Discipline of Children: An Act of Love

Transcript

GRM 547
11/30/1997
Discipline of Children: An Act of Love
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

As I mentioned this morning I want to continue along the vein of what we were talking about this morning out of Colossians chapter 3 where children are to be obedient to their parents and fathers are not to exasperate their children. The world brings confusion and disorder into things as it rejects God’s plan and attempts to blend the roles of men and women and the fathers and the mothers.

I referred to the article from Newsweek from June 17, 1996 in our study this morning, “Building a Better Dad.” What was an interest to me in the article was the attempt that we are trying to make fathers more like mothers in substance. That is not exactly what they say but drawing fathers more into involvement with their children. And I am not opposed to that. The Newsweek poll found that 7 out of 10 fathers spend more time with their children than their own fathers did. Nearly half think they are doing a better job and only 3% think they are worse. What other area in American life has seen such an improvement in just a generation? But somehow the family and the home doesn’t seem to be getting stronger. But proving that men are actually being better fathers, as opposed to talking and writing books about it, is one of the great unsolved problems of contemporary sociology. We all think there has been a change one writer says, but I haven’t seen any data that convinces me it is true. Part of the problem is that the same quest for self realization that has led men to seek fulfilment in nurturing and sacrifice has also led them in increasing numbers to pursue their destiny with a sexy divorcee from their aerobics class. More than half of all American children born in the 70's and 80's are expected to spend part of their childhoods with just their mothers. A lot of what we are seeing is a self-focus, and the self-fulfillment then becoming more nurturing and so on. Also in the context of this self-emphasis that causes them to decide they’d be happier with another woman. They would find more pleasure in another relationship. So the self-emphasis brings the destruction that it always does. I have referred to a study and let me just read to you from the statement on it. “Studies of different nations show that American fathers are about average in parental involvement. Spending an average of 45 minutes a day caring for their children by themselves. American mothers by the way spend the most among women of any nation studied, more than 10 hours daily. The least involved father, Japanese, involving 3 minutes a day. When sociologist began studying the long-term effects of father’s involvement they didn’t find what they expected. An influential review of the research concluded dolefully that in general there is little evidence and no coherent reason to expect an increased parental involvement in itself has any clear cut or direct affects. So tell your coach that daddy had to work, really, really hard this week and he is too tired to pitch batting practice Saturday, okay? This is so counter intuitive, so potentially dangerous and subversive that not even the experts want to believe it, instead they are trying to prove that it is the quality of the father’s involvement.” All of this simply to say there is a struggle.

We as Christians need to be careful that our views are anchored in scripture. I am not saying this to say that I don’t think fathers ought to be involved with their children as well as mothers. But I am saying so much of what the world promotes as what a father ought to be, since we have been talking about fathers and children this morning, does not come from a biblical perspective. I noted that at the end of the article they comment that the fathers of the 50's that were supposedly so uninvolved with their children, let me read it to you. “I detect a paradox in this frantic rejection of the values of the Eisenhower Era. Fathers of the 50's overwhelmingly stayed married, supported their families with their paychecks, an example that seems all too lost on many of their offspring.” There are certain things I must do to be a godly father but being a godly mother is not one of them. I can appreciate there are differences, and I need to be involved in my children’s lives, as their father, but I don’t have to become their mother. Praise God that He has provided a balance.

Part of what the society that we have is doing is a picture of a father who has his little daughter at work with him and his computer is on the desk and his briefcase is there and he has got his feet propped up and he is giving the bottle to the baby. That you know, I suppose, is real progress because Fathers are doing the nurturing and providing the care that was associated with mothers. I wonder. So, we make men like women and women like men and we really accomplish something rather than appreciate the diversity and balance given to a home. In that I would also say, with the emphasis going on today, that these are my introductory off the cuff, my opinion observations.

