction on how you can be more of a godly parent, on how you can prepare your child for eternity, and how you can glorify God. Don't be a naysayer. Don't be a scoffer that says, oh, he's just pinpointing me. Beloved, I'm not pinpointing anyone. I'm pinpointing us as a body with the truth, with the truth. It's the gospel. It's the word of God. Amen. I'll stand.