In this sermon, the speaker discusses the importance of setting and maintaining standards in our homes. He emphasizes the need for clear communication and understanding between parents and children. The speaker highlights four key aspects of obedience: doing what is asked immediately, doing it completely, doing it with a cheerful attitude, and doing it in accordance with the child's level of understanding. He also encourages parents to consider the delivery and reception of their instructions, taking into account the individual abilities and maturity of each child.

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold. You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www.charityministries.org. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1-800-227-7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, AFPA, 17522. These messages are offered to all without charge by the free will offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. It's Friday night, isn't it? Friday night. Look where we are. Brother Denny gave a sermon a few months ago in Christians, those incredible creatures. This is incredible, isn't it? I think this is where we want to be on a Friday night, to talk about our homes and God and children and share. I'm just blessed just to be here to think that it's Friday night, but this is where we are. Again, I would encourage you to look at this as an open situation where you could make comments and ask questions. As we go along, especially, we'll be covering a little bit of material here. Brother John Ray is passing out something just for us to kind of follow as a guideline as we go through this topic that you can take notes on if you so desire. Again, I appreciate your comments and questions because that will help bring out things that others are thinking the same thing or wondering about the same thing. Not that I would have all the answers. There may be others here that have an answer that has gone through something similar to that that would help all of us. The topic is setting standards in the home. As we look at this topic and we think about our homes, it is very important that we communicate correctly and effectively with our children and spouse-to-spouse the standards in the home. This relates specifically tonight to the training of the children, to biblical discipline, if you will, but it really relates to every area because if the standards in the home are not clearly set, clearly understood, a lot of other problems will result. And I feel like this is an area that I see a lot of people, a lot of Christian people fail in, if you will. In other words, they understand the idea of biblical discipline. They've used the rod. They've heard different teachings. They've been exhorted. They've been encouraged to go on in this, even if maybe it wasn't the way they were raised. But then where the rubber meets the road and it gets down to the everyday life, then sometimes there can be some problems and some misunderstandings. And so what we want to do tonight is hopefully, by the grace of God, set out some ideas and some things, some biblical principles, that will help us in this very important area of setting standards. And I know, without even realizing it, that it's very easy, even in Christian homes, that we sometimes allow the way the world thinks to creep into this area of all areas, into our child training, because we hear a lot of psycho babble, if you will. You know, we have people talking about it in the grocery stores. It's in the newspaper. All these different ideas on how to do things. I mean, the home is a popular topic. It's a political topic even in this election coming up, isn't it? It's a topic that a lot of people have an opinion about. And as we've heard things and read things and seen things, some of these ideas can get into our way of thinking, even if we don't want them to. It's like mixing iron and clay. You know, we have a lot of Bible principles, but we also maybe have some worldly ideas that we may not even realize are there. And when you mix iron and clay, as we know from the example in Daniel 2 from Nebuchadnezzar's dream, when iron and clay are mixed, it doesn't stand, does it? That's the part that crumbles. And even though we may have good intentions, we may have some good ideas, if we mix our biblical discipline with worldly philosophies, it won't work. Let's turn to Colossians 2.8 for just a moment as an exhortation in that area as we get started. Colossians 2.8 says, Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. You know, we need to beware of what philosophy we have, what thinking we have. And in the area of training our children and working with them and setting standards and having the order in the home, it's very important that we look carefully. We often want to look at our children and say what they're doing wrong, don't we? But what we really need to do is look at ourselves and say, What are we doing? We're the ones that set the standards. And then we're the ones that rebuke and enforce the standards, change them and set the priorities in the home. So we need to see, we need to beware that we don't have these philosophies in our way of thinking. So I would just start with that encouragement or exhortation to ourselves as we look at setting standards in the home. First of all, we need to understand where our authority comes from. We know Romans 13.1, I'm not going to turn there now, says clearly that all power comes from God. All authority. Again, there it's talking more about government, but it's talking about all powers, it says, come from God. So we need to realize that. Colossians 3.20, I'm in Colossians here, so I'll just turn there real quickly. It says, children obey your parents in, this is a big word, all things. If you're a parent and you've read that, I hope you've slowed down a little bit and gotten real humble. It says, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. All things. That's authority, isn't it? So that's where our authority comes from. Our authority, you know, we need to understand where our authority comes from so that we'll then know how to wield it, won't we? You know, if we know where it comes from and what it's for, then perhaps we'll use it in a correct way. We have authority, don't we? That's not pride, that's authority. Because, see, we don't have that authority because we're bigger than our children. We don't have that authority because we're smarter than our children or we've read more books. We don't even have that authority because we pay the bills, do we? You know, some people have the idea, well, this is my home, this is my roof, and while you're here, you'll do what I say. That's not the reason you have that authority. You have that authority because it comes from God. And if we can let that kind of settle in a little bit and think about that. I know for me, it humbled me at first. It also encouraged me, but also challenged me to really understand where this authority comes from and then how to use this authority, therefore, since it comes from God, in a godly manner to bring about God's purposes. Since He gave me that authority and gives you that authority, He must have a plan. He must have a purpose for entrusting something like what we just read. Children, obey your parents in all things. In all things. There must be a divine purpose in