Shade for Our Children

Set a standard, live by that standard and correct to that standard.

That's it. And He'll give you comfort. In your old age, He'll support you. He'll love you, call you blessed and delight your soul. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. The word terrifying is probably not the first word that comes to mind when you think of a little baby. Yet without godly parents to nurture that little one and address his or her sinful nature, that life is in a position to cause intense sorrow, to wreak havoc on the home. What can you do, whether you're a mom or a dad or even a grandparent, what can you do to guide, protect, and instruct your children as they grow? John MacArthur has some practical biblical insight today on Grace To You, showing you what to do and what not to do if you're a parent. John's message is titled, Shade For Our Children, and here he is now with a lesson. Open your Bible, if you will, to Ephesians chapter 6, Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4.

The verse says, And fathers, or better, parents, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. An old Chinese proverb says this, one generation plants the trees and another gets the shade. You and I are still living in the shade of some trees that were planted by our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. We are shaded to some degree by their moral standards, their spiritual commitment, their value system, their sense of right and wrong, their commitment to duty. We are shaded by what our parents and grandparents planted. The question that faces us today is what kind of trees are being planted today to shade the future generation from what may well be the blistering heat of an Antichrist-dominated world?

Are we planting anything or are we leaving our children totally exposed? It is obvious, or should be to every one of us, that our culture as to morals, values, ethics, duty, commitment is disintegrating. The very systems on which we base our life are convoluted, skewed and out of sync with God's divine order. Well, Scripture is certainly clear when it speaks of our responsibility to our children.

God has set the standards. Children are supposed to be a blessing. Children are supposed to be a joy. Children are supposed to be a benediction from the Lord to grace our lives with fulfillment and meaning and happiness and satisfaction. They are given for our joy and yet they turn out to be heartbreak upon heartbreak upon heartbreak.

Left exposed to this world and unshaded by the proper kind of protection, they will indeed break your heart. But let's get back in touch with God's basic perspective. Genesis chapter 4, when we go back to the very beginning of God-giving children, we read in Genesis 4, 1, the man, that is Adam, had relations with his wife Eve and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, I have gotten a man child, literally with the Lord. In other words, the Lord was the source of this child. The Lord gave me a child. In verse 25, Adam had relations with his wife again. She gave birth to a son named Seth for God has appointed me another offspring.

She saw her children as gifts from God. Chapter 17 of Genesis and verse 20, as for Ishmael, I have heard you behold I will bless him and make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of 12 princes and I will make him a great nation. Even to Ishmael, God says, I will bless him. How will you bless him? By giving him children.

Twelve princes I'll give him. That is a great blessing. Genesis chapter 29. In Genesis 29 and verse 31, the Lord saw that Leah was unloved and He opened her womb. But Rachel was barren. Leah conceived and bore a son and named him Reuben. For she said, Because the Lord has seen my affliction, surely now my husband will love me. She conceived again and bore a son and said, Because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also. She thought when she had her first son, her husband would love her. She found out only her child loved her.

By the time she got the second son, she got the second son and knew that the second son was to fill again the void of love she felt not from her husband. The point is this, that God gave her children so she could enjoy their love. Children are a blessing. Children are a source of love. Rachel was feeling this barrenness in chapter 30, verse 1, and she said to Jacob, Give me children or I'll die.

Verse 2, Then Jacob's anger burned against Rachel and he said, Am I in the place of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? The point is only God can give children. God gives them for joy. God gives them for blessing.

God gives them to fulfill our lives. Verse 6, Rachel finally said, God has vindicated me and has indeed heard my voice and has given me a son, again a gift from God. Verse 17, God gave heed to Leah, she conceived and got a fifth son and said, God has given me my wages because I gave my maid to my husband. Verse 19, Leah conceived again and bore a sixth son. Leah said, God has endowed me with a good gift. Children are to bring goodness, joy, blessing, benediction, promise, hope, fulfillment, meaning to life. In chapter 33 and verse 5, and here Esau meets Jacob and Jacob says that those with him are the children whom God has graciously given your servant, gifts from God, graciously given to be a blessing and a benediction. In Ruth, that wonderful book in verse 13 of chapter 4, listen to this. So Boaz took Ruth, she became his wife, he went into her and the Lord enabled her to conceive. She gave birth to a son, then the women said to Naomi, blessed is the Lord. Children are to be a blessing.