You know the Bible doesn’t call me to be my kid’s best friend. I am my kid’s parent. I am a parent, I can’t be my kid’s best friend by nature the fact that I am their father. We think today that if you can say, boy, I am my child’s best friend, wow you are really something. No. My kids have a lot of good friends, maybe a best friend, but I am a parent. I am a father. I need to make a distinction, otherwise we have all kinds of frustration and we’re trying to be something that the world says we must be, not the scripture. I can find no where in scripture that says father or mother for that matter has to be a kid’s best friend. And no input on the role of parents that indicates that is part of the role. In fact, growing up I never even gave thought that my parents were supposed to be my best friend. If somebody had asked me who was my best friend I would have told you who my best friend was. If you asked me who my parents were, I would have told you who my parents were. Well, I am glad for kids that are comfortable confiding in their parents and so on, but it is important that the kids know they have parents, and I may go tell my best friend, hey, you know what I did? Hope my parents don’t find out. But I don’t go tell my parents that. My parents think, well I don’t want to be judgmental he won’t think I am his best friend. Well if they did wrong they better hope I don’t find out. There best friend won’t give them a good spanking. But their best parent will. So, there is a distinction. Along this vein, before we get into some matters of discipline.


You know the problem with children is the problem of the human race, they are sinners. “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things.” And “in sin did my mother conceive me”, David said. Meaning he was a sinner from conception. Because his fallen nature, the old man, as we will see in our studies of Colossians, was passed on from Adam down through to our day. So the rebellion that we talked about this morning is a characteristic of a fallen sinful being. And we will see in some of the passages we are going to look at, my responsibility as a parent will be to discipline my children, to bring some order to fallen humanity. Now there are instructions as we saw in Colossians addressed to believing children, young people, to be submissive to their parents. But the discipline we kneed out will cover all ages as we will see. But there is sometimes a position taken among evangelicals today that if you do the right things as a parent your children will turn out according to pattern. I believe that is a failure to understand the scripture correctly, a failure to understand the biblical doctrine of depravity.

Turn to proverbs chapter 22 verse 6. “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.” As is true of the proverbs, they are not an iron clad guarantee. They give a general expression of truth. For example, while you are just in this passage look at verse 4. “The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, honor and life.” You say well that guarantees if you are a humble person, you fear the Lord, then you get riches, honor and life. But I find in Paul’s life it went just the opposite. He would have lost his riches, ultimately his honor and his life. So, when I say this promise’s if I am a humble person and fear the Lord, God is going to make me rich, give me honor among men and long life. Well, within Israel there were general promises given here, but we need to be careful that we don’t say well now this is an iron clad promise. Pretty soon I am preaching a health and wealth gospel. Fear the Lord and you’ll get rich. Fear the Lord and you will be held in honor among men. But then Jesus said men will hate you because they hate Me. All I am saying is we want to handle the Proverbs consistently here.

A child that is properly trained and disciplined does have an advantage. Often then the general pattern would be they would grow up with a somewhat ordered life. That would be true even among unbelievers to an extent. But to say that this is a guarantee that if you train up a child in the way he should go, then you can be assured they are going to become Christians is a failure to understand the Scripture. It’s failure to understand the grace of God that brings about salvation. That any of our children are saved is a testimony of God’s grace, not to good parenting. That any of these parents sitting here are saved is a testimony of God’s grace. And we have an idea that you can bring about salvation by the things you do. No, God uses us just like He uses people who brought the gospel to us. “How blessed are the feet of those who proclaim the gospel.” I don’t want to minimize that. I want to be careful that we don’t get into the idea, oh if your children don’t turn out a certain way, you must not have raised them right because if you had raised them right, they would have turned out this way. So much for the depravity of the human heart. By my actions I could change their heart. Just like if I preached the gospel to someone, they will get saved because “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” So if they hear the Word of God, I assume they will believe and be saved. No. But that’s the means that God does use to bring about salvation. So here God uses parents, and they have a role and a responsibility.