that. Because if we pick that thing up and we use it in a wrong way when we've given that much of a blank check, brothers and sisters, that's a dangerous thing. We can make a lot of mistakes, can't we? So, as we look at setting standards in the home and what we're doing in the home, let us be conscious of where that authority comes from. So, it's established by God, our number one there, and it's practiced by both parents. Because as we see in verse 20 here, it says, Children, obey your parents. Plural, doesn't it? It's both parents. It's not just the papa. It's the mother and the father. Okay, let's get down now to B, which is where we'll spend most of our time tonight on this topic of setting the ground rules and standards for behavior. And I've underlined the word and and attitude. Setting standards in the home is not just of outward things. It's also an issue of the heart, isn't it? You know, God is more interested in our heart, I believe, than our outward presentation. David was chosen to be king of Israel long before he knew how to be king of Israel, wasn't he? He was chosen when he was still on the mountainside. Why? That's all his heart. It's all his attitude. It's all the way he was. And that's the way we want our children to be. Before they grow up and know how to do all the things they'll need to know to get by in this world, if you will, to act right, they have to have the right attitude, don't we? So training and setting standards is very important. And again, a lot of parents, even Christian parents, fail in this area because they think, Well, my son, he's just moody. He can't help it. That's just the way he is. Or, you know, he's a sad person. Or he's, you know, got a problem in this area with anger or whatever. You know, he'll grow out of it. Well, the attitude is part of setting the standards of the home of what we can expect. Again, we see the principle in God's Word, what God thinks about our attitude and how He works to plow up our hearts to change that attitude, doesn't He? And God has many different ways to get our attention and to do that and has made it very clear in those areas. So we need to make it clear to our children, too. Let's look at a couple of verses here in Romans 4 and 5 that I've got noted there as we start in this area of setting standards. Let's see, Romans 4, 15. We'll start with particularly the second half of the verse. The second half of the verse, because the law worketh wrath, for where no law is, there is no transgression. Where no law is, there is no transgression. Now, just think about that for a minute. Let's go over to 5.13. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Where there is no law. So if we go down to our number one hand here below B, it says there can be no transgression or sin if there is no law. So it is up to us to set the standards in our home. Now this is kind of a big thought, but when we give a set of standards or give a command or a directive or whatever you want to call it to our children, what have we just done? What have we just established? A law. A law. That's right. It's a law. Now that sounds like an intimidating word, doesn't it? Kind of a dramatic word, but it's a Bible word, isn't it? And it's a law because then they're expected to comply with that directive or that law. Aren't they? But if we don't set the standard correctly or clearly, and what our intentions are have not been made, then we need to pause for a second instead of flying off the handle and saying, why didn't you do that? Or, you ever heard parents say, you should have known better? And there is some truth to that. There are some situations that we can get into and talk about about folly where that's true. But in general, the responsibility is ours to set the standards. It's not the child to come up with the right idea of what's right and what's wrong and what's pleasing and what's not pleasing. They're children. And God gives them to us. And I'm sure you're like me. I love children. I have ten. And when I look at setting standards, this is not an onerous job or task. These standards are set and laws are given out of a heart of love. You think about it, the Bible is full of God's commandments, isn't it? And God's directives, His precepts, His law. And we know what the Psalms talk about that. You can read Psalm 119 about loving the law of the Lord. It's sweeter than honey. And on and on. And we're that way too, don't we? If we're born again and we love the Lord, do we love the law of God? Yes, we do, don't we? And I believe our children love our words too, if they're given out of a heart of love. Brother Kenny, a few weeks ago, preached that message on legacy of a blessing. And there's a lot of wonderful truths in there. He even mentioned in there, part of blessing is proper discipline, proper setting of standards, properly making sure your children know what you expect of them. So, you know, just as God, I believe there's nothing more loving than the law of God in the Bible. You know, the law is not to bring us down. It's because He loves us. You know, when God tells us what pleases Him, and it becomes a commandment, if you will, then because we love God, we want to do it, don't we? Out of a heart of love. And He gives it out of a heart of love. God was not mad at the children of Israel when He gave them the Ten Commandments, was He? He wasn't angry. He gave it to them because He wanted to have a relationship with them. He wanted to have a covenant. He wanted to bless them. That whole thing was about blessing. It wasn't about punishment. Now, sure, punishment can come. But the reason for it came from a heart of love. And if we can kind of think about that and understand that in setting standards, it will help us to have the right attitude and a heart of love in directing our children and communicating with them in a way that they can understand and that is a blessing to them. Two, children must have standards. Three, they must receive them with the right attitude. As we look at A and B here, watch the delivery and watch the reception. You know, the delivery, what I mean by this word here is when we're setting the standard, when we're telling our children something that we want them to do, whether it's how to make a bed for the first time for that three-year-old when he's learning, or somebody that should know how to take out the trash and we're telling them that today is their turn to take out the trash, whatever it is that we're directing them to do, we're responsible for the delivery of that standard in a correct way. And to do that, we must know and understand the level of our child. And if you have more than one child and you're here tonight, you've learned that your children are at different levels, aren't they? And they don't all progress at the same rate either. And so we have to become students, if you will, of our children and have some discernment to know how to communicate to that child and then to this one so that our delivery, what we're telling them, is understood by them so that it can be received at where they are at their maturity or their ability to understand at whatever age they are. Then one clue on that is to watch the reception. You know, in our home, we require a verbal acknowledgement of whatever we're telling our children to do. We're from the South, so our children say, I'm going to say yes sir