Always it has been that way. God gives them for our encouragement. God gives them for our joy. Proverbs 23, 24, the father of the righteous will greatly rejoice and he who begets a wise son will be glad in him.

That's God's purpose. Children are to make us happy. Be wise, my son, says Proverbs 27, 11, and make my heart glad. A wise son indeed gladdens the father's heart. Proverbs 29, 3 says, a man who loves wisdom makes his father glad.

And so it goes. Now how is it that with God's purpose that children are to bring us joy and happiness, contentment, satisfaction and love, that instead they become a heartbreak? Marriages and families in our time tend to be war zones, disaster areas. Homes aren't havens. There isn't peace and joy and contentment and bliss, rather conflict, intimidation, estrangement, and a generation of people being raised today exposed rather than shaded by any kind of proper God-ordained standard of living.

To make this practical, let me just talk to you a little bit before we look at our text. The Houston Police Department published a booklet called How to Ruin Your Children. Tongue in cheek, it says, and guaranteed to be 99% infallible.

This is what the Houston Police Department experienced dealing with delinquency and criminals has led them to conclude. Here's how to ruin your children. Number one, begin with infancy to give the child everything he wants. Two, when he picks up bad words, laugh at him. Three, never give him any spiritual training until he is 21, then let him decide for himself.

Four, avoid using the word wrong. It may develop guilt feelings. Five, pick up everything he leaves lying around so he will be experienced in throwing all responsibility for everything on others.

And it goes on and on. Even the culture sees that a child without discipline and instruction is a potential disaster. Another book written by a medical doctor also takes a somewhat sarcastic approach to this and suggests how to create a tragic child. First, here are ten easy steps for developing your normal healthy baby into a drug addict or alcoholic.

Here they are, ten steps. One, spoil him, give him everything he wants if you can afford it. Two, when he does wrong, you may nag him but never spank him. Three, foster his total dependence on you so drugs or alcohol can replace you when he's older. Four, protect him from your husband and from all those mean teachers who threaten to spank him from time to time or discipline him and sue them if you wish. Five, make all of his decisions for him, say, for him since you are a lot older and wiser than he is, he might make mistakes and learn from them if you don't. Six, criticize his father openly so your son can lose his own self-respect and confidence. Seven, always bail him out of trouble so he will like you.

Besides, he might harm your reputation if he gets a police record. Never let him suffer the consequences of his own behavior. Can I stop and inject that that to me is one of the most important issues in child raising.

Children must suffer the consequences of their misbehavior or you will never alter their conduct. Number eight, always step in and solve his problems for him so he can depend on you and run to you when the going gets tough. Then when he's older and still hasn't learned how to solve his own problems, he can continue to run from them through drugs or alcohol.

Nine, just to play it safe, be sure to dominate your husband and drive him to drink too. Number ten, take a lot of prescription drugs yourself so that taking non-prescription drugs won't be a major step for him. That's how to develop your normal healthy baby into a drug addict or alcoholic. Then he suggests, here's how to develop your normal child into a sociopathic criminal.

One, start with the same ten easy steps the alcoholic's mother uses with the following exceptions and additions. Never spank your child. Physical punishment is a thing of the past.

In fact, spanking is now considered immoral. Let your child express himself any way he feels like it. He'll learn from your example how to behave.

He doesn't need any discipline. Don't run his life. Let him run on yours.

Let him manipulate you. Let him play on your guilt if he doesn't get his own way. And don't enforce the household rules if there are any.

That way he'll be able to choose which laws of society he will break when he's older and he won't fear the consequences since he never suffered any. Don't bother him with chores. Do all of his chores for him. Then he can be irresponsible when he's older and always blame others when his responsibilities don't get done. Be sure to give in when he throws a temper tantrum. He might hit you if you don't.

Don't ever cross him when he's angry. It will also help if you choose to believe his lies and you may want to tell a few yourself, particularly on your income taxes. Criticize others openly and routinely so he'll realize that he is better than everyone else. Give him a big allowance and don't make him do anything for it. He may get the idea that he'll have to work for a living later on if you make him work for it. If he does do anything worthwhile around the house, be sure you pay him richly for each and every good deed. You wouldn't want him to think that a feeling of responsibility is its own reward. The point is this, God has given us children.