Look at Ezekiel 18, Ezekiel 18 shows that there is no guarantee or necessary connection between the conduct of a parent and the conduct of a child. And God is upset with Israel because Israel was using a proverb saying verse 2, “The fathers eat the sour grapes, but the children’s teeth are set on edge.” In other words, the children are being punished by God for the sins that their fathers committed. God said He was going to put an end to that. “All souls are mine. The soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine. The soul who sins will die.” Now note verse 5, “But if a man is righteous and practices righteousness and justice.” It goes on to talk about his righteous life. Verse 9, “If he walks in my statues and My ordinances so as to deal faithfully, he is righteous and will surely live declares the Lord,” verse 10 “then he may have a violent son who sheds blood, who does any of these things to a brother”, any of these things that were mentioned” in verses 5 to 8. Verse 11, “even though he himself does not do any of these things.”


So here you have a father who was righteous before God, honored God by his obedience to His word. He had a son who was the opposite. Well, the point is verses 13, end of the verse, “He will surely be put to death. His blood will be on his own head.” In other words, the righteousness of the father does not pass on to the son. The father was righteous; the son was unrighteous. Then the father is blessed by God for his righteousness and the son is punished by God for his unrighteousness. The point we want to note in our connection here, God says it is possible to live a righteous life and have an unrighteous child.

Then you have the other, “Now behold he has a son.” Now this violent, wicked son of a righteous father has a son and this wicked father now has a son who is a righteous son. Now he has a son who observed all his father’s sins which he committed and observing does not do likewise. In the end of verse 17, “he will not die for his father’s iniquity, he will surely live. As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, did what was not good among his people, he will die for his iniquity.” The point there is that each is responsible for his own sin.

I think we need to understand that as people who claim to appreciate the depravity of man, and salvation by the grace of God I am responsible before God as a parent to be a godly parent. That does not guarantee godly children. The prayer and desire of my heart that God in grace will touch their heart and life and change them. There are no guarantees. Again we are back to often as parents, want so much to be sure of our kid’s salvation we become like other people have. What? They want to get them baptized. They want to get them confirmed. They want to have the assurance that because of something they did their kids are saved or will be saved. The clearest example of this, back up to Isaiah, chapter 63. Isaiah 63:16, speaking of God, “for you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not recognize us. Jacob the patriarchs might not know us them, but God you are our Father. You oh, Lord are our Father. Our Redeemer from of old is Your name.” Down is chapter 64 verse 8, “but now oh Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay, you are our potter. We are all the work of your hand.” Don’t be angry beyond measure oh Lord. Don’t remember iniquity forever.” In Malachi chapter 1, the last book of the Old Testament. Malachi chapter 1 verse 6 God says, “the son honors his father, a servant his master. Then if I am a Father, where is my honor? If I am a Master, where is my respect?” The point I want you to note here is God was the Father of Israel. To this point to how it turned out, by God’s own testimony they are wretched and vile. But God was a perfect Father to Israel. And Israel could not say that I had failed because my Father is less than I should be.

So we want to be careful in this whole analogy. Even now as a believer my heavenly Father is perfect and I am not. God the Father of Israel did not guarantee that Israel would be a perfect people. We don’t want to lose sight of the personal responsibility and you know that is liberating as well. Because just the opposite, it doesn’t matter what kind of parent you had. God says if you’ll turn to Him, submit to Him, and His righteousness becomes a characteristic of your life, then you experience His blessing. I am so glad that it doesn’t depend on my parents, or physical relationships. That no matter what your family heritage is, you can enjoy the full blessings of God. That is not to minimize that it is a blessing to grow up in a Christian home with godly parents. That is a blessing of God.


Alright, lets talk about God’s discipline in the home. I want this in the context of this doesn’t guarantee anything. In the sense that my actions guarantee that this will be the outcome, but I do it because this is God’s will. And good does come of it, as we function according to His will. Look at Proverbs chapter 13. Look at God’s plan for discipline, we see or saw in Colossians chapter 3 that children were to be obedient to their parents. Fathers are not to exasperate their children in the exercising of their discipline. Look at Proverbs chapter 13 verse 24. “He who spares his rod, hates his son. But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.” So true discipline is a reflection of true love. Now that diligent discipline is to be handled properly so you don’t irritate them. You don’t dishearten them, cause them to lose heart as we saw in Ephesians 6, as well as Colossians 3. So a responsibility here placed on us as parents and particularly us as fathers. That is where the emphasis was placed in Ephesians and Colossians, on the father’s role in discipline.

