In this video, the speaker emphasizes the importance of training and teaching others to preach the word of God effectively. He encourages a hands-on approach, where the speaker acts as a stranger and the trainee practices greeting and engaging with them. The speaker also discusses the concept of delayed obedience, highlighting the need for immediate obedience to God's commands. He shares a personal anecdote about confronting someone who was being disobedient and the impact it had on his son. Overall, the video emphasizes the importance of training and obedience in spreading the message of God.

It's my great pleasure to introduce Dr. Bauckham today. We just got done with our college conference and we had 500, close to 500 students there and they were all buzzing and talking about Dr. Bauckham and we had our lunch afterwards and you could just go around all the different tables and hear about conversations that have been spurred on from his talk and even in his first service I could just tell people were so encouraged and so motivated on how they were raising their children after hearing his talk today. I think you'll be blown away by him and we're so excited to have him here. Dr. Bauckham comes from Houston, Texas. He has degrees from Southwestern and Southeastern Seminary. He's also studying at Oxford University. He basically does it all. He's a gourmet cook. He is a, I mean, he does it all. He also has four children and he has his wife Bridget and I think you are going to be blown away by his preaching and teaching and we are very, very excited to hear him. So, let's welcome Dr. Vody Bauckham up. Good morning. There you go. Good morning. Works a lot better that way. All right. We've arranged for a little more time in this session and I know some of you are holdovers because we didn't get to deal with all of what we were talking about in the earlier session, but I believe this is incredibly important. There are two sides of my life that are incredibly important. One is the area that you've heard much about, the area I call kind of the professional side of my life where I have the privilege of serving as a professor and as a pastor and preaching in different places around the country. And then there's that other side of my life where I am the husband to Bridget and the father to Jasmine and Trey and Elijah and Asher and all of those arrows yet to come and it is that side of my life really where the rubber meets the road. It is that side of my life that lends validity to everything else in my life. The fact of the matter is if I am a failure as Bridget's husband and as Jasmine and Trey and Elijah and Asher and whoever else comes father, then whatever I say as a pastor, professor or whatever else is illegitimate as far as I'm concerned because that is where I am who I am. That is where I demonstrate the veracity of what I say in every other realm of my life. There's a place where those two things come together. A place where my emphasis in cultural apologetics and this emphasis in family come together. Apologetics quite simply is a defense of the faith, a response, a reasoned response to those who question the faith either passively or aggressively question the faith. Cultural apologetics is an idea that was really made popular by Francis Schaeffer and it's the idea of applying these principles in the discipline of apologetics to cultural issues and cultural trends and I do that specifically in the area of biblical manhood and womanhood, marriage and family because I find that so many Christians are unaware of the influence that the culture has had on us in these areas. We have been lied to in the areas of biblical manhood, womanhood, marriage, family. We have been deceived. We have bought into the deception specifically in three areas that I'll mention and one I'll spend a little more time on. Area number one is the area of marriage. We have been deceived in the area of marriage. We have bought a cultural lie as it relates to marriage. We do not value marriage properly. We do not value marriage biblically. We do not hold marriage in its proper esteem. We don't. We think marriage is something to be avoided as long as possible. That's what we teach our children. If you don't believe me just talk to anyone who was in my circumstance. My wife and I got married the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college and church folks gave us fits for doing that. It was as though we were in sin. Had we been living together we would not have received as much ridicule from church folks as we did by getting married before we graduated from college because evidently somewhere over in second hesitations it says thou shalt not marry until after college graduation. You know I mean we believe that. We do. We believe that a college education is more important than marriage. That's a lie from the pit of hell. A college education is nowhere near as important as a marriage. Nowhere near as important but we don't believe that. We really don't. I've had people come up to me. I had a woman come up to me not long ago weeping wailing over her son. Just I mean what you know the chest chest heaving cry you know it was one of those. You could barely stop it and I'm bracing myself. I'm like man whatever she says I have to be pastoral. I can't be shocked because the last thing somebody wants when they tell a pastor something is for the pastor to go man I don't know if God can handle that one you know. So I just you know I'm just really it's my son. I'm like oh wow it's her son. She's weeping and I put my hand on her shoulder and she's just he's he's it's okay it's okay he's he's getting married. Come on you can you can tell me you can he's he's getting married. Okay something horrible is happening. She's like her life is over. Her son's getting married could be and I just don't to me I stopped and I said it's to a woman. Hey nowadays you know that would have explained the hysteria if it wasn't. She stopped crying like well yes it's to a woman. I think she could tell by my posture that I was no longer feeling very