And unless we obey God's standard, we will produce a disaster. Some husbands are weak and witless. Some husbands are absent.

Some husbands have left altogether. But unless you obey the standard that God has laid down, that child that God has given you to be a joy and a blessing and a benediction and a comfort and a consolation all your life long will turn out to break your heart. Now we need to go back to our text to find out how to raise that child right. We've seen how to do it wrong.

How do we do it right? Let me read you the first three verses. Children, obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. Now the first thing he says, and I'm only going to briefly mention it is that children are called to obey and honor. Obey is the act, honor is the attitude. So what we want out of children is obedience and honor. They need to learn attitudinally to honor their parents and in terms of action to obey their parents. They don't know this naturally.

Do you understand that? The Minnesota Crime Commission acknowledges this when it writes, quote, every baby starts life as a little savage. Then they said this, he is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants, when he wants it, his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmates' toys, his uncle's watch. You deny him these things once and he seizes with rage and aggressiveness which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He's dirty. He has no morals.

Doesn't know anything and has no developed skills. This means that all children, says the Minnesota Crime Commission, all children, not just certain children, all children are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in their self-centered world of infancy, given free rein to their impulsive actions to satisfy each want, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, a killer, a rapist, end quote.

So, folks, if you want to prevent that, you've got a little work to do. Children develop in four areas and it's indicated to us in Luke 2, 52. Jesus grew in wisdom, stature, favor with God and man, right? Wisdom, that's wisdom. Mentally, stature, that's physically. Favor with God, that's spiritually.

And man, that's socially. Mentally, physically, spiritually, socially, children develop. When they come into the world, they are undeveloped. They have to be taught to obey for this is right. And God gave this commandment and put a promise in it for long life if they would have the right attitude. Honor means the spirit of obedience. Obedience means the act of obedience. They are to honor their parents which means they have such respect for them, they want to do what is right and then they're to do what is right. But they aren't going to do that automatically.

They have to be trained to do that. The key, of course, is the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit-filled life, even for a child. Children need to be under the control of the Holy Spirit, but they need to be taught that by their parents. We have a tremendous task at hand. And if you don't teach your children to honor and obey you, then your children will break your heart.

This is absolutely essential. Go back with me to Proverbs for a moment and let me just give you a little bit of a refresher on what it says in the book of Proverbs. Just a few key verses. Proverbs 3, you don't have to look them up if you just want to listen. Proverbs 3, 11 and 12, my 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.

Any father who really loves and delights in his son will discipline him, will reprove him, will correct him. Proverbs chapter 10 verse 13, here's the means. Verse 13 says in the last part of the verse, "'But a rod is for the back of him who lacks understanding.'" Now in this modern culture we would say, no, a computer is for him who lacks understanding. Or an encyclopedia for him who...no, a rod is for the backside of him who lacks understanding.

And what he means here is not that they don't have information, but they don't apply it. If you have a child who demonstrates a lack of wisdom in living, get out a rod and use it on his backside or her backside. That's what the Bible says. Chapter 19 verse 18, and this is so practical. Verse 18 of chapter 19, "'Discipline your son while there is hope.'"

Because there's going to come a time when there's no hope, you can't do it anymore. Your son gets too old, you try to hit him with a rod, he'll break it over your head. And notice verse 18, "'Discipline your son while there is hope and do not desire his death.'" If you don't discipline your son while there's still hope, you're desiring his death.

What do you mean by that? One, he'll grow up to be a drug addict and he'll die of an overdose. Two, he'll grow up to be an alcoholic and maybe at the age of 19 run his car into a tree or a wall somewhere and kill himself. He'll grow up to be a criminal and end up killed. No, you discipline your son while there's hope. The alternative is to desire his death. Chapter 22 of Proverbs and verse 15, "'Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.'"

That is right. Foolishness is bound up in the heart. The rod of discipline will remove it far from him. You see again, corporal punishment is the consequence for disobedience which modifies behavior.

Painful, immediate consequence, alter behavior. Proverbs 23, 13 and 14, "'Do not hold back discipline from the child. Although you beat him with the rod, he will not die.'" He'll tell you he's dying, but he's not. He won't die. "'You shall beat him with the rod and deliver his soul from Sheol.'"

