This sermon emphasizes the importance of proactive parenting and guiding children in a positive direction, focusing on leading with love and direction rather than correction. It highlights the benefits of establishing a quiet, ordered life for children, drawing parallels to God's leadership and authority. The speaker encourages parents to take control of their environment, establish authority calmly and confidently, and lead their families in a peaceful and orderly manner.

Greetings, in the name of the Lord Jesus tonight. Thank you for all your joy and enthusiasm. God bless you, every one of you that are carrying these meetings on your heart. The devil is angry, but God is happy. In this session, this evening, we are going to continue to look at the guiding training aspects of raising children. I feel very burdened to focus on these again for two reasons. Number one, because many parents do not realize how easy it is to guide their children in a good positive direction. Neither do they realize the blessed results that come from that kind of positive guidance. The second reason is this. Many parents have fallen into the correction, nagging, spanking mode of parenting. This is not the primary focus as I see it in the Word of God. I was meditating in the shepherd's psalm in the light of this subject. A child could easily say, my parents are my shepherd, I shall not want. Surely they could say that. I noticed in this psalm, note this, out of 10 wonderful aspects of the good shepherd's care over the life of those mentioned in the psalm, only one is correction. Only one is correction. Only one time does he say, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. All the other nine aspects are the other ones that we're speaking about. God, our Father, is a leader. Primarily, He is a leader, not a corrector. We need to grasp this more fully as we ponder our responsibilities as parents in our homes. God, our God, our Father, is a leader. That is His prime characteristic. He is a leader of love and blessing and direction and teaching and all those things in our lives. And occasionally, yes, He is a corrector and He thanks us and we thank God that He does. There are some verses in Isaiah that describe so beautifully the blessing that this title of this message gives this evening. The title of message is a quiet, ordered life. A quiet, ordered life. I believe that's what God wants for our children and He's looking unto us to shepherd our children into a quiet, ordered life that they can look up like the sheep. Look up unto the shepherd and say, He leadeth me in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for His namesake. Amen. A quiet, ordered life. Isaiah 32, readings 7, verse 17 and 18. The work of righteousness shall be peace. The effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. My people shall dwell in peaceable habitations and in sure dwellings and in quiet resting places. There is a wonderful flow of thought in these verses, which is probably the goal of every sincere parent listening to this sermon. A quiet, orderly home. Amen. A quiet, orderly home where we can raise up our children to love God with all their heart. If you read the verses ahead of these, you will find that this will not happen until the Spirit be poured out upon us from on high. You look up in the text there. Until the Spirit be poured out upon us from on high. This inviting picture that is painted for us is the fruit of the Spirit. Have you noticed, brothers and sisters, how many times we find a reference to the Holy Spirit lingering nearby these many verses that we find on the home and the family in Isaiah. Have you noticed that? You go track them all back. You will find the Spirit of the living God hovering near every one of those promises. And I believe what God is trying to get through to our hearts is that there is no way we can do this except His way. I believe that. Oh, that God would pour out His Spirit upon our families and transform our homes into quiet resting places. Amen. Notice the motivating progression of truth in this text. The Spirit is poured out on us. That produces the right ways of God in our lives. As we walk in these blessed ways, they produce peace in our lives. This peace is first of all an inner peace, but then a peaceable order that works out in our everyday life. This outworking of inner peace produces a quiet inner assurance. Got that? Like the Lord Jesus had. He lived in a continual quiet inner assurance. I mean so much so that he could look Pilate right in the face when Pilate said, Don't you know I have the power to crucify you? He had such a quiet inner assurance it made Pilate tremble when he said, You have no power over me except what's given from above. That was the kind of quiet inner assurance Jesus had. Sorry, that's extra. Which in turn, this quiet inner assurance, it affects our homes. Our homes become stable, secure havens of order and rest. That is the will of God. Yea, even a little bit of heaven on earth. Amen. Thy kingdom come, O Lord. Thy will be done in every one of our homes, even as it is in heaven. That's our prayer. I think of the example of creation in this as we look at the subject of looking unto and longing to and for a quiet, orderly home. I think of the example in creation. The earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. You know, sometimes homes are like that too, aren't they? And the Spirit of God moved or brooded upon the face of the water. When God comes by his Spirit to chaos and prevails, peace and order is the beautiful result. Amen. O God, come to our homes and prevail. And dear brothers and sisters, that means God come and prevail over me. Come and prevail over me, God. And have your will in your way in me, God. That's how God will come and prevail over our homes. Sometimes it is hard to imagine this state of quiet and order in most of our American homes. We live in a very fast pace, don't we? Remember the rat race we talked about earlier? So many people are on this wheel and do not know how to get off. Maybe you're one of those. May God give you wisdom. Though the society goes on in an ever-increasing speed, dear brothers and sisters, there is a way that you can turn your home into a haven of rest and refreshment for all who enter there or live there, even if you live in a city. However, you must be willing to take control of your environment. I believe if you're willing to do that, you can have a sweet, quiet haven of rest, even in the midst of a city. Now, just a thought on that. This sermon is not a teaching on destructive influences in our home, but just consider. I wonder what would happen if we could get rid of all the noisemakers in the homes. You know, the things like the television, the radio, the toys, the boombox, the computer games, even the telephone ring, ring, ringing all day long. Silence has to be more peaceful than all that noise, even in a secular home. Back to taking control of your environment, which, by the way, if you got all those noisemakers in their house, I would encourage you to take control of your environment. Amen. The big question is, who will be in control of the home? Jackie and I have learned that children prosper and feel secure if they live in an ordered, controlled household, which we, as the parents, order for them. They do not prosper when they don't know what is going to happen next. And also, they do not prosper if they are allowed to be in charge of what they're going to do and what is going to happen next. They usually do not prosper. I cannot emphasize this enough, the many benefits of an orderly life. Now, I understand there may be those who feel that that's a bit rigid, and I would say to you, if the pace of your life is slow enough for you to just go with the flow and still remain a quiet, ordered household, great, no problem. But my experience is that most people who have no order are carried along by the strong currents of society and have very little peace and order in their homes. That is my evaluation. Let me give you just a little glimpse of some of our daily routine. Early in the morning, Papa's alarm goes off first. Shortly after that, Mama's alarm also goes off, but nobody is going to beat Papa out of bed in the morning. Amen? A little later, the girl's alarm goes off and the day is off to a good, sanctified start. Samuel's not in the schedule because the boy just got back from Africa. Joshua gets up at 5, and David is called at 5.45 for Bible tape at 6 with Mama and the children. They listen and read along with the Bible on CD until 6.30. Mama and David go over the daily light reading, remember I talked to you about that, so that David will have something to share in devotion. The others are off doing chores until 7.30. At 7.30, we have breakfast and it is finished by 8 o'clock. 8 o'clock till 8.20 is clean up time in the kitchen in the living area. Then we gather at 8.20 for family devotions. 8.20 to 8.30 is chatter time at our house. That's when everybody just chatters about all the things that come to their mind. That's from 8.20 to 8.30. We even call it chatter time. At 8.30, we begin to sing. We finish sometime after 9 o'clock. We are not rigid on this one. If devotions are really moving along like I described last evening, we go longer. From here, we move into work schedules and school schedules, and that's enough schedule for you to understand that our life is very much ordered. There's none of this stuff of everybody sleeping in until they want to wake up and skipping this and skipping that and grab yourself a bowl of cereal and go off to do this. We will have none of that. Children do not prosper under that. They do not. They prosper under what I just described to you so much better than the other. There seems to be some controversy about this ordered life, especially when children are young. Some people say it is too restrictive. The child has so little freedom. However, we all know, note this, we all know that true freedom comes by learning to live within a given order of society. And this was the essence and the wisdom and the blessing of this land that we live in today. But we are fast losing it, and we are losing our freedoms right along with it, and every one of us know that. Let's look at authority for a moment. Calm, quiet authority. God has placed the children completely under the authority of the parents. This is a beautiful place of prosperity. Remember what we said the other evening? All they have to do is obey. All they have to do is obey, and it will go well with them, God promises. It is also a place of abundant