and yes ma'am, but I'm not saying you have to do that. But it's a real good idea, you know, because if you ever told your child something and then later they go, I didn't hear you. Or, I thought I heard you say something, but I wasn't sure what you said. And then confusion happens. You know, when we read the Bible, I hope there's no confusion. When God says, you know, a commandment in the New Testament or whatever, to love your brother as yourself, I hope we don't say, well, I didn't hear you. I hope we read that and that we receive it right. And God has written the Bible so that we can understand it. Praise the Lord. You know, He's opened our eyes and given us the ability to understand it. It's not above us. We need it to not be above our children. It's our responsibility. You know, I believe the Bible was God's responsibility. It's not ours, it's His. He gave it to us and I'm thankful for it, but it's His responsibility. It's His word. It's not my word. And so, our word is what goes to our children. It's not their word. It's our word. So, it's up to us to then, to watch the reception. It's not up to the child. Yes, as they get older and maturity, then they're more accountable. But in general, watch the reception. As part of reception, we practice things. You know, we practice standards out sometimes. You know, that may sound a little silly, but it works for us. And I know one area that we do it in is I've heard some parents have a struggle at times with different things. It can be in the area of even disciplining the child with the rod. They say, well, you know, they just don't stand still. Or they, you know, they try to leave the room or they struggle or they just don't seem to receive it in the right way. Well, one of the things we do, we adopted several children who had never been trained biblically. And they were older when we got them, five, six, and seven. And so, there had to be some training in this area. And so, we actually would practice. You know, we'd give them the standard, make sure they understood it, they acknowledged it. And we'd say, now, when we go in here, this is what you're going to do. And we would explain to them exactly what was going to happen, how it was going to happen, and then what their response needed to be and what their response shouldn't be. You know, so it's good to take a minute to walk through things. And again, that's just one example. I'm sure you can think of others in your home where you've had to walk through things with your children. For some reason, they don't seem to get what you're trying to tell them. So, you actually need to practice it and to make sure that their reception is that they've got it, that they understand what you're trying to tell them to do or to not do, whatever it may be. You know, they must receive them with the right attitude. I kind of skipped over that to get into these others. But just part of their reception is their attitude, too. And let's just turn to 1 John 5.3, I think it is, what I'm looking for here. 1 John 5.3, yes, okay, that's it. 1 John 5.3, For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous. Meaning, we don't moan and groan at the things of God. We say, what a blessing, praise the Lord. He loves us enough to give us these things. We love Him, and that's our response is to obey them. So, our children also, you know, we look for as part of this is that they must have the right attitude. Because if they don't receive something, I know if you're honest with yourself, you'll know that, too. That if you don't receive something with the right, if you start off with a bad attitude about something, it's usually not going to come out right, is it? And so, our children, part of this, one of our standards, if you will, is that they receive the standards, receive our directives, our law, if you will, with the right attitude. And that's what we're trying to do. Because what starts right has a much better chance of happening right and working itself out. You know, there's many purposes for setting standards. We don't really have time tonight to get into all those purposes. But the purpose of setting standards just isn't so the children mess up, you know, and then you have a confrontation. The purpose is so that they'll do right and learn the right way to do things, that they could obey you in all things and be pleasing. Again, as we go back to the purpose for that authority, obey you in all things, the things are what we set, aren't they, the standards. So, we want to be clear in this, and we want to make sure that we communicate effectively. If appropriate, it should include a warning or a consequence. We know the Bible gives us that illustration, too, doesn't it? There are some things where God clearly gave a standard, and then He said, but if you don't obey me in this area, this will happen. So, I think there's a general principle there. I'm not saying that's always true with our children. You don't always have to give them some big warning every time. But every now and then, it's a good idea that they're reminded, just like God reminds us sometimes, that sometimes, you know, there are consequences to our actions. And instead of waiting until there's a problem and then going, aha, now there's a problem, you tell them ahead of time, you know, this is what I want you to do. And if it doesn't work out right, well, then there's going to be some consequences. And these are what they may be. So, it's a good idea to sometimes do that. Must be attainable. We kind of mentioned that earlier. We can't make a requirement that they cannot handle emotionally. Maturity. And there's a couple of little thoughts down there. The same thought is make sure the standard and the penalty match the maturity. In other words, you wouldn't want to try to train a two-year-old to make their own bed by themselves. That could be just beyond their ability to do that. You can think of other examples in your home. And some standards actually need time for development. You may start a standard, but the child may not be at the full completion level. You may be training your four-year-old to set the table. Well, the first couple of times, even if you showed them once, it may still not come out just the way you told them. You know, some standards require a little bit of development. And I'm glad God is patient with us. I know there's a lot of things in the Bible I'm trying, but I don't get them right the first time or the second time. But I think, again, we need to see, as God, I hope, sees the beat of my heart and my response to Him, I hope we see the hearts of our children. We have some discernment and allow a little scope for development so that we're not just black and white, black and white, black and white. I know that's not the kind of relationship that we want, or I hope it's not, that God has with us. See down there below, children can learn instant obedience to simple commands. And that's the other side of this. Some things take development, but some things must be done immediately. You know, stop, come, sit down, whatever. Even very small children can learn instant obedience to simple commands. God gives us very simple commands too in the Bible that He expects us to understand very clearly. You know, as we look at this word obedience, I've used it a couple of times. I'd just like to give a definition of what