You're not talking now about only saving his life, you're talking about saving his soul, the whole person you use that rod. Proverbs 29, 17, I love this, "'Correct your son.'" And your daughter certainly implied here. "'Correct your son or daughter and he will give you comfort.

He will also delight your soul.'" Let me tell you something. I hear all of this discussion about how to raise your children and all this cleverness and how to have your children love you and how they can turn out to delight your soul. And they can give you a thousand psychological ways. Let me make it simple. The Bible simply says, if you correct him...in other words, if you correct him with a rod and discipline him or her and make them live an obedient life, they will delight your soul. It isn't that tough. It isn't that complex. Get a standard, live by that standard and correct to that standard.

That's it. And he'll give you comfort. In your old age, he'll support you. He'll love you, call you blessed and delight your soul. If you don't do that, Proverbs tells you what will happen. And I won't look up all the verses, I'll just give you the list. Proverbs says, if you don't do this, if you don't discipline your child and raise your child properly, he will be a grief to his mother, a rebel to his father, a sorrow to his father, a disaster to his father, a disgrace to his parents, a humiliation to his parents, a user of his parents.

And then look at chapter 29 verse 15. The rod and reproof give wisdom, but the child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother. He'll shame you.

He'll be an embarrassment to you. If you want a child who is a grief and a rebel and a sorrow and a disaster and a disgrace and a humiliation and a user and a shame, then don't do anything. But if you'll discipline that child, set a standard, live by the standard, discipline to the standard, your children will love you, delight in you and comfort your heart. That's Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary.

Today's lesson explained how you can build a strong, protective environment for your kids. It's part of a key collection of John's sermons titled Foundations Volume Two. Now, in light of today's focus on providing shade for our children, John, there's a new book of yours that is finally going to be available in just a few weeks. And I say finally, because this has been a writing project long in the planning. And I know you're excited that the wait is nearly over.

Yeah, I'm very, very excited about this. The book you're talking about is titled The War on Children. Over the last couple of years, it has become apparent to me that children are the target of this corrupt society. At every level, children are targeted in the womb and murdered there. If they can survive that, they grow up in a corrupt world with a family that is just as likely to get a divorce and fall apart as not. And if they can survive that for a few years, they can go to school and the education system will do everything it can to destroy any biblical viewpoint that their parents might have instilled in them. And they're just simply targets for godless, Christ-hating ideologies. If they survive that early part of their education and they go to the university, they're going to run into certainly all kinds of heresies and attacks on the truth. And then through all of that, you have the media going after them. Even children's programs, children's books, children's television has been corrupted by the LGBTQ movement and transgenderism. Yeah, and you know, the devil knows you've got to get the children, obviously. The only way you can totally transform a culture is to get the next generation.

He's been working at it very, very diligently. So I wanted to write a book on The War on Children to talk about what's happening, but more than that, to give a strategy for countering that. And that book is going to be available. We'll be offering it free to everyone on our mailing list next month. What does it mean to be on the mailing list?

Essentially, it means every month you receive a letter from me in which I talk about issues and the latest things that grace to you and other interesting things for those of you who love the word of God. With every monthly letter, you'll receive an offer for a helpful free resource, and that includes new books like The War on Children. If you're not currently receiving the monthly letter with the free offer, you need to do that right away. Be sure to call or email us. Go to the website and start receiving my monthly letter.

That's right, friend. Be sure to ask about receiving John's February letter, the one that contains the free offer for this brand new book, The War on Children. Get in touch with us today. You can call 855-GRACE from 730 to 4 o'clock Pacific time, and one of our customer service representatives will make sure you receive John's February letter that contains the free offer.

That number one more time, 855-GRACE. You can also send an email to letters at gty.org or write to us by mail at grace to you, post office box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. And when you're online, download the Grace To You Sermons app if you haven't already.

It's designed with your busy schedule in mind. It's an app that delivers John's verse-by-verse Bible teaching, more than 3,600 sermons to your Apple or Android device, free of charge. You can also watch the Grace To You television broadcast, you can read our blog, and much more. To get the app or access to thousands of other free Bible study tools, just visit our website, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire staff here at Grace To You, I'm Phil Johnson with a question. Politicians and educators might say that they are looking out for children, but is their priority list for helping your kids the same as God's? John answers that tomorrow with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.