freedom. All they have to do is obey their parents all their days. I have learned by my own parenting experiences that God works mysteriously behind the scenes to establish this authority in a home. I for one, I do not believe that parents have to push their weight around, raise their voice, kick and fuss, spit, sit everybody down, lay down ultimatums, or say the words. Now listen here, I'm the authority around here. I do not believe that parents should ever say those words, because God has already established your authority. We already have it, and we need to confidently exercise it. That's as simple as that. There are several ways in which this authority is established. I want you just to consider them very quickly here. First of all, this authority is established in your home, number one, because God has already given it to you. It's already established. He has already said you are the authority in your home. That settles it. There's no other need to even discuss it. You just need to lead your family in the way that they should go. Let me use the example of a policeman. Consider a policeman. If a policeman is given that responsibility, if the state says to him, okay, you are now a policeman, put on this uniform and go out there and be a policeman, that policeman doesn't need to do anything. They don't need to parade him down the street, and he doesn't need to hold up a gun and tell everybody, hey everybody, I want you to know that I'm a policeman. See my uniform, see the stripes I have on my arm? By the way, you all better listen to me, because I'm a policeman now. You better do what I tell you. A policeman doesn't do any of that. A policeman just simply polices in confidence, without even a thought or a doubt in his mind. I'm a policeman, and a policeman polices. That is exactly what I'm trying to get across to you parents tonight. You are the authorities of your home, and you don't need to fuss about it. You don't need to carry on about it. You don't need to raise your voice to try to establish it. You already have it. It's done. It's settled. It's spoken. God spoke it. What more do you want than that? You need no uniform. You need no gun to flash around. All of heaven is on your side, dear parents, in this matter of authority in your home. Go and do it in the same manner that the policeman does, confidently, calmly, without any pomp or show, without any carrying on or hollering or anything. Just go do it. This will establish your authority more than anything else that I can tell you. Just the fact that you believe that you have it, and you move forward based on that truth, nothing will establish your authority more than that. Lead, man, lead. Just do it. It's done. Secondly, what will establish your authority in your home? Walk with God. When a man and a woman walk with God in their home, and they are the ones that are in authority, God gives them not only the positional authority of a parent, but he also gives them spiritual authority. There's a difference between positional authority and spiritual authority. Spiritual authority begins to work behind the scenes in mysterious ways in the hearts and lives of children. Spiritual authority, you get that from walking with God. This is a work of God. Trust him for it. This is the kind of authority that Moses passed on to Joshua. You know, when he was passing off the scene, and God said, okay, Moses, it's time for you to go. Go call Joshua. Put your hands on him, and what you had, he will have. And bless God, Joshua had it, didn't he? He had spiritual authority. Yes, he also had positional authority, but there's no question about it. When you watch what that man did, he had more than just a position. He had more than a uniform on that said, I am the boss. He had spiritual authority because he was a man who walked with God. Dear fathers and mothers, and you will also have spiritual authority when you walk with God, and nobody can shake against your spiritual authority. They can't do it. Number three, build a relationship with your child. This will also establish authority in your home. In this sense, being a parent is different than being a policeman because we are drawn into a very close leadership relationship. Policeman is not quite that way. He just kind of oversees things. Build a relationship with your children. As you draw close to your children, it will establish your authority. In a way, in a sense, a parent needs to earn the respect and the obedience of their children. Now, on the parent, on the children's side, God says, children obey your parents. But on the parent's side, God says, you walk with me. You build a relationship with those children. You lay down your life as a sacrifice for those children, and I will cause you to rise up in their heart. They shall honor you. They shall respect you. They will obey you, and your authority will be established. And number four, be consistent. Be consistent in your directing and in your discipline in your home. The children are very discerning. We all know that. They're no dummies. They discover very quickly where your true lines are. Be consistent with anything that you want to accomplish in your home, and you will have success. You see, the children, they can tell. They can discern it very quickly. This is where dad's really