you know empathetic here but that was her deal. My son's getting married. He's not through with college. Needless to say by the time we finished our conversation she found out that I had gotten married earlier than her son was about to get married and I was absolutely in favor of it. Absolutely in favor of it. Why didn't you wait? Well a couple of reasons. Number one I didn't want to communicate to my future bride that anything was more important to me than her. I didn't want to start my marriage off by saying to her that school was more important to me than she was. Secondly the wisest man in the bible the most godly man in the bible and the strongest man in the bible all fell into sexual sin. I was not wiser than Solomon. I was not stronger than Samson. I am not more godly than David. So I got married. Amen somebody. All of a sudden her eyes got huge. Your son wants this woman and you're asking him to stay in contact with her committed to someday consummating a relationship with her and to fight it for two years. You better ask somebody go let that boy get married. But again we've bought the cultural lie. Wait live your life. Let me just put it in plain English what we're saying to our young men today when it comes to marriage. Here's what we're saying to our young men. Young men this is the attitude that you ought to have toward a woman someday. You walk up to her you look her in her eye and you say I have sucked all of the joy out of life now I'm ready to give you the leftovers. That's what we're communicating. You don't believe me? Talk to somebody who has a child 10, 11, 12, 13 years old and ask them about their future goals for that child's college. They'll tell you how much money they're saving. They'll tell you how much it's going to cost by then. They'll tell you why they moved to where they live because of the schools in the neighborhood. They'll tell you the classes that they have their children taking and all the things that they have them doing so that they will get the right SAT scores to get into the right college. 10, 11, 12, 13 years old they're already doing things to prepare their children for a college education. Then ask the same parent what are you doing to get them ready to be a husband or a wife. They will look at you like a calf staring at a new gate. They're doing nothing to prepare their children for marriage. Why? Because we do not value marriage. We don't. We don't. You who have sons and daughters let me ask you something. What do you think will shape their future more? The degree they get from some university or the person with whom they enter into covenantal marriage and start a family? Think about it. We've bought a lie people. We've bought a lie. It is far more important for me to prepare my children to be husbands and wives and mothers and fathers than it is for me to prepare them for an entrance exam. We've bought a lie. Secondly, we've bought a lie in the area of childbearing. Our attitude toward children is a boy for me and a girl for you and praise the Lord we're finally through. That's our attitude. There is an unwritten rule in the church. It's not written anywhere but almost everybody in the church knows what this rule is and that rule is you get two and there's one exception. One exception where you can get a third. That is if you've got the same sex the first two times you get to try for the opposite sex on number three. That's the only way that we will allow you to have more than two kids and not ridicule you in the church because we do not believe Psalm 127. We do not believe Psalm 128. We believe that children are a burden and a blight and not a blessing. We are the richest culture in the history of the world and one of the only ones who talks about how many kids we can afford. It's sick. It's godless. We have bought a lie when it comes to children. An absolute lie. We mutilate our bodies so that God won't bless us with more kids. Some of you if your child came home with a tattoo a tattoo on their skin you'd have a conniption fit. You'd go pass out somewhere but if they have two children and get a vasectomy or tubal ligation go under the knife. Disfigure themselves. We celebrate that. Tattoo? Don't do that. Mutilate your body so that God can't bless you with any more kids. Amen. Are you hearing me people? This is where we are now. We've bought a lie when it comes to marriage. We've bought a lie when it comes to childbearing. By the way those of us who don't mutilate ourselves we'll put things into our bodies that actually cause abortions. You ask your doctor about what birth control pills do. Do they always prevent pregnancy? No they don't always prevent pregnancy. Sometimes they just end them early enough for you not to know that you just had an abortion. Ask them about IUDs. Talk to them about these things. It's amazing. Some of the most pro-life people in the world. Some of the most pro-life men and women in the whole world are putting things into their bodies that are actually causing the abortions that they say they're against. Marinate on that one for a minute. We've also bought a lie when it comes to child training and that's what we're going to spend our time. Open your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. We've bought a lie when it comes to the way that we raise our children and we don't get it. We don't understand it. We don't know how to do it. We're not taught this. We don't see this. It's not modeled for us and because of that we got parents who just really don't like their kids but we explain it away you know. We explain away the reason that we don't like our kids. We got teenagers who are you know 13, 14, 15 years old. They're looking at us eye to eye. They're going word for word. They're working their necks, clucking their tongues, smacking their lips, slamming doors and we can't stand them. We love it when it's youth group time because we get to pass them off on somebody else. We love it when school starts back. We have parties. Parents have parties when school starts back because they can't stand having their kids