Your Child Has the Bents!, Part 3

Today, from Chuck Swindoll, a lesson for moms and dads. Start by leading your child to Christ.

You need all the help you can get. The work of Jesus Christ in a heart provides an inner power that you can't provide as a parent as much as you love your child. Christ in the life can do wonders for that life. Psalm 139 celebrates the beauty of life within a mother's womb. David, the writer, described God's mysterious miracle in forming an unborn child. In his prayerful Psalm to God, he said, Your workmanship is marvelous.

How well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll describes the implications of Psalm 139. In this section of our new series on the family, Chuck describes the one of a kind personality of each baby. He titled his message, Your Child Has the Bense.

The Psalmist realized that he's an original and something happened within him as he came to terms with that. He as well as we become free of comparison. I said this last time and I'll repeat it. A great mistake parents make is comparing one child with another. How unfair.

Why would we do that? Comparisons help no one. The one who's doing better just has his pride built up.

The one who's doing worse gets more depressed. What good is comparison? You're not meant to be like your brother or your sister. You're meant to be an original. It's remarkable knowing of the Lord's original work within us and how we're meant to be. David goes on to talk about the frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret. The frame is a Hebrew word that means bony substance. It would refer to our skeleton. Our height is shaped in our frame.

Our bones, our frames are all put together uniquely. We're woven together. These words are translated woven together. That is from the word, get this, variegated as in a multicolored cloth.

It's used in the book of Exodus for the curtain that hangs in the tavern that hung in the tabernacle that was embroidered in these beautiful colors with colorful threads. The Lord was then engaged in the variegated inner workings of our being. What's so amazing about this is there are those who deny that the one in the womb is alive. God is working on a living being preparing this fetus for birth. So when you hold your child for the first time, that soft, wonderful little screaming creature that you've got in your arms, that child is come prescribed by God.

It's not a moldable piece of clay that can be shaped or altered as you please. It's not about your way. That child comes with his or her own way. God planned it like that. And wise is the parent who realizes it.

And it doesn't stop at birth. Read on. Look at verse 16. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book.

Look at that. My days were laid out in God's book. He knows how it reads. He knows what it says.

Every moment was laid out before there was a single day that had passed. How precious are your thoughts toward me? You realize how few people spend their life on this earth never once realizing that God thinks precious thoughts about them? How many people feel discouraged, useless, in the way? Let me jump from the earliest years to the later years.

How many in the senior category feel in the way? Useless. Not so. The reason you're still living is because God planned for you to still be living. Which means he has an arrangement of things for you to this day.

In fact, those thoughts are so priceless and numberless, he calls them precious. So every child needs to know at least four things. First, the Lord made them like none other. Second, the Lord loves them and cares about them throughout their lives. Third, they are important, gifted, competent in specific areas and therefore they have a future as you help them discover what those areas are. And fourth, we parents and grandparents are committed to the cultivation of those strengths and areas of giftedness. Now as your child is growing up, they long to be known and you're the best source to help them know and to help them cultivate who they are.

You got the picture. It takes time. It takes effort. Ultimately, it will cost.

If they go into the school of their choice and they're accepted, it will be expensive. It's the role of the parent to help a child understand how they're put together and then to stand with them and to applaud their every move in that direction. You know, I don't believe David was raised like this. Remember when Samuel came to choose a king and he brought the bag of oil so he could anoint one of the sons of Jesse? Jesse paraded his sons before Samuel and Samuel said, none of these are the possible king.

I have no guidance in this. They're not the ones. Are these all your sons? Jesse goes, oh, I have one more.

He was sort of like me. Remember, there were more in the family. And so he goes, there's one who keeps the sheep. So David comes in and before he knows that oil is running down the back of his neck and he realizes he's been anointed to become the king. No one was more surprised than David. Now, he's not like most of us when they're going down to Nordstrom's and trot on crowns that afternoon. Not David. He goes right back with the sheep. He's not aware of his kingly abilities or strengths or leadership skills. He's taking care of his father's sheep. A child can be lost in the process of growing up. It's a parent's job to find them.