that means in our family. This may help you as you think about it. I think it's a good idea to have a definition that you have in your mind, and even in the minds of your children, what does it mean to obey? Of course, you think right away, well, it means to do what you say, right? That's the simple thing. You say, take out the trash, and what do you expect? You expect your 8-year-old son that you've just told it to to go take out the trash. But you know, there's a lot of different ways he could do that, isn't there? He might sort of mosey and meander, and 30 minutes later, he's about half done. Well, he completes the task. He has obeyed, but, you know, he hasn't really carried out your intent, has he? So part of us, it's not just doing what we say, it's doing what we say immediately. In other words, we must see a response. The second part of our definition is completely. You know, he can take out the trash, and he misses, you know, three of the bedrooms, or he forgets the bathrooms, or, you know, whatever it is, if you've explained the standard that's been set, but it's just not getting done right. It's just not completely done. So it's not just doing what we say, it's doing what we say immediately and completely. And then the fourth part is the attitude. For us, we use the word cheerfully just because our children seem to relate to that word better than contentment, although you do use the word contentment because it's a Bible word. As we see in Philippians with Paul, that he learned the secret of being content. So we teach them that they must receive it, but then actually carry it out. And again, we've seen children that obey, that even go right away and do things, but their attitude is not cheerful. You know, they're like dragging the trash cans, boom, boom, boom, boom, and their face is long, and they look like you've given them the worst job in the world to do. They do do the job, don't they? They have obeyed. But have they obeyed? Well, again, in our home, just to share that with you, we actually have a definition so that they understand the expectation that every time we give a standard, we don't have to say, now do it now, do it all the way. You don't have to go over that every time, so that that is an understood idea in their mind of when we tell them to do something, what that obedience really means. So as we go on down through here at the bottom of this page, willful disobedience is treated as rebellion and necessitates chastisement. Well, we'll get into chastisement a little bit more later. Rebellion is the child's attempt to exert his will and law over the parents. If not control, all rebellion leads to revolution, which is an overthrow of authority. That's kind of a big phrase, but really what it means is if you've ever been in the grocery store and seen a five-year-old who wants candy and starts kicking and screaming and the parents saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, 20 minutes later, the child walks out of the grocery store with the candy, who's in control of the family? The child. Because rebellion is just simply, we need to understand that that child is trying to exert their will over your will. You're the one that's being given the authority. Again, we love children, we're doing it with the right heart attitude. This is not done because we're mad at them, it's because we love them, but when we have rules and we have standards, we need to be serious about them. We need to understand that when the child comes against that authority, that they're trying to exert their authority, it's rebellion. And there is an end to rebellion, isn't there? Rebellions lead to revolutions, and revolutions are an overthrow of authority. And we can see that progression in the world, and we've seen that progression in families in America. How many homes in America do you think tonight the children really actually control? Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds. I don't know the number, but it's scary. And if you've been out in public and grocery stores, and it's not just worldly families, there are Christian homes that have some of these problems too, where the children are very clever, if you will, at exerting their will and getting their way. You know, there's lots of different covert ways. It's not always an overt, open expression of no. There's other ways to get their way, but it's the same hard attitude, whether it's a passive or covert rebellion, which is just trying to get their way over your way, as if it's overt and open. You know, most children learn pretty soon it doesn't work to just blatantly defy mom and dad and just shout no. But they can come up with ways to go around that authority, and we just need to pray for discernment and make sure our standards are clear, so that we'll be clear before God and clear with our children to handle that. And as we're talking about this idea of standards, a good thing to remember, of course, is the very next verse in Colossians that we read in chapter 3, verse 20-21. Let me turn back over there. It says here, "...fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged." Isn't it interesting how God balances the Scriptures for us? You know, in the verse above that, all authority vested with you. You know, it's just like you've been given this divine commission to have your children obey you in all things. But then God says here, "...fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged." Discouraged. You know, if we go too far, and we don't have this thing done with the right attitude, as I talked about earlier, we believe that God, and we know from Scripture, has given us the things in this book out of a heart of love, because He wants fellowship with us. If it were for any other reason, I think we'd get discouraged after a while. And that's why we have the New Covenant. That's why Jesus came. So that we could see the heart of God. Jesus said, if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father. Praise the Lord. Well, we want our children to see our hearts. And they see that in the way that we deal with them. Not just when they do wrong, but as we're setting standards, and as we're blessing them when the standards are kept correctly, and as we're having this interaction in a good way, back and forth, just like God blesses us. When you obey God, and you feel the grace of God come down in your life, I know you've experienced it if you're a believer, and you think, this is beautiful. You just have this feeling that you know that you've pleased God, and that He loves you, and you love Him, and there's just this closeness, and it's all just about obeying the Scriptures, and God has given you the grace to do it. Well, there's some of that in a much smaller way, don't misunderstand me, that goes on with you and your children. When there's that love, you've done things for them and set standards, and they've responded and accomplished them, and you've praised them and let them know, that was a good job, I appreciate that. And they just feel that, and it's like grapes. You're just giving them a boom in their life. And you can just see them. You know, they stand a little straighter, and their face is a little brighter. And the next time, they almost volunteer to do it on their own. And that's the way it works in the right way. And we want that. But here, and I only say that in a positive sense, because of verse 21, because it's a warning. And notice who the warning... The verse before was to parents. Do you notice who the next verse was to? Fathers. And I'm not going to say that mothers never have a problem with this, but again, God knows our friends. What does it say in Psalms 33? 