around them because they're brutish beasts but that's okay because it's just the phase of life. Hey those are the teen years. No that's sin and it doesn't matter what name you put on it. It's sin and here's what's worse. That sin is basically what we've produced because when it was small we laughed about it. It was cute. Oh aren't they cute at that age? No that's a viper in a diaper and you better get it under control. It's not cute. It's not funny but if we ignore it at that age it grows up and then we're mad at them for being what we've taught them to be. Amen lights. And we can't stand them. We just can't stand them but we want them to grow up in love with God. What are we supposed to do and I'm saying this to you today. If you're here today let me tell you why I believe this message is important for at least a couple of reasons. Number one first let me speak to those of you who have earned some gray hair because you may be sitting here saying oh that's great you're going to talk about training children. I've already raised my children. That's great. Then take your Titus 2 responsibilities seriously and don't coast on the second half of your life but grab some young person by the hand and show them how to do what you did or what you should have done in raising your children. This is for you. This is for you and if you're a young person here today and you've got kids and you're already pulling your hair out and a lot of people the reason they mutilate their bodies so that God doesn't bless them anymore is because these blessings are wearing them out. Okay that's why they do it and for those of you who are in that situation listen I recognize that you're like me. We got married somewhere between sophomore and junior year. I just turned 20 years old. We had our first child 10 months later. We were efficient and we didn't know come here from sycum as it related to being parents. Okay we just were clueless and that's where some of you are. You just don't know. Nobody's ever told you. You don't even know if the bible even addresses these issues. Well it does and this morning we shall. Ephesians chapter 6 verses 1 through 4. I want to take you through three things. I want you to see three things. Three phases in the training of our children. Phase number one is the discipline and correction phase. The discipline and correction phase is the first few years of life. Incredibly important. It's where we lay the foundation for everything else. The discipline and training phase. In this phase we're saying to our children give me your attention. Give me your attention. You need to pay more attention to me than I do to you. Give me your attention. The world doesn't revolve around you. Your world revolves around me. That's what we need to teach our children those first few years of their life because they come here and just by nature of things they believe the world revolves around them and for you know a few weeks that's okay. But eventually we have to teach them that that's over. The world no longer revolves around you. Your world toddler revolves around me. Around me. So phase number one the discipline and training phase give me your attention. Phase two the catechism phase. So we're teaching what to believe and why to believe and phase two we tell them give me your mind. Give me your mind. That happens as soon as they become verbal we start working on that. Phase three it's the discipleship phase when they enter into biblical adulthood. Biblical adulthood is considered from age 12 or 13 to age 30. You ever notice we only see Jesus at two ages in the scripture at 12 and at 30. Why? Because according to the biblical model childhood is from birth to 12. At 12 there is a ceremony. Some people still do it's called a bar mitzvah and at 12 that ceremony means you've gone into phase two which is adulthood 12 to 30. At 30 you've entered into senior adulthood. By the way at 30 is when you could become a rabbi. That's why we see him at those two ages because they're the two breaking points in the life cycle and development cycle. And so at that second phase it's the discipleship phase and in that phase it's give me your hand. Give me your hand. Phase one give me your attention. The discipline and training phase. Phase two give me your mind. I'll teach you what to believe and why to believe it. Phase three give me your hand. I'm going to show you how to live out what I've taught you to believe okay. These are the three phases. Let's look at them in turn from Ephesians chapter 6 verses 1 through 4. Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Stop there. So first of all if I tell my child to do something and my child doesn't do it not only has my child just disobeyed me my child has directly violated scripture okay. So I tell my child to do something my child doesn't do what I tell my child to do. My child has disobeyed me. They've sinned. They've violated the clear teaching of scripture. If they don't do what I told them to do. By the way if I tell them to do something and they don't do it when I tell them to do it that's delayed disobedience and the technical Greek word for delayed disobedience is disobedience okay. So if they don't do what I tell them when I tell them my child has been disobedient and according to scripture I cannot tolerate that. If I tolerate that I'm tolerating sin. If I'm tolerating sin I'm teaching my child that sin is okay all right. Verse 2. Honor your father and your mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. So he goes back here to the fifth commandment. So he must honor his mother and father. So now here's what we add. In phase number one my goal is to teach my child in those first few years of life to do what they're told when they're told and with a respectful attitude. If they do what I tell them when I tell them but they roll their eyes and smack their lips and cluck their tongues and slam the doors they've still sinned and I can't tolerate that. So I cannot have the attitude that says well at least they did it. No. No that's sin. It's a violation of the fifth commandment. It's the first commandment that has a promise attached to it and that promise is about longevity. We must not tolerate disobedience and disrespect from our children. We must not. We must correct them when they do this because they are in direct violation of the law of God. Well then what are we supposed to do? I'm so glad you asked. You know we love Proverbs 22 6. Try to have a child the ways you go when he's old but will not depart from it. Okay that doesn't mean what a lot of people think it means but that's okay that's for another time. I don't make y'all too mad today you ask me back I'll tell you what means. All right now you're reading nine verses later and you find the key verse. Verse 15. Folly or rebellion is bound up in the heart of a child and time out will drive it far from them. That ain't in the book folks. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child and the rod of correction will drive it far from them. In other words God says your children desperately desperately need to be spanked. Amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord and spank your kids. Okay they desperately need to be spanked and they need this be spanked often. They do. I meet people all the time you know and they're like yeah you know I can I can think of maybe you know maybe maybe four or five times you know I ever had to spank junior. Really? That's unfortunate because unless you raised Jesus the second there were days when junior needed to be spanked five times before breakfast. If you only spanked your child five times then that means almost every time they disobeyed you you let it go and almost every time they dishonored you you let it go. When they were two and you said come here and they said no you should have worn them out but you didn't. And so you think because they didn't escalate to a certain point that that means you didn't need to spank them. No. They disobeyed. We can't tolerate disobedience. They dishonor you. You can't tolerate the dishonor. We can't. We can't. So in those first few years of life you might get tired some days. Physically, emotionally, you may feel like picking up the phone going I think I'm gonna kill him. That's okay. See what Proverbs has to say about that? It says don't spare the rod because though you beat him with a rod he will not die but you may save his very soul from destruction. A couple of problems we have with that. Number one, we listen a lot more to Dr. Phil and Dr. Spock than we do to Dr. Jesus. That's problem number one. Problem number two, we all hear horrible things about abuse and all these sort of things. You know people who are abusive to their children again first of all it's sin but secondly a lot of times those are people who don't spank their children enough. What do you mean? Here's what I mean. Junior does 15 things by lunchtime for which he should have been spanked and you push it down and you push it down and you push it down and finally when you can take no more you unleash your wrath and your anger and then you're in sin. Then you feel guilty about it so guess what happens next time? You don't address it again and again and again and again until you fill up again and there's this cycle that goes on and on and on whereas had you been dealing with it consistently you could have kept the emotions under control. And again am I talking about just flying off the handle? Absolutely not. It should be remorse full time. It is. One of our children is in the right at the tail end of this phase. One of our children is a three-year-old and we're right at the tail end of this phase. He gets spanked regularly and so we bring Elijah in you know and I talk to Elijah about what just happened. Explain to him where scripturally it was a violation and why it's sin and how sin grieves the heart of God and why Jesus had to die for sin and why as his father I've been commanded to spank him for what he just did because God desires that he not be that kind of boy. Do you understand that? Yes sir. And then one of the scriptures that he's memorized directly related to whatever it was sometimes it's this one. Ephesians 6.1 says what Elijah? Children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right and that's exactly what you violated is it not? Yes sir. So daddy must spank you and so I spank Elijah firmly and he weeps and that's all he gets to do. If he goes beyond that and screams and yells and throws a fit then I spank him because that's rebellion and if I don't then I teach him that he can embarrass me and make me not spank him. Hello somebody. A lot of your toddlers throw fits because you've taught them that that's the way they can control you when instead you need to just have an all-day session where you just wear them out and they finally decide you know what things get worse when I do that. Maybe I should stop. We finish and we hug and we kiss and we pray and then we rejoice when we go out. I'm not sitting in his room so that he can soak in his sin and build up anger and animosity towards me. No. I'm bringing justice. I'm bringing it swiftly. I'm bringing it scripturally and then it's over. I am not mad at him. I am not withholding affection from him. I am not building barriers and walls in my relationship with him. No. We deal with it. We deal with it swiftly. We get it over with and then we go out rejoicing together and his conscience is delivered. You see this folks? By the way that takes time effort and energy. But when you've got an obedient three-year-old it's so worth it because not doing it takes more time more effort and more energy. By the way there also must be training discipline and training. It's the other side of it. Imagine a coach who walks out day one he's a soccer coach and he throws a ball out there you know he's got these kids and he says okay I want you to run this play and they go what just run it and they go out and they do all this sort of stuff and then he gets on you didn't do it right but he never told him what it was he never drew it up on the board he never said you go here you go here you do