Help them know who they are, that they might accept who they are and ultimately by adulthood become who they are. Now I have to get to the dark side. I can't leave that out. Psalm 51 5, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me. The way it reads, you could think it means my mother conceiving me was in sin. Doesn't mean that. It means my mother, a sinner, conceived me and I too am contaminated with the same sin. All who are born are born sinful. Your precious child is lovely and is cuddly and soft and beautiful as he or she may be as a nature that is evil.

It must be confronted, counteracted consistently, firmly and fairly. That's the job of a parent. When parents do that, children love you for it.

Not at the time, but later they thank you for helping them know how to restrain such evil tendencies. If this is too strong for you and you just can't bring yourself to believe your child is an evil bent, pause for a moment and remember that day in May in Uvalde. When an 18 year old with rifles went into a classroom, you know the rest of the story. As I heard the story and grieved through it with all of you and watching it, I wondered about his childhood. I learned a little about his mother from what was reported.

No need to get into that, but it was obvious that her time wasn't spent coming to know her son. He lived with his grandparents and even his grandfather when interviewed said, we never knew he was like this. We never knew he was like that. Really? Do you have a son like that?

Watch. Are they cruel to their animals? Are they brutal with their friends?

Are they mean spirited? If you don't confront that, who will? Don't leave it for the church.

We can't resurrect what the home puts to death. Don't leave it for the teacher in the classroom. She's not there to discipline. She's there to teach. But alas, most of them spend more time disciplining the children in the class than teaching. Dr. Albert Siegel wrote this in the Stanford Observer several years ago.

Listen to these words from this authority. When it comes to rearing children, every society is only 20 years away from barbarism. Twenty years is all we have to accomplish the task of civilizing our infants who are born into our midst each year. These savages know nothing of our language, our culture, our religion, our values, our custom of interpersonal relations, the infant is totally ignorant about respect, decency, honesty, conventions, and manners. The barbarism must be tamed if civilization is to survive.

We're in a bad way as a country and it's easy to look at the peripheral reasons and people are doing that. Go back to the home. Go back to the parenting. Much will be discovered.

Proverbs 20, 11, even children are known by the way they act, whether their deeds are pure and right. Stop. Look. Listen. Talk. Turn the television off.

Make plans to be together. Proverbs 29, 15 states to discipline a child produces wisdom but a mother is disgraced by an undisciplined child. The new American standard is closer to the original. The rod and reproof both give wisdom but a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother. In the Hebrew it says but a child left brings shame to his mother, left in the original condition in which he is born. How?

How do I do it? May I tell you? Start by leading your child to Christ.

You need all the help you can get. The work of Jesus Christ in a heart provides an inner power that you can't provide as a parent as much as you love your child. Christ in the life can do wonders for that life. Second, spend time observing and listening. Not talking. Listening. Observing. And then there will be time to dialogue. Third, be faithful to confront and also to cultivate. Let the evil cultivate the good. Stay with both as long as any of the children are under your roof.

Remember the last time we were together the word child covers an infant all the way up to a child of marital age. As long as they're in your home, parents have a job to do. Keep a broad perspective in mind you're helping our civilization survive. It makes all the difference in our world when parents faithfully cultivate the good and counteract the evil.

I close with these true accounts in contrast. The father of Jonathan Edwards was a minister and his mother was the daughter of a clergyman. Among their descendants were 14 presidents of colleges, more than 100 university professors, more than 100 attorneys, 30 judges, more 60 physicians, and more than 100 clergymen, missionaries, and theology professors, and about 60 authors of great books. Hardly an industry has not been touched by the Edwards family. In contrast, listen to the Jukes family of New York. They could not be made to study or to work. They were said to have cost the state of New York well over one million dollars, which was a fortune back then. Their entire record is one of pauperism and crime.

Among their 1,200 known descendants, 310 were professional paupers, 440 were physically wrecked by their own wickedness, 60 were habitual thieves, 130 were convicted criminals, only 20 of them learned a trade, 10 of them learned it while in a state penitentiary, and seven of them were murderers. The next time you are tempted to think that your efforts are really not that important, remember the Edwards and the Jukes families. Call to mind these who made a difference in our world and those who hindered the good work of our society. We need you parents.

We need every one of you, grandparents as well. We need you to be there, to love them, to hold them near and dear to you, to speak words privately to them that will be meaningful about who they are and the things within them they can accept and cultivate. And then when you see them being real and standing alone, not afraid to stand against the crowd, tell them how proud you are of them. Express to them your gratitude for their lives. Not only are they precious to the Lord, they're precious to us.