15, He fashioneth their hearts alike. God knows the stuff that we're made of. And He knows that as men, sometimes we have a harder time, we have a little bit more critical spirit, sometimes a lot more critical spirit, with our children. And when we're setting standards and they don't comply, we're harder on them in a way that is not right, heavy handed. And even when they do comply, instead of blessing them, we say nothing. We just let it go. And that can even be discouragement. I believe that's a way of even provoking the children, is by not having that grace, if you will, poured into their life. So, I would just give that word to the fathers, from one who's made that mistake, myself, and seen where I was wrong, and then had to apologize sometimes to my children in this area for not observing, and not blessing, and instead provoking. You know, we don't want to provoke. Provoke means to prod in a bad way. Okay. All these things lead to a situation, if the standard is clearly set, where one of two things happens. Either the standard is met, the directive, the law, the command, is met, or it's not. It should be, hopefully, that clear. You know, again, there's going to be some gray areas, there's going to be some misunderstandings. We may talk about that in a minute. But, generally speaking, these are the two things that happen. And therefore, if they do not comply with the standard, there is a natural confrontation, if you will. And if you're like most people, most of us weren't trained or raised to be very good at confrontations. And as we get into this next subject, rebuking the child, for the sake of time, I'm not going to read all these verses. Are we on gospel time tonight, Brother John? But as we get into this next area of rebuking the child, it creates a confrontation. And I don't use that word in a negative connotation. It just means that the issue has to be faced. That's all it means. And most of us aren't good at facing problems or facing an issue that's gone wrong. Most of us have not been trained properly in this area. And we see that not only in families, but we see it in the church too, don't we? You know, I've heard many preachers talk about this whole area of rebuking and confrontation, even though the Bible teaches very clearly, I think, about it, that it doesn't seem to work out in near as many cases as it should. And I think part of that is our mindset is we have this fear of confrontation. We have this fear of telling somebody, you've done wrong. This is not right. We need to have correction here. We need to make this right. You know, those kind of things cause a little bit of unease in our spirit. We'd much rather come and tell them the good things. And that's natural. I'm not saying that's all bad. But actually, if our heart is right, and we really love, we'll see that rebuking our children, and rebuking is a Bible word, reproving our children, is really an act of love. It's showing them that they've done wrong. So when we say, what is rebuking? It just means to bring to the light that somebody's done something wrong. You know, there are many false teachings out today on self-esteem. And I'm not taking away from blessing our children and being positive, but self-esteem would say, as it's taught today, well, you don't really ever tell anybody they've made a mistake because everybody's special, and everything they do is really wonderful. Well, you know, it's no wonder that today we have easy-believism rampant in America where the preacher can get up and say, if you want to be a Christian, just raise your hand and ask for Jesus to come in your heart, and you'll go to heaven. You'll go to heaven. Your ticket is punched. Where is the repentance? Where is the conviction? You know, there is this sense that we need to know we've done wrong. And again, where there is no law, there is no sin. But where there is no rebuking, then there's a problem too. So this is a natural consequence of what's happening. There's more than two biblical purposes for rebuking and looking at our outline here. The two that I've got down is A, expose sin, and B, a call for repentance. Rebuking is really a time of instruction too. But certainly, it exposes the sin. It lets the child know in the area that we're doing here. In other words, it puts the light on it. You say to the child, well, you know, if you'll remember, I told you to do this, and you acknowledged it, you understood it, you didn't do that. What you did was wrong. And now we're going to need to deal with that in whatever the consequences may be for that particular wrong action of the child. And it also involves a call for repentance. You want to say, what did you do wrong? And we get a verbal response. We need them to acknowledge what they did wrong. Not to make them feel bad, but so that they understand, okay, yes, I remember you told me that, and what I did, oh, that is wrong. And we ask them, well, what should you have done? And then if we can, and often we can, we'll ask God to bring to mind a Scripture or something that will help us to make it understood in a biblical perspective. But once they've admitted that they've done wrong, it's very easy to then have them realize that they need to say, I'm sorry. Because once the realization comes, I've done wrong, then the response should be, and it's much easier to then to help, especially with younger ones, draw it out of them. You know, don't you need to say, you're sorry, you did wrong, that's not right. And you can help their mindset to understand that when they've done wrong, that there's a call for repentance at that time to say that they've done wrong. If the child is not accountable, and there's situations that happens and you realize the standard was never clearly set, then you need to still go ahead and rebuke the child, and you need to reset the standard again more clearly, or you need to set it again. If it just comes out that it was never really set properly, you need to set it again. And 4 says, if he is accountable, that is, you have clearly and correctly set the standard, he must acknowledge and be punished or chastised. So at this point, the reason, you know, kind of walking through this in a real simple thing, I appreciate Brother John's analogy of the maintenance. This is hopefully nothing any of us have really never thought through. But it's something we need to keep thinking through as we think about our relationship with the Lord in our own lives, and as we think about our relationship with our children. This is good maintenance for us to think through these steps as we want to bless our children, as we love them. We want to do this in a proper, biblical way. We don't want to mix iron and clay, as we mentioned earlier. And now we've kind of squeezed it down And what happens here in number 4 is, if he is accountable, that is, you have clearly and correctly set the standard, he must acknowledge and be punished or chastised. And this is where the confrontation comes that we were talking about earlier, where you then make the decision how to handle