that he never trained him and they never taught them what they were supposed to do. That's what many of us do with our kids. We never have a session where we train them to do what we expect them to do. Let me give you an example the prime example the so-called shy kid who doesn't shake hands at church okay usually what happens is you come up you know and I here I am and I'm the guest and I walk up and I'm saying hi to somebody and they say to their kid hey you know say say good morning to Dr. Bauckham and the kid hides and runs behind the leg and here's what's supposed to happen this is what we've agreed on silently in our culture what's supposed to happen is I'm supposed to look at their child and say hey that's okay but I can't do that because if I do that then what has happened is number one the child has just sinned by not doing what they were told to do it's direct disobedience secondly the parent is in sin for not correcting it and thirdly I'm in sin because I just told a child that it was okay for them to disobey and dishonor their parent in direct violation of scripture I can't do that I won't do that I'm gonna stand there till you make them do what you said well what am I supposed to do train them so on Saturday night before you come to church hey listen we're gonna practice we're gonna meet a whole lot of people tomorrow we're gonna practice okay so the first time I'm gonna be you all right and you'll be the stranger and I'm gonna show you what I want you to do strangers are gonna come up and they're gonna say hi Johnny and then you're gonna say you're gonna look them in the eye shake their hand firmly and say good morning how are you and you do that four or five times and you say okay now you get to be yourself and I'll be the stranger and you practice that five six seven eight nine times you have a ball when they do it correctly rejoice act like they just won the super bowl high five hug kiss roll around on the floor everything have a blast with it the next day they'll surprise you they'll be nudging you when they see people and they'll go can we do it now and you walk over and they do it and it'll be awkward they were they okay shake the hand look at the I did it you know but they'll do it and then when they do it you just look at them and you say I'm so proud of you you just hug them and you kiss them all over the face and everything you high five them and then they'll go let's do it again if they don't you take them to a private place and wear them out because they have just been directly defiant after you train them and told them what to do I have a pastor friend of mine one of his daughters was really just defiant in this one particular area and they had one instance where they had drawn the line and they were like we could this this has to end today and they told her to train everything else and so they were leaving and there was a deacon it was you know a deacon family they walk out you know supposed to greet say bye to the deacon shake the deacon's hand she won't do it pastor goes back in the office deals with goes through that whole process I talked about earlier thanks that child comes back out child won't do it again goes back again ask the deacon would you please wait here you know 13 times 13 times that deacon was like little girl please they never dealt with it again never dealt with it again are you gonna rain in your home or is sin gonna rain in your home which one next part of the text says fathers do not provoke your children to anger or to wrath how do you do that here's some ways you do that let me just explain this some ways I've done that some ways I've actually helped my children and coached my children to be more sinful right one of them was by yelling by yelling okay and I would yell did you do you hear what I said I was yelling now how is that coaching my children in sin basically what I was teaching my children is not you must do what I say when I say it you must do what I say somewhere between the first time I say it and the time I begin to yell that's what I was teaching them I was also undermining my wife's authority in the home how so I'm big and scary got a big deep scary voice if I teach my children to obey my big deep scary voice and my huge size my wife doesn't have any of that so they're not going to respect her the way they respect me men are you smelling what I'm stepping in all the yellers in the house please hear me today you're undermining your wife's authority in the home you're also being a poor example to your children and you're also teaching them delayed obedience you don't have to do it the first time I say it or if I say it with a whisper you only have to do it when I become frustrated enough to yell you're teaching your child delayed obedience you also teach them delayed obedience by telling them things three four or five times then you've just taught them you don't have to do it the first time you have to do it somewhere between the first time and the time that I use all three of your names and the veins pop out of my neck tell them once if you think they might not have heard what you said when you told them the first time you clarify you don't tell them over and over and over again that is coaching them in disobedience you're teaching them delayed obedience another way we teach them delayed obedience the famous count you read boy you get one two you just taught sin you don't have to do what I say when I say it you have to do it somewhere between when I say it and when I count to three my way I'm telling on myself now these are things I had to learn okay also inconsistency inconsistency a couple of couple of ways we're inconsistent one mom and dad have a different philosophy on this and instead of going into we call it the war room okay we go into the war room and we deal with these things not that there's a war between myself and my wife but basically that's where we strategize for this war against the sin that wants our children and we go into the war room and we say listen here is going to be the standard because we can't have two