The reason I don’t discipline my children diligently is it is inconvenient for me. You know in our day I want them to see me as their friend. And I want them to know that I am non- judgmental. And on we go. If I really loved them I would discipline them diligently. There is a faithfulness in my discipline. I want to be consistent with it, that helps them develop this idea, it depends on the mood I am in whether they get disciplined or this or that. No, it ought to be clear and it ought to be an expression of love. Proverbs chapter 19, verse 18. “Discipline your son while there is hope, and do not desire his death.” Or literally “do not desire causing him to die.” Discipline is for his good. When my father disciplined me, it wasn’t for his good, it was for my good, that I would learn the consequences of doing wrong and so on. It kept me from drifting further out into greater wrongs and the ruin of a life. “Discipline your son while there is hope, do not desire his death”. Proverbs 22:15, “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.” Now, as you see in these verses we are reading, the bible instructs that there be physical punishment. “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things,” Jeremiah 17:9. This child was born a sinner. “The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.”

Look at verse 13 of chapter 23. Want to make a comment or two. “Do not hold back discipline from a child. Although you beat him with the rod, he will not die. You shall beat him with the rod and deliver his soul from Sheol.” Now obviously you can read into this beating. And they were well aware of it in this time, Solomon’s time, around that period of time, a thousand years before Christ as well as we are, people of course got beat to death in those days. You can murder someone by taking a club or a rod and beating them to death. In fact, the instructions of the Law warned when you gave lashes, you could only give a certain amount or else you would be held responsible for the death of the person that was being punished. So here he is not talking about beating in the sense of a rage that you know was beating out punishment on a child or a young person but the measure. Discipline expresses your love in punishing for wrong behavior.

Let’s face it, there’s no punishment if there’s no pain involved. That’s what makes it punishment isn’t it? You don’t tell your child, now you do that one more time, and I am going to go out and buy you and ice cream sundae. Not if they are doing something wrong you don’t. Why? Because that wouldn’t be unpleasant. Now, quite frankly, in raising the kids I don’t know what else to do. I go back to the book of Proverbs, and I say, I’ve just got to read Proverbs. I said, Lord, I’ve just got to do what you say. I don’t know what else to do. Now Lord, let me just say something. It doesn’t seem to be working, but I go ahead, and do it because you say to do it. And I am praying that You will use this for Your purposes. Now I am not saying every time you have to use spanking. But I am saying as I come to the book of Proverbs that does seem to be the specified form of discipline for children.


A number of years ago there was an article in the paper with comments from a University of Nebraska professor. He is the social professor in human development and the family at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. This goes back a few years ago. I don’t know if he still has the position or what he is doing. He offered the following comments about popular and not-so-popular maxims dealing with marriage, child rearing, family relationships and teachings. “Spare the rod and spare the child. Well, that comes from the Bible, the book of Proverbs. That one really upsets me. That one is dangerous,” this professor said. “Fortunately, very few people believe that anymore. If teachers and childcare workers can refrain from physical punishment, so can parents. Resorting to the rod neither prevents a spoiled child, nor instills any useful message about relationships. It suggests that it is alright for bigger people to hit smaller ones and that problems can be solved with violence.” You know all that is evidence of man’s rebellion against God. We know better than the Creator about discipline. Besides as He is proven to be wrong with the passing of time, everybody just forgets what He said. But the damage is done. We just read that as an example because it is characteristic of the day. Many like to outlaw physical punishment of any kind, spankings and so on. You know if you do spank your child, you may have someone from a government agency at your door.