They need to hear us say that again and again and again. You may be a parent who doesn't know Christ and you hear these words and you think, what does all that mean? It means you submit your life to the Savior who died for you. You're not in life for yourself, you begin to live your life for him.

You trust him as your master. You turn over your life to him and he in turn gives you his life. One man put it like this, the life that Christ lived qualified him for the death that he died and the death that he died qualifies us for the life that he lived. You can live a Christ-like life but it begins by coming to the cross and trusting in the Lord Jesus personally.

No one can do that for you. Even a set of godly parents does not bring you closer to heaven. Each of us must make the decision on our own and you make it privately before the Lord.

Let's take care of that right now. Please bow with me just for a few moments. Are you sure there was a time in your life when you trusted in Christ? If there was, is he in charge or are you now walking your own way? Come back to him.

Bring your life before him and tell him you want to get in line with his way of life. If you've never trusted in Christ, now is the time to do that. Lord, I come before you as a sinner. You and I are not on speaking terms and I want to become one of your children. I receive Christ into my life. I take him as my own. Thank you, Lord, for forgiving me of my sins. I believe in you now. We'd love to help you in that journey. If you'll just connect with us, we'll help you on your way as you grow in Christ.

We pause our Father at the end of a searching message. We've covered a lot of territory. We realize the responsibility of parenting far more than simply birthing, feeding, clothing, sheltering, and schooling our children. We need to know them. We need to cultivate those things that make them unique. We need to build into them the assurance that they have been made by God. Help us to do that, Lord, and to faithfully carry that out as long as we live. Honor your name and our families. Honor your work as we obey you. Through Christ, I ask this. Everyone sin.

Amen. This is Insight for Living, and Chuck Swindoll titled today's message, Your Child Has the Bents. If you're prepared to learn more about child rearing and cultivating a healthy family, remember that every sermon you hear on Insight for Living is complemented by Chuck's online study notes. We call these free Bible study resources Searching the Scriptures Studies.

To take a deeper look at Psalm 139 and the other passages that Chuck mentioned today, go to insightworld.org slash studies. The series is called Restoring Your Family's Foundation. And then Chuck also wrote a book for moms, dads, grandparents, or anybody like an aunt or uncle who loves the family. It's called Parenting from Surviving to Thriving. You'll enjoy reading the biblical wisdom that Chuck offers in the uplifting style you've come to expect from him. And this book would make a thoughtful gift for young parents as well. To purchase a copy of Chuck Swindoll's book, Parenting from Surviving to Thriving, go to insight.org slash store. Or call us.

If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888. In the early days, perhaps you remember listening to Chuck's teaching when your kids were quite young. You didn't have a lot of financial resources back then. You were just trying to make ends meet.

But years have passed and the picture has changed for you. We invite you to give generously so that young families will benefit from Chuck's teaching just as you did. You can give a donation online at insight.org slash donate. Or call us.

If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888. You know, we often hear from listeners who tell us they recall hearing Chuck's teaching in the car on their way to school with a mom or dad who enjoyed Insight for Living. Maybe that's you. Those comments encourage us because they demonstrate the multi-generational impact of Insight for Living. And we'd love to hear your story too. So connect with us online at insight.org. Or let us know you're listening by calling us.

If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888. Take it from Chuck Swindoll. There's nothing quite like the beauty of the great frontier. It opens skies, pristine glaciers with various shades of blue and turquoise mingled within them towering pine trees and all manner of wildlife. I'll tell you, Alaska is truly a masterpiece of God's creation. I've been to a lot of places and seen a lot of things, but honestly, nothing compares to the beauty in Alaska.

God is awesome. Come with us on the Insight for Living Ministries cruise to Alaska July 1st through July 8th, 2023. When I'm in Alaska, I feel like I'm in an amazing painting created by God. Let yourself get lost in the majestic beauty. Spend quality time with those you love. Allow God to refresh your soul as you reflect on His Word and His goodness in your life. To learn more, go to insight.org slash events or call this number 1-888-447-0444.

The tour to Alaska is paid for and made possible by only those who choose to attend. I'm Bill Meyer. Chuck Swindoll presents an uplifting message called Delighting in Your Kids and Grandkids next time on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