standards that's provoking our children to anger that's not consistent can't have one standard for mom and one standard dad you get on the same page and dad it's your responsibility to lead here it's your responsibility to set the tone here wife when your husband sets the tone and the standard you live by that standard whether he's there or he's not if you don't you are undermining the authority of your husband you are not being submissive and if you are not submissive to your husband don't you dare get mad at your children for not being submissive to you amen it amazes me how many times i sit down and i talk to women and they're having these huge problems with their children first question i'm going to ask a woman is describe for me your level of submission to your husband huh yeah you want order in your home right and you want your children to be submissive and obedient to that order in your home right are you modeling it for them in your submission to your husband or are you modeling for them that that order is meaningless that's where we gotta start because if the sergeant is disrespectful to the lieutenant don't expect the private to be respectful to the sergeant if you can't say amen you ought to say out i hope we're beginning to see here some of the problems that we've created for ourselves i hope that's what we're beginning to see here ideas have consequences when we buy into these ideas and allow them to take root in our homes they have consequences and sometimes they have consequences for generations to come second phase we don't have much time for these two phases but i want to get to these two phases the catechism phase and i call it the catechism phase because catechism is the tool that we use catechism is learning doctrine and theology through a series of questions and answers when our kids are little we use for example the children's catechism um some of you may be familiar with the children's catechism most people are most familiar with the westminster catechism um you know westminster what is what is the chief end of man the chief end of man is to glorify god and enjoy him forever okay that's the westminster catechism question number one well the children's catechism you know but who made you god made me what else did god make god made all things why did god make you in all things for his own glory how can you glorify god why ought you to glorify god because he made me and he takes care of me how can you glorify god by loving him and doing what he commands who is god god is a spirit he does not have a body like man where is god god is everywhere can you see god no i cannot see god but he always sees me how many gods are there there is only one in how many persons does this one god exist in three persons who are these three persons the father the son the holy spirit now i'm only going to go that far because that's where our two-year-olds get they're learning doctrine and theology through a series of questions and answers they're learning what to believe and why to believe it we also read scripture we have the memorized scripture the great songs of the faith okay we're pouring it in there we're getting it in there now one of the objections that i sometimes hear from people is this well you know i just don't i understand what you're saying but i want my children to to love god and have a relationship with him and not just rote memorization really then how come you teach them a b c d e f g don't you want them to love reading and not just rote memorization how can you teach them two times two is four three times two is six four times two is eight why are you teaching the times table that's that's rote memorization how come rote memorization is okay everywhere except in theology help me understand that somebody why is it that in every other area we understand that children must start with rote memorization but when it comes here it's well i just don't want them to have rote memorization well you better pour everything in there you can get in there i just you know i don't want to force i don't want to force religion on them i want them to grow up later and be able to make that choice on their own really what if i said that about education i don't want to force education on my children i want them to grow up later and make a decision on their own whether or not they want to be educated how ridiculous does that sound that's how ridiculous it ought to sound when we talk about the same thing from the standpoint of doctrine and theology get it in there amen and when you think you've gotten enough in there just stuff a little bit more okay get it in there as much as you can get it in there do it regularly deuteronomy chapter six these words i'm commanding you today shall be in your heart you shall teach them diligently to your sons when you rise up when you lay down when you walk along the way get it in there teach them god's truth teach them god's word and then teach them and teach them and teach them some more from the time they become verbal get it in there and give me your mind teach them what to believe and why to believe it you know i often have people to come to me and they go you know my kids are you know they're they're they're you know they're 14 and they're 15 do you think that you know they can handle you know some doctrine and some theology by now when they're 14 or 15 they have a theology already you might be too late all things are possible with god but by the by the time they're 14 13 they already have a theology they don't necessarily know that but they do by the way this is why some of you have had conversations with your 13 or 14 year old and they've said things that are in complete contradiction with what you believe about a particular issue and you're going where in the world did that come from you didn't teach them theology so somebody else filled the void mtv taught them theology or somebody you know the movies that they watch the music that they listen to they're being taught theology constantly constantly get it into them early this final phase is the discipleship