the punishment or the chastisement. And the key here is, at this point in time, there should be no surprises. You don't want to have your child looking at you at this point in time and say, what did I do wrong? I don't understand. And we've experienced that. Your children, they give you that bewildered look sometimes as if, I didn't do anything wrong. What are you talking about? I didn't do nothing. You know, whatever their response. That hopefully would not be happening at this point as we've worked through this. And this sounds kind of long and tedious, if you will, as we're talking about it. But actually, these things happen very quickly as we get conversant with this thought process, if you will, of training our children of setting standards clearly, you know, watching for the reception, the delivery and everything. It's really not that time consuming, but it is worth taking our time to do correctly. So, what happens if a parent doesn't rebuke? This really should have fit in up above, but I believe if the rebuke, a lot of parents will set a standard, I've noticed, and then when it's not complied with, they just immediately jump to chastisement or punishment. They just kind of, oh, that's wrong. Boom. And they just go for the jugular. I mean, they try to get to the end too quick. And the rebuking is really such an important and really beautiful part of the relationship if it's done, again, with the heart of love. We're not mad at our children. We're not provoking them. We're teaching. We're bringing to the light. We're exposing sin so that they can have, you know, what do we want for our children? We want them to be set free, don't we? We want them to have a clear countenance. You know, if you've been born again, you know what it was like when you were convicted of sin and God's light was shined on your heart and was exposed. There was a rebuking, if you will, convicting of the Holy Spirit. Burdens were rolled away. There was this clearing, this setting free. You know, children who are not rebuked correctly and who don't really have a chance to acknowledge and have that forgiveness, you know, they're the ones that are kind of, you know, they have a dark countenance, you know, shuffling around. They're not free, are they? And yet, children that have this, you'll see there's a peace about them. I believe that they have just a peace and a calm and just what you could call a clear countenance. You've seen those children. You can just look right in their eyes and it's just that there's nothing there. And there isn't because their parents have really in love taken that load off by correctly setting things and then correctly rebuking and then whatever punishment. The punishment or chastisement should almost be anti-climatic, if you will. I mean, we tend to kind of focus on that. But really, that's just the end after everything else has been done properly. Just a couple of clues. Never ask a child, why did you do that? That's not rebuking. You know, a lot of parents think it is. Why did you do that? You know, I don't understand. And children are very inventive and creative. They're going to give you some really good reasons. Just like in the Scriptures, when Moses came down from the mount after the Ten Commandments, he asked Aaron, why did you do that? Of course, he had all kinds of excuses. Well, the people made me, you know, on and on and on. And, you know, we can certainly ask them what happened and how did it happen and get the information, but we don't need to dwell on the whys. Just a quick word here about punishment. Punishment, as it's taught in the Bible in Leviticus, again, we won't turn there. Chapter 24, the reference is there for you to look up and study, would really deal, if I could squeeze this passage down, 17 through 22, it's really rightful restitution, if you will. There are some things your children do that are not rebellion, that are not necessarily folly, but there's a problem in the way they're responding to your standards and they're not obeying completely in an area. And it may be an area where, you know, they need to give something up. You know, maybe they have a toy and they just haven't shared quite right. You know, it wasn't really open rebellion to the direct command you made, but you have a general principle of sharing and you're just not happy and you just say, well, you know, I've observed this and did you do this? Yes, and you didn't share right. Well, I think I'm going to take that toy in my room for two days and it's mine and you're not going to be allowed to play with it. So that would be a punishment because you've withdrawn something. So there are certain situations and again, it's going to vary family to family with the standards that are set and how they're carried out as to what would be punishment and what would be chastisement. Chastisement, of course, is a Bible word and basically in relationship to our children, it's the use of the rod. And we can look up Proverbs 22, 15, 23, 13, different ones there that would tell us about the use of the rod in dealing with rebellion and rebellion would be a direct disobedience. Also, the Bible talks about the use of the rod with folly. The next section there is how to administer the punishment. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that. Only after the standard was set, we've covered that. Without favoritism among children, that verse that I've referenced there in Deuteronomy 1, 17 talks about not being a respecter of persons. We need to be careful when we're dealing with our children that we're not a respecter of persons. We love our children, but we need to be careful. You can get caught sometimes in a trap of showing favoritism in a wrong way that can hurt the others. That can be a provoking to anger. After confession, without anger, we've talked about that. Chastisement, we'll go down to about the rod for just a second. You know, the Bible, I've looked in the Bible about the word rod and I've looked at different definitions and they're all very consistent when you're looking up in dictionaries and whatever. They all say that a rod is a long, slender piece of wood like a twig or a branch or a wand. The word wand is often used. And so in our home, when it comes to chastisement, which is again used for rebellion, direct disobedience and folly, we use the rod. We don't use a kitchen utensil. We don't use a hairbrush. We don't use a paddle. We don't use a shoe. We use the rod. Now, I know some of you may use some of those things and I'm not saying that's all bad, but it's not all good because I believe the Bible is very clear. There's something about the rod and I'm not saying I fully understand that, but I trust the Bible and I trust God and I would just encourage you to think about that a little bit on the actual application of it when we get to the final step of the chastisement. Are we using a rod or are we using a hairbrush or whatever? Or are we using a board and calling it a rod? You know, our children are very concrete and literal. When they read the word rod in their... They don't read hairbrush. You know, they're very black and white thinkers. You know, they read a rod and they know what it is too. And so I think we need to pray about that a little bit and try to be consistent in being a lover of the Word of God and use the instrument that God has defined. Again, it's