at. Dad says this, but this is where dad's really at. Imagine that. A five-year-old or a six-year-old, they know that already, and they do. And every one of you parents, you know they do. You've sensed it. And so, if dad says don't do it, but he doesn't really mean it, and the next time dad hollers and says don't do it, but he still doesn't really mean it, and the third time dad hollers even louder and grabs you by the scruff of the neck and takes you into the bedroom, then the child, he has it all figured out. No problem. Dad always says, but doesn't do. Dad always yells, and doesn't do. Then when dad really yells, he's really serious, and it's time for me to get really serious. They read you like a book. Establish your authority in your home by being a consistent leader, father and mother, and the children will understand very quickly right where the lines are. Some of the children are even smiling at me while I'm speaking these words. They're no dummies. No. We need to wake up, parents. All this is done in a cool, calm, collected way. Amen? No raising the voice. No getting angry. No getting upset. No. You don't need to do any of that. Just speak it and leave it out in your home. Oh, that'll bless your family. Dear fathers, if you can learn to do that, it will bless your family. They will learn. Oh, they'll learn so beautifully. So many lessons in life. Many parents are slow to do this. Then, through neglect, things get out of hand, and they rise up with emotional strength and set everything in order. For some homes, this scenario is repeated over and over again. The children slowly learn that this is what authority is, and this is how it works. They quickly figure this all out and live it up until mom or dad gets to that point where she exercises her authority. Listen, fathers and mothers, this is all wrong. This is a total distortion of God's original intent. Remember, we are the ones who are supposed to show our children what God is like. Is God like that? Is that how God deals with people? We know the answer to that. He does not deal with people that way. He is not like that. The children are receiving a perverted view of God's authority through the whole thing. If you are caught in this emotional trap, and your children are playing you to their advantage, I would strongly encourage you to establish some godly authority in your home and stay on it, and the children will very quickly fall into the lines that you draw. Let's look at another subject on this ordered life. Positive order or negative correction? Which one? The clearest expression of this authority is when a parent takes the active leading role in the home. That is the clearest expression of authority. Now, some parents don't have that one right. They think, I only exercise my authority when the children get out of line, and then I'm going to correct them. That is wrong. That is wrong. The clearest expression of your authority is when you take the lead and you positively lead this family, just like we looked at there in Psalm 23. He leadeth me to the green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He leadeth me in paths of righteousness. My father, mother lead me into good things every day, and I learn to follow and submit to their authority. Obviously, listen, if God tells the children to obey their parents, then he had in mind that we tell them what to do. Did you get that? Sounds kind of simple. I mean, we already all know that, but why don't we tell them what to do? Parents just kind of let things go as it will, and then they give corrections when things get out of line. Come, let us reason together. Think with me. Some of you businessmen, imagine trying to run a business this way with very little guidance and very little order. Imagine just sending all the workers out to the shop to go to work. No schedule, no training, no specific jobs, and no one in charge. And then you, the boss, you spend the rest of the day solving problems, correcting mistakes, and answering questions. How many of you would buy a business that runs like that? How many of you think that thing's going to make some money? Let me see your hands. Hey, you all know. You're all very good businessmen. Yeah, that thing's not going to make any money. That business will not last long. It will never make a profit, and the workers will soon quit in frustration, and so will the boss. Children who are given too much freedom get into more trouble. They tend to be more discontent and require way more spankings. And they usually have frustrated moms too, and dads sometimes, but more so frustrated moms. Oh Lord, open up the eyes of our understanding this evening to see, to see. What kind of parent are you? I have four categories to help you to evaluate. You just listen very closely. Are you a proactive parent acting in advance to deal with expected difficulties? This is the home where the parents are actively leading the children in the good and the right way. Planning and forethought is involved in this kind of parenting. Proactive parenting. Number two, reactive parenting. This is responsive actions based on difficulties that arise. These parents are very sincere. They want the children to do the right thing. However, they are more on the corrective nagging side of parenting. The children are allowed