This sermon emphasizes the importance of disciplining and training children according to biblical principles, highlighting the need for parents to chasten their children with love and firmness to prevent them from straying. It stresses the significance of family worship, Bible reading, and prayer in the home, encouraging parents to diligently teach their children the Word of God and incorporate it into their daily lives.

He that loveth his son spareth a rod, he that hateth his son further, he that loveth him chastens him to times. Proverbs 19 verse 18. Chasten thy son while there's hope, and let not thy soul spare if it is crying. What do you mean? Before he gets too big? Whip him while you're big enough to handle him? That's right. Whip him before he gets too soft in his ways, and so in alcohol or dope, whip him until enough of the wild crowd. Chasten thy son while there's hope, and let not thy soul spare if it is crying. What does that mean? Go ahead and whip him. You haven't licked him yet until you get that settled. Go ahead. You say whip him until he cries? Yeah, and you better whip him until he stops crying, until you know that's true. If you're still mad when you get through, you haven't whipped him. If you're still sulky, you haven't fixed this yet. That's right. I wonder how many here, everybody here was ever in the United States Army, were you? Anybody do a close order of the rest of your hand, were you? Oh, I remember the training of that old top sergeant, he was tough. And he'd say, wipe that smile off, and you wiped it off. Yeah. Well, if a top sergeant in the Army can make you fix your face, a dad and mother can whip a world of boy with a face fixed up and a heart fixed up. You better do it, too. That's right. That's right. Chasten thy son while there's hope. I had a letter from years ago from a family up in New York State. The man said, I married a lovely widow. Here's some stepchildren. She has a girl, 15, and she's breaking her mother's heart. Oh, she says she stays out till 1 o'clock at night sometimes and sashes her mother and does that and the other, and I don't know what to do. And I looked back and said, I don't know why I answer you. I don't think you're going to listen. But if you don't, you're going to have to answer to God for it. I said, the next time that girl speaks or turns her nose up at her mother or disobeys on any matter, I said, you take her down and you put her across one knee and you put your hand on the back of her neck and you put this over those knees and you get your ping-pong paddle or razor sharp, and I said, you wade in and whip her till she begs for mercy and tell her the next time it'll be twice as long and twice as hard and says, you go get this fixed. I said, I don't think you'll do it. You've waited this long, 15, and another few months, that girl's going to be a harlot. She's been no good gone if you don't do this right. And I said to the woman, listen, woman, don't you interfere. You stand there and say, go to it. You stand there and say, you're right. We've got to have this fixed, and you back him up in it. I got a letter after a while that wrote and said, the man said, I did what you said. I took her down. I blistered her good. And she cried and begged for mercy, and I told her the next time it'll be twice as long and twice as hard. And said, mother stood there and whipped her, but she said, go ahead, get this settled. Go ahead, I'm for it. We've got to get this settled. The girl's going to hell if you don't. And said, get that settled. Said that girl's the nicest talking girl. She loves her mother. She does her part of the work. She gets in when she's commanded to get in. And she said, oh, listen, chasing my son while there's hope, or it's too late. And letting up that soul's prayer for his crying. Now, you've got to take this to heart like you take John 3, 16 to heart. This is in the Bible. Again, there's Proverbs 9, chapter 22 and verse 6. Trent, if a child in the way should groan when he's old, he'll not depart from it. Trent, if a child in the way should groan up and go, and groan now, he'll stay with it. A woman wants me from Texas. And she said, Dr. Ross, I want you to pray for my son. He's 40 years old. He's married. He's got five children. She said, after women, he's a drunkard. He's a blasphemer. But she said, I want him to be saved. And I know, she said, I raised him right. The Bible says he'll come back to it when he's old. I had to write and tell the Bible. It didn't say anything of the kind. I said, that boy didn't stay with it because you didn't get it fixed. No, sir. And I said, you'd better confess to God you failed. About to train up a child in the way he should groan. Even when he's old and groan, out and gone, he won't leave it. He'll stay with it. You can get things settled for a lifetime. You better do it with your children. So I said, well, don't always be beating on the children. You don't have to. There's a way of whipping children. Till they get the idea, there must be some easier way to get through life than this. You know that? Amen. And you better believe it and try it. All right. What about family worship, Bible reading, prayer in the home? Let's find another text. Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 6, 8, and 9. And here's another wonderful scripture about the family altar. I'll show you. You know the 10 commandments are given. First in Exodus chapter 20. Then again in Deuteronomy chapter 5. And now in chapter 6 and verses 6. And these words which I command this day, this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently, thy children, and talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou layest down, and when thou risest up. Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be in front of thee between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them on the post of thy house, and on the gates of the word of God. Teach them diligently unto your children the word of God, and talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou risest up, and thou walkest by the way, and when thou layest down, and when thou risest up. Talk about the word of God. That means, you mean just day and day all the time? That's what the Bible said. Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. Do you teach the Bible to your children diligently? I thank God, what sweet memory. I know these girls feel that way. Oh, the memory of when we every day took the Bible and read it together. The way we did it, right after breakfast, everybody read the Bible. We tried it at night, but it's a little hard to keep the little kids from falling out of the chairs. You prop them up by 11 o'clock at night and try to read to them. Oh, have breakfast and get your Bibles, every girl, get your Bible, and you'd read. We'd read a full chapter, or if it's the Psalms, maybe two or three. And I'd take the first two verses, and the next girl two, and the next girl two, and the next girl two, and around we'd go. They'd read a whole chapter. And tomorrow we'd start on the next one, and we'd read those chapters, and then I'd read those verses through. And then I'd say, what about verse 13? Let's memorize that. Maybe I'd say, Mary, which verse do you like the best? Maybe I'd say, let me think what verse 7 means. And we'd talk about it, and we'd pray. Then we'd do some memory work. We'd memorize. I wonder how much. You girls, you still remember? We memorized the first Psalm, the 8th Psalm, the 15th Psalm, the 23rd Psalm, the 24th Psalm, the 27th Psalm. Remember? The 100th Psalm, 121st Psalm, 103rd, 126th Psalm, we memorized. We memorized. In the New Testament, in John chapter 1, chapter 14, chapter 15, we memorized Romans 8, Romans 12. We memorized Philippians chapter 4, 1 Corinthians chapter 13, Matthew 28, the resurrection chapter. In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene, the other Mary. She was the supper of the whole. It was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it. And, of course, the birth. Luke chapter 2, the birth of Christ. Luke chapter 15, the Prodigal Son chapter. Oh, yes. And how many others do we memorize? Oh, a thousand of verses we did. I'll show them. It's not an accident that all my girls were full-time workers. All of them saved. All of them got college education. It's not an accident. You can see that children, at first place, they learn to read. Right there at home and around the table. We read, listen, we read all the Bible five times. We read through the Psalms and the Proverbs 15 times, every line of it, in the tabernacle. And you can have the time. You don't have time for that, do you? How much time did that take? Well, Mrs. Rice and I, we still at home read four chapters a day together. One day we read four chapters, and I prayed and she prayed, and I prayed for over 100 people by name every day. And we got through, and I remember we read four chapters. Each one of us prayed. I remember it took 22 minutes. That's not so much. You say take 15 or 20 minutes a day away from the television program in order to read the Bible? Yes, or take down then your sight and quit lying about being a Christian. If you don't take time for the Bible, you're not a good Christian. If you don't take time, teach it to your children. Oh, the Word of God, teach it together. Teach it diligently to your children. Talk about it all the time, he said. And rightly so. On the wall of your houses, on the post of your gates, my, my, is your home obviously a Christian home? Can anybody come around there and feel, oh, this must be a Christian home. We've got mantras on the wall, scriptures on the wall, and they're talking about the Bible all the time. So it ought to be. Oh, my. As you're going to teach your children the Bible. Someone said, Brother Rice, we ought to have prayer in the schools. That's right. We ought to have the Bible written in the schools and prayer. That's right. They say, I hope they'll have an amendment to the Constitution.