His way of doing it. It's not mine. I didn't come up with the word rod. God did. And I don't believe it's a symbolic word. I believe it's a very... Just like spanking is not... It's not a spanking you're giving them. It's a real spanking, isn't it? So then you use a real rod. So I would just encourage you to think about that a little bit. Forgiveness. Forgiveness is complete and unconditional. This is one of your responses. We've kind of talked about this a little bit. But I would like to look up this verse in Isaiah 43, 25. And I think I'd like to finish with this and hopefully get some comments or questions or thoughts from some of you. But I feel like I've gone through this pretty quickly, although again, I feel like it's pretty basic. It's good maintenance for all of us. Let me read this verse in Isaiah 43, 25. This is God speaking here. He says, I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for thine own sake and will not remember thy sins. Will not remember thy sins. I love that verse. I mean, you know, glory. I mean, I think of the things that I have done and the things that I do. And then I pray for forgiveness. And what if every time I went back to my prayer closet, God said, well, I'll hear your prayer. But Rick, you know, I remember when you didn't do that right, when you treated that person wrong. I remember the anger last week. And fuss, fuss, fuss, nag. Aren't you glad God doesn't nag? And have you heard parents who when their child does something starts giving a list or a litany of everything they've done wrong that week. And you did this. When that was supposed to have already been forgiven and forgotten. You know, as God deals with us that way, I think there's a principle here that we really need to let settle in. You know, nagging and giving this list of past sins. I think that can be provoking to anger. I think that can be a discouragement. And I've seen parents do that and I've been guilty of it at times myself and had to pray for forgiveness and ask my children. Because, you know, forgiveness must be complete and unconditional. You know, again, that's an expression of what our love. Are we really just angry because they haven't done what we've said and we're frustrated? Or are we doing, setting the standard and rebuking them for their good? Whose good is it for? Is it for us or is it for them? We must have that principle firmly embedded. We don't give these standards because we're mad at them. We do it because we love them. And that is the biggest thing I would leave with you tonight. Praise God, He is a forgiving Father. And we need to learn that same principle. I think I'm going to let the rest of the outline. There's only a few points there. There's not much. You can look the Scriptures up. We've been going, I think, about an hour. I think that's enough to get the basic idea and to do the basic maintenance as our brother has encouraged us to do tonight. Any thoughts or comments or questions? Yeah, right. Usually the way I do it is I ask for the facts. I say, you know, I try to help them recreate the situation, particularly if I wasn't there and didn't see. Now, if you've been there and seen it, you have a big advantage because you know what's happened and you can lead them right through it. But often, hey, our children aren't right under our vision at all times, are they? And so what I try to do is have them recreate the scene, if you will. I say, now what happened? What did you do? Who else was in the room? And you know, as many of us have learned, if you're a parent, you've got to be part detective sometimes because you've got to piece a story together. And again, you don't do that in anger or whatever, but you want to know what happened so that you can understand what your response should be because if you make a wrong response and go down this direction, and that isn't what really happened, it can be for the hurt of the child. So I ask a lot of what questions. What happened? Where? When? Who else was in the room? And if I can get a second person in there who did have a bird's eye view who saw it, because often the other children will observe something and say, well, did you see this? Well, what did you see them do? What didn't they do? Okay, are you sure? Okay, now you understand that I'm receiving this and that if it's wrong, I may be dealing with your brother or sister on this issue, so it's important that you get it right. And sometimes if they don't know, they'll say, well, I'm not sure. I'll say, okay, that's fine. So I just try to recreate the scene, I guess, if you will, and get as many facts as I can. And as you'll find, it's not a perfect world we live in, and sometimes we can't do that. But I believe if you do that with the right heart and your children get used to you questioning them in this way, that they'll kind of learn to flow with it and then you'll get better at it too in recreating the scene. But again, I would encourage you to not use the why question because then it'll just bring in topics that really have nothing to do with the specific action. It'll just be their feelings about it or whatever. And those can come out at a different time for a different reason. I would also say just as your question, just sort of another thought. You know, look, as a parent, I know all of you in here because we're all human. You've made mistakes, haven't you? And I've made mistakes. But it doesn't say in the Bible, stop using the rod, stop setting the standards, stop asking your children to obey you in all things because you messed up last week. I've seen some parents who kind of get a defeated attitude and they say, you know, I just didn't do right. The last couple of times I was dealing with my children, I let some anger come in, and I was wrong. I didn't see it right. I didn't have the right discernment. And they get discouraged and they almost like give up on child training. And I would just encourage all of us, you know, again, with the right heart attitude of why we're doing it out of love, and it's for the child, it's not for us. We're not focusing on our situation, we're focusing on their needs. I would encourage us to not lay that thing down just because we make mistakes. Because we're going to make mistakes. We need to pick it back up. Because it's not our authority, it's our authority from God. And if we understand that, that will help us to have a humble heart and yet a comforted heart to know, okay, God, this is what you want me to do. By the grace of God, even though I've made mistakes, I'll pick it back up and I'm going to do it again. So I would just encourage us all with that. I'm sorry. Okay, the question was, what does it mean to provoke a child to wrath? There's another verse in James that I know helps me. I believe it's 1.20, about the wrath of man. Is that the right verse? Yes. And it says, James 1.20 says, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. So that would be looking at it from the other perspective in that we as people, we have the ability to have wrath, don't we? And we can define wrath in a lot of different ways. And I think when our children see that wrath, which can come across as frustration, frustration, you know, being disgusted. We've all been tempted to do that. You're just disgusted. Our child's done something and you just can't believe they've done it. You just get