more freedom then out of concern when the children do wrong, the parents correct them. They really don't want the children to go wrong, but somehow they didn't figure this thing out that if you lead them to go right, they won't go wrong as often. So they run around putting out fires all day long and starting fires back here. That is not how you raise your children. Reactive parenting is not God's way. Then we have the non-active parenting. This is a passive attitude or difficulties. These parents through ignorance or carelessness leave the children to themselves and they just say, ah, children will be children. They don't even correct them. They'll sit in the middle of chaos on every hand and they're just as peaceful and calm as can be. This is the non-active, passive parent. That is a very dangerous kind of parent to be. And lastly, we have the explosive parent. A frustrated, highly emotional reaction to difficulty. These parents tend to be self-centered. They neglect the children and allow them way too much liberty. Then as the children express their nature, the parents explode in frustration, high emotions, strong hateful words are used to bring the house back into order. Which kind of parent are you? I am pleading for proactive parenting of those four categories. Do your children a favor and do yourself a favor before the boss quits. Proactive, that category is the most biblical, centered way to raise godly children. It will also give the most peaceful parenting experience. Obviously, you will have the best results if you begin your child's life with this kind of directed order instead of waiting till later. However, I want to quickly say anytime you move into the proactive mode, your children will prosper under it. So, I want to encourage you to do it whenever. But I'm pleading with you to start early. It will be better for you. It will be easier for you. It will be better for the children and you will have a peaceful home a lot sooner if you'll do it that way. For many parents, it is a totally new thought to think that you could order the life and routine of a small child. I'd like you to consider that just a little bit here at the last part of this meeting. Guiding and controlling and ordering the life and routine of a small child. The reason why this is hard for people to grasp is because we are so used to meeting the urgent needs of a helpless child. And I had that in quotes. I have emphasized these words on purpose because that is how many people think. A baby cries, oh, it's an urgent need. We have to go and take care of it right now. It may be, just consider, what we thought was an urgent need were actually urgent demands of a self-centered child. They are pretty self-centered, you know, aren't they? If the needs are in fact self-centered demands, guess what you're doing? Then we are training a selfish demanding child each time we cater to their cries. Sometimes I've heard parents say, what do I do with this monster that I have in my hand? A small child can be guided into an ordered life. They don't have to eat every time they cry. Did you know that? They don't have to eat every time they cry. Do you have to eat that many times a day? They don't have to eat. They don't have to be held or rocked every time they cry for attention. They don't have to. They can be guided and led into a more ordered life. We began to learn some of these things in a clearer way with Joshua and fully put them in practice with David. David was the most pleasant, easy to care for child that we have had. He has also required the least amount of discipline of all the boys that we had. Very interesting. Daniel and Christy and Andrew and Elizabeth have been carrying out these principles. Instead of just letting the child rule the house, rule the order, rule everything, rule the parents, they've been guiding the children in more of a quiet ordered way. And they're getting very good results. They have carried these principles beyond Mama and Papa Keniston. And praise God, we told them, pass us up. We told them to. And they are. And I thank God for that. They have been doing this with quiet, peaceful order in the children and freedom and life to do other things in mom and dad's life, like having devotions or spending time together as a couple in the evening. Sound all right? The question is this, is the child's life to order, be ordered by careful parents, or is the child's life to be ordered by the child's own desires? Pick me up. I want to be held. Feed me. I want some food. Rock me. I want to go to bed. And on and on and on it goes. I'm just giving you some thoughts. You think about them, okay? And if you think, Brother Denny's way off on this one, that's fine. Maybe I am. You think about it. Some of you busy moms that don't know what to do, and there's more things going on than you can keep track of, and you feel like you run from one to the next to the next to the next. Just consider what I say. Instead of living like that, start planning and ordering and directing the child's life. It may surprise you, but a small child can be taught to wait 30 minutes before it's fed again. Did you know that? They can be taught to do that. And there's nothing wrong with an empty stomach. Amen? There's nothing wrong with an empty stomach. In some cases, the