phase bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the lord these two words again teach them to believe like christians teach them to behave like christians and again by doing this we don't guarantee that they're saying that's a work of god okay that's a work of god however i trust god completely to take care of that work but i also believe that he is sovereign over the means as well as the ends and he's given me the means i'm going to employ them to the best of my ability and trust him to use them amen in this last phase that 12 13 year old phase we tell them give me your hand and now that i have taught you what to believe and why to believe it walk with me and i'm going to show you how to live in accordance with these truths my son is not with me my oldest son my oldest son is 14 and he travels with me full time i give him the weekend off we we uh we've been we've been busy um but i i travel with him he travels with me full time um we're a homeschool family homeschool our children um and my son one of the things that we've done in our home we just had the privilege because of the things that the lord has given us um the way we've been allowed to organize our lives when our sons reach manhood we take them through a manhood ceremony and from that moment my wife turns over the books and i become their teacher and their discipler scares her to death scares her to death okay but what he needs to learn now more than anything else is how to be a man and god put him in my home because he intends for me to teach him that me to teach him that so my 14 year old son spends every moment with me that he's humanly possible every moment that is humanly possible because i'm discipling him i'm pouring my life into him i want to teach him everything i know about everything okay sometimes i teach him by doing well sometimes i teach him by blowing it my 14 year old son was with me a while back and i'll close with this for the sake of time and you know we were together and there's this guy who came up to me he's this young guy he's you know 20 something years old and he wanted to have this you know sort of discussion with me and it may have been over the issue of marriage or your ministry something one of these issues okay just wanted to have a discussion really he wanted to have a debate and this guy comes out he's got a couple of his buddies with him and he just gets all up in my grill and we're talking and when we're talking he wouldn't even look at me he's looking over there somewhere you know and so what you're trying to say is so and so i'm over here now so you're trying to say what's okay so what about so-and-so you know this kind of thing just utterly disrespectful and i said well no brother you actually misunderstood what i said because what i clearly said was this so that's not accurate well you wouldn't satisfy with that what about so-and-so and so-and-so what about what so-and-so so he's showing off for his boys okay my son who's 13 at the time is with me standing with me this guy's been disrespected finally i say you know what brother here's the deal first of all you don't even have the respect to turn and look me in my face while you're talking to me secondly you're asking me questions that i've already clearly answered thirdly it's obvious that you're trying to impress your friends this conversation is over and he turns and he goes how come you people gotta always turn it into a respect issue you people i i really hope you're talking about tall people i really hope i didn't just see the race card fall out of your pocket he goes yeah you people always want to make this a matter of respect like i disrespect you or something like that and you can't do i said you know what sir this conversation is officially over i he took a breath to say something else i stepped forward and got about this close and i said this conversation is over his buddies start backing up and grabbing him with him because i guess at that moment they just had an inclination you know what this man is saved but i think he remembers some stuff my son and i get in the car we ride back to the hotel not a word is spoken we get back to the hotel we finish up and we do our stuff my 13 year old son goes dad did that guy not know that you could crush him i said yes son he was very well aware of the fact that i could crush him dad did you want to crush him said oh lord yes i did and then he says but if you had crushed him he would have won because then you're the angry out of control black man and i said yes son that is true a couple of minutes later a 13 year old son tears streaming down his face and he says dad i've never been more proud to be your son he can't learn that in a book nor can he learn what happened the next day when we had to stop at the airport go back outside security and walk up to the gate agent or i had to apologize and say ma'am i was short with you and i was upset with you you didn't mess up my reservation would you please forgive me for my tone of voice when i spoke to you a few minutes ago and she wept she wept because they always get abused and never respected it i don't know what's taught my boy more the great victory that he saw or the broken man who blows it but i know that his hand was in mine and i was showing him the validity of all that i had taught him to believe and the reality of what it looks like when you live in accordance with those truths i have said to him give me your attention and he has he's an obedient respectful young man i have said to him give me your mind and he has and now i say to him give me your hand and he is and he's my best friend i don't hate my boy i miss him like crazy the teenagers don't have to be like that my 17 year old daughter is my business partner we started a business together i miss them i love them i rejoice over them i want to spend every moment with them i can that's what we can have people if we stop buying the lie train your children well they will become a delight to you and to others and they will bring honor to you and to the kingdom as opposed to disgrace