disgusted. And you communicate that wrath, that feeling. When you have wrath on somebody, you really don't care. You don't like them very much at the moment, do you? I mean, your feelings are not good toward them. And so when I look at that, I have two verses in my bedroom where I spank my children with the rod. That's one of the two verses that I have up there because I know what I do want at the end of that verse is I want the righteousness of God in my children. Amen? I'm sure you do too. But I know if I let my wrath rise up, number one, it won't produce the righteousness of God, but it will also provoke them to anger. So I think wrath is when you pick the thing up in the flesh. And provoking is when you pick things up and you're almost needling and pointing out faults, if you will, in condemnation rather than explaining to them, okay, you've broken the standard. Do you understand that's wrong? Yes. Okay, well, then we're going to deal with that. And that's a very calm way to let them know what they've done wrong instead of poking and prodding and letting your wrath rise up, which does not produce the righteousness of God. I know what it means for me. Someone else may have a comment, a better way to explain provoking the anger. I know that's what I've seen in my life and I've heard other people talk about it in a similar vein. Okay. More questions? Yes. Okay. Okay, the question was, on our definition in our home of obedience, which means doing what we say, but doing it immediately, completely, and cheerfully. The question was, if they did two of the three, say immediately and completely, but they didn't do it cheerfully, would we thank for that? And the answer is, most of the times, yes. There may be something else going on. Again, that takes a little discernment to know if there's something else going on in that child's life that is affecting their emotions that day. Hey, we need to give grace for some of that. But in general, the principle is understood that attitude, in our home, attitude is a big issue. I don't know how to say it, but I mean, we know, or at least I feel like I know, God's heart, He's interested in our heart. And so I really look at issues of the heart pretty strong. And it's harder to communicate those sometimes. It's a lot easier to just do the, just like it is for us with the Lord, it's a lot easier to do the outward things, isn't it? And the inward things, they seem to be more of a struggle. But hey, it's worth the struggle. So for us, we would be just as quick, or perhaps even quicker, to answer your question, to deal with that than perhaps an outward failure. Now, we would deal with both. I'm not putting the outward down at all. But yes, we would. Okay, the question is, at what age would I feel that spanking is no longer appropriate? That would depend on several factors. Again, part of that is the maturity and the emotional level of the child. Part of that is if they're born again. I'm not saying I would not spank a child who is, say, 12 or 13 and is born again. I have at times. But there's a lot of other ways to deal with a youth, teenager, who is born again than just the rod. I mean, if they realize they've done wrong, God is going to deal with them. And if you bring that to the light, God may use you as the instrument to expose that and to rebuke. But hey, they're going to get a spanking. You and I have had spankings from God, haven't we? We've been chastised. And they're very effective, aren't they? And so, you'd have to use a little judgment. I hesitate to pick an age, but usually I have found that first of all, if biblical training has been done properly, very, very few spankings occur after the age of 10 or 11 anyway. But I have spanked children up to the age of 15. I have friends who have gone even higher. So I'd say mid-teens is a general rule of thumb. But again, I would hesitate. It would depend upon the child, their maturity, their emotional level, and their relationship with the Lord. I think there's a lot of factors that we would have to consider. Okay, that question is, at what point do we start? I'm repeating the questions for the tape. Okay, go ahead. That's a good point. Yeah, a brother shared that it would depend upon the time at which you started correctly biblically training. If you started later in life, 8, 9, 10 or whatever, there may be more to deal with and you may go more into those youth or teen years than you would on a child that was started from being a toddler on up. That's a good point. Yeah, I think I understand your question, but if you could explain a little bit more laying the guilt on a small child, just to expound that a little bit more. Or if you can't give an example. Okay. Okay, I understand. Yeah, the question is, again, dealing with younger children that are not converted. What do we do as far as making them accountable to God? Do we say, hey, you don't only disobey daddy, you disobey God, and God is upset, or whatever guilt we may lay on them is the question. How do we deal with that? Well, in our setting of standards, of course, we don't want to set any standard that is hopefully contrary to God's Word. So if we're in line with God's Word, it is certainly applicable to use the Bible in helping us set standards and in helping rebuke the child. But again, I believe it's not right to use God as the strong-armed man, if you will. To just, God is going to get you almost. Attitude. And you don't really say that maybe, but hey, the child hears and receives it, and you can see the eyes get wide. And I just don't think they can... Now, they can be made to understand. You know, the Bible does say, you know, God is pretty clear He doesn't like a lying tongue. Did you know that, son? And, you know, I don't either. And, you know, we need to look at this thing and really deal with it. And again, not presenting God in a light where He's going to get them, so to speak, or be angry with them. But that your rules, and I believe it is important that your rules and standards, that the child knows where they come from. Say, hey, you know the reason we think this is the Bible. And that's okay. I think they can accept that as long as you're not laying it on God. So there's a fine line there, and it's a good point, a good comment, and a good question that we need to be very careful that we don't make God be the heavy, if you will, in this. God is with us in it, and He has given us the Bible, and we need to present it in the same positive light. Hopefully, we're setting the standards of presenting the Word of God in the same positive light that God gives us these things because He loves us too, and He cares about us and doesn't want us to go this way. So I think it can be done, but with a lot of care and not with a guilt trip, if you will. That's right. Okay. Well, amen. Lord bless you all for being here tonight. I would just give a word of encouragement as brother. As I thought about this thing, I thought maybe I should have given the talk Spirit of Passivity for Men tonight, but it just didn't work out. But tomorrow night, I'll encourage all the men to be here because the way we're going to divide it up is just going to be for the men. So just as a word of encouragement for the men to try to be here for that tomorrow. It's very important in setting the tone for the homeschool. Again, I thank you for being here tonight.