children are being trained to express frustration and even anger if they are not fed right now. At the first whimper of hunger, they want their food. And some parents, you know what I'm talking about, and we know from our own experiences in our own child training days. You know, you feel like, I'm coming. I'm coming now. Please be patient. Now, who's in charge? Bless God. Who's in charge in that scenario? Child can learn to eat at a given time throughout the day. They can learn that. They can learn to be patient and wait until mom is ready to feed them. They can learn that. Child can learn to take a nap in a peaceful way at a certain time in the day. How pleasant to lay your baby down and just have the baby roll over and go to sleep. Or if the baby isn't quite tired yet, it'll just lay there in the crib and be quiet and soon it's off to sleep. The child can learn to enjoy quiet time for 30 minutes, sitting in a room all by itself, just being quiet or listening to a Bible tape. A child can learn that. Your child can learn to have playtime all by themselves each day, just going into a little room and playing all by themselves and learning even to be happy and pleased with only four toys instead of a hundred. Right? I mean, you know what I'm talking about. Okay, go play for a half an hour. And when the half an hour is done, the whole floor is covered. They really can be taught to just play with four toys and be happy with it. They can learn many, many things. You know, before Andrew and Elizabeth went down to Guyana, you know, they had their little quiet time for little Jenny and she sat in one of these little car seats. That's where she had her quiet time. She was sitting in her little room by herself in her little car seat and listened to the Bible. And she's just sitting there. This is a one-year-old. She's just sitting there as quiet as can be, just listening and the Bible's being played. But then, you know, Andrew and Elizabeth got to thinking, you know, we're going to a third world country. We can't be using car seats down there. We're gonna have to come up with a better way to do this. So they got rid of the car seat and now they have blanket time. They just put a little blanket on the floor and this is your blanket time. This is your quiet time, Jenny. You stay on the blanket and you have your quiet time and that little girl sits on that blanket for 30 minutes and enjoys listening to the Bible. I mean, we got a little letter from her on their airports. They were moving from this place to that place. No problem. Elizabeth just laid a little blanket out in the corner of the airport and Jenny went over and got on the blanket and had her quiet time for 30 minutes. Bless God. That's what she did. They can learn to do that. And guess what? You get and they get a quiet, ordered life. Now, see, if you begin to do this in a small child's life, guess what? It'll be very easy to do it when they get older and they will expect, they will look your way and expect that you are going to give them direction. This list that I just gave you is just a few examples of good, helpful activities that will be a benefit to everyone involved. But a child who is guided in this manner will be content, secure, and very pleasant to have around. And the home where this child lives will be a peaceful habitation. Amen. I'm sure every one of you mothers would agree that this would be nice to have such quiet order like that instead of running yourself ragged. And consider it this way, consider it this way, add a couple more children to the scenario and it really becomes a blessing. Now, all of a sudden you have three or four and everything is ordered for them and they're very, very compliable or this is what you want me to do now, I will go and do it, this one you will go and do this and this one I want you to go and do this and they're all going to do these things and guess what? You have a peaceful home and you have three or four children in your house. Then when a new baby comes, no problem, everything's in place. Many of you busy homeschooling moms, you don't know how to get it all done. Sometimes you wonder how can you do it all? Maybe if we could just guide them a bit more into quiet orderly things that they could do, it might free you up to be what you need to be in your home. All right, one last comment and we'll be done here. Perhaps this is too much for you to grasp. Amen. To imagine that a small baby can fit into this type of a schedule. Okay, fine, then wait until they're six months old and then start heading that way. Just wait until they're six months old and then start heading that way. That's the encouragement that I give to you. I know one couple, they had a set of twins and you know how it is when you have twins. You think, oh my, here we go, get extra help, two or three at least. You take care of this one, you take care of this one. You know why they think all that? Because if you think it's hard to meet all the crying demands of one, try meeting all the crying demands of two. But if you order the life of the one and the other, guess what? You can handle it without a whole lot of help. And this mother has twins and she's doing an excellent job and there's peace and rest in her home. There's peace and rest in her home and it's a quiet resting place.