We do need to conduct ourselves properly that the discipline of my children would be handled with me under control. I don’t want to leave bruises and so on, but I want it to hurt. Our form was to use a ping pong paddle because it spread it out. My dad used a belt - very effective, very effective! The last thing I wanted to see was him coming, unhooking the belt. I always wished he wore suspenders, but he didn’t. You know, and I always preferred mom to do it. The worst punishment that mom meted out was, go to your room and wait until Dad gets home. You know Mom, why don’t you punish me. That’s alright, go ahead, you do it Mom. If she wouldn’t you knew you’d spend the next two hours trying to butter up mom, from your room. You know offering to come out and help her get dinner or something. Then terrible when I’d hear the car door close. You’re just sweating like crazy and hear your dad come in and hear him come down the hall. The door opens, Dad, you haven’t heard my side. I still remember my dad saying to me, you don’t have a side. Ouch! You know, I’d spent the last two hours working out my explanation so he would realize I was right and mom was wrong. Dad, you haven’t heard my side. You don’t have a side. Remember, your mom is always right, even when she’s wrong. Obviously it made an impression on me. I’m fifty-four and I’m still reciting it. It was good for me. It took some of the confusion out of my life. You know it brought order to me life in the sense, I will be guilty. I can’t win this one. Now it didn’t keep me from doing wrong. But it caused me to realize each time I did it there was pain associated with it, and I didn’t die. He beat me. At times I wanted to convince him it was more than he should have, but it was done in love. It never really damaged me. But was good.

So all of that to say that I think that what you need to do instead of reading every child psychology book that comes out, even if it claims to be a Christian psychology, we say, boy, how do I discipline here, how do I discipline here? Every day, read a proverb. You know the pattern of going through Proverbs every month. Mark out the verses on discipline and you say, well here’s what I do. Now how will I do this. For fathers I think it’s important that we do it with consistency, not when it’s convenient, not when it’s not interrupting, not when I don’t have other things on my mind. There were times when I would get upset with my kids and I would say, ?Go to your room, I will come when I am under control. You know this idea that you just give them a swat, now there are sometimes when a swat on the seat of the pants may be necessary, but we want to be careful that we don’t do it just because we lost our cool. That’s not true godliness being manifested. But the discipline being exhorted here, the rod of discipline, in Proverbs 22:15. Beating him with the rod, in 23:13. Beating him with the rod, giving him a good spanking, is what we would be talking about.

Chapter 29:15, “The rod and reproof give wisdom.” So here you see the correction going on. We’d say both spanking and explanations, verbal reproof and correction. “But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.” Interesting, shame to his mother. A child who gets his own way was left to himself, literally, a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. How sad! We see it everywhere. We don’t know what to do with the kids. We just think that they ought to be free to express themselves. And that you have to think of now, what’s going on in their mind? How can I reason with them. That’s not the way the Bible approaches it. Because what you are doing is putting a responsibility on the child that he is not equipped and able to deal with. We treat him like an adult. They are not adults. And they need to learn that they have a responsibility here.


Look at verse 17. Correct your son and he will give you comfort. He will delight your soul. Simple, clear admonitions from scripture. The problems going on so much in our homes today are not because of a lack of clarity in scripture. It’s a result of not being willing just to take the simple, clear explanations of scripture. You know, I read these verses, some of them penned by the world’s wisest man, all of them recorded here under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, but I don’t want to do it. Then I wonder why things don’t work. Now again this isn’t a guarantee that the little sinner will turn out the way I want. I can’t change their heart. Only God can change a heart. All I can do is be as godly a person as I can, and that means functioning under the authority of the scripture that I want them to function under the authority of. And part of my explanation of discipline would be, as they try to weasel out of it. No, that wouldn’t be good for you. You’ve done wrong and the punishment for that, you’ll have to get four. Four with the paddle. If it persists, the next time you will get five. Next time you will get six. I remember one of my kids asking me, how high will you go? You know that reminded me, you little sinner, part of this is a game to you. I think we were up to six or seven by then. Would you go to ten, was the next question she asked? I won’t tell you which child this was. They’re out of town today. I would say, that’s up to you. You wouldn’t do that that many times. Well, I would if you would do wrong that many times. No. Yes! That would be child abuse. Amazing how they pick up the system, isn’t it. I said, well, you know if you would stop doing wrong, I would stop spanking you. You know, I realized they knew what was going on. It was a test. I remember walking out of there on occasion and saying to Marilyn, I’m going to wear out before they do. But that’s part of the goal isn’t it? So to be consistent I just have to go back to the word and say, God this is what you said to do and I am going to do it. Now again, that is my responsibility. Only God can work in the heart. Ultimately as they become adults they get to a point where you cannot control them. They can walk out the door and go their own way but I have to know before God that I have been godly, and they have seen godliness in me.

Associated with this, look over to Hebrews chapter 12. And I should have picked it up in Proverbs, but go to Hebrews chapter 12. Let me read you Proverbs chapter 3 verses 11 and 12. And it will be repeated in Hebrews chapter 12. Proverbs 3 verse 11 says, “Son do not reject the discipline of the Lord or loathe His reproof, for whom the Lord loves he reproves even as a father the son in whom he delights.” True discipline is an expression of love so that when God disciplines me as his child, I accept that as an expression of His love for me.

Hebrews chapter 12, verse 3, “Consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself that you may not grow weary and lost heart. You have not resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons. My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you are reproved by Him. Those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom he receives.” Proverbs 3: 11, 12, “It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline. But if you are without discipline of which all have become partakers, you are illegitimate children and not sons.” If you are sinning and not getting disciplined by God, don’t think you are getting away with something. You should stop and think, maybe I am not God’s child. He disciplines His children. If I am not being disciplined by Him, I think, oh, I can sin and get away with it. Maybe you ought to stop and think, oh, I’m sinning and getting away with it because I’m not His child. Rather than being disciplined by Him as a child, I’m on my way to eternal judgement as one who does not belong to Him.


Verse 9, “We had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of Spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them. He disciplines us for our good that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore strengthen the hands that are weak” [and so on]. But I say this is as a parent and particularly as a father. We have been talking about fathers. I need to manifest on my own, a willing acceptance of God’s discipline in my life, in our home. I don’t want to be a complaining father when something doesn’t go right. This is part of God’s plan, the pressure, part of God’s discipline to make me more the man that He wants me to be. How do I expect my children to learn to accept discipline when I won’t accept it from the Lord. I am grumbling and complaining. I didn’t get the raise I thought I ought to get and they don’t care. Well, it is God’s will for me that He wants me to learn from this to trust Him. Maybe he sees that I need to develop in my character. Maybe he sees that I have become more focused on material things and want more of those and God is disciplining me and chastening me.

I have a chance to model for my children when things aren’t going the way that I would like them to, when there is pressure brought to bear in my life that I accept it because I know God loves me. That so what are called bad things, the hard things that come into our life we model for our children, we accept from the hand of our God these things. He loves us and He is bringing difficulty and hardship into our life because He loves us. That becomes an illustration just like when I have to discipline you. I love you. And I want it for your good. So God brings difficulty into my life as a parent so that I can grow, that I become more the person that He wants me to be.

So I need to be careful I don’t undermine the whole concept of discipline by my complaining or give-up attitude. Oh, what’s the use. I worked hard and this didn’t happen and that, or that happened, or people didn’t appreciate it when I don’t model that I accept from my God what He is doing, even when it’s unpleasant. And our kids see it. They know you are going through unpleasant times. God’s doing what’s best for us. And it is painful. I don’t want to pretend oh that doesn’t bother me. No. It is painful. And I am having to learn through this just like you have to learn when I discipline you what God wants me to learn. And sometimes just like you say you don’t understand it, you don’t think it is necessary, sometimes I feel that way with God, but I know He’s doing what’s right, what’s good. So we want to be careful in our attitude as parents particularly as fathers that we model godliness.


One example and then we are done, a quick example. First Samuel chapter 2. You know it is sometimes disheartening to see the family life of some of the Old Testament saints. Samuel records the life of Eli here, and we are just going to pick up a couple of examples. Verse 12 of 1 Samuel 2, “Now the sons of Eli were worthless men; they did not know the Lord.” What a tragedy. “They did not know the Lord.” Verse 17 says, “The sin of the young men was very great before the Lord for the men despised the offering of the Lord,” not functioning properly in this whole realm. Eli was old. He hears what his sons are doing. He gives them a verbal rebuke. But the end of verse 25 says “they would not listen to the voice of their father.” So we move over to chapter 3, and this is where God calls to Samuel, the young man staying with Eli. And he gets up hearing the voice of the Lord. You know he goes to Eli thinking Eli is calling him. The message from God verse 13 of 1 Samuel 3, “For I have told him that I am about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew because his sons brought a curse on them, and he did not rebuke them.”

Now you note here Eli could not change their hearts, but Eli was responsible before God to exercise proper godly discipline among them, and he did not. The rebuke that he gave, that verbal rebuke was little, perhaps we could say too little too late. What God rebukes Eli for is not that his sons were ungodly, but that Eli did not discipline them for their ungodliness. I want to keep it in proper perspective. How would Eli’s sons have turned out if he had disciplined them as he should? I don’t know. But Eli would have demonstrated godly character and not brought judgement on his house and family if he had functioned as God would have him function. That to say I want to keep it in perspective. The prayer and desire of my heart as a parent and it is for all of us who are Christian parents, is that our children would come to know the Lord. That’s in the Lord’s hands. The Judge of all the earth will do right.

What can I say? If I can’t trust the Lord with my kids, can I trust Him? I mean, He will do what’s right. But I can be the godly man that God has called me to be and provided for me to be in Christ. And that is true of the exercising of discipline in my home. When I can’t say through the attempt to be consistent with the discipline and it is as I see best in light of the word, as Hebrews said, it is not always perfect discipline. I trust God will use that for good in their lives. But that’s not all there is about the discipline. There is the whole environment as we saw in Deuteronomy chapter 6. Perhaps it would be as Timothy who evidently as a child knew the holy Scriptures but was saved as a young man under Paul’s ministry. Lord they are in Your hands, and I trust the truth they learn even though they may be running as hard and fast and far from You today, that some day in Your grace You draw them to Yourself. Then I can take the credit for being a parent who did what’s right and see when you do what’s right, the kids turn out. No, so they can be a testimony to Your grace.

That’s it. I mean that’s the way it comes. That anybody is saved is a testimony of God’s grace. That we are privileged to share the good news with our children is God’s grace. I want to be careful that I don’t take credit for God’s grace. That our kids are saved is a testimony to God’s grace. If I was privileged to share the word with them and do my best to be a godly parent, that was God’s grace and work in my life, vile, fallen sinner that I was. So we want to be careful that we keep it all in perspective, but that we function biblically. And for children, young people who have come to know the Lord, that would be a delight and they will express their obedience. For us as parents, particularly as fathers, may God give us the grace in these days to exercise proper godly discipline as we provide the environment in our homes of godliness that the Lord might use that to reach our children. Let’s pray together.


Lord, You are a God who is gracious, gracious far beyond what we can grasp and comprehend. Thank You for the way that You have worked in our lives. Lord, you are here this evening looking in Your word together. Lord, how gracious You are to bring us together and give us this privilege. How blessed we are to have Your truth and to know it and understand it. How amazing it is that we, vile, wretched, sinful people should have experienced your redeeming grace and have new life in Christ. Lord, I pray for our homes and every home represented here. I pray especially for the parents and the fathers that we would take to heart the importance of godliness. I pray for the young people who are here, Lord those that do truly know You, that Your character will be seen clearly in their life as they gladly demonstrate their obedience to You by their obedience to their parents. And Lord in it all may we be a people who walk by faith willing to entrust our lives to you, willing to entrust the lives of our children to You. And it is our passion to be a godly people, to have Your work Your purposes for Your honor and glory in our lives and in the lives of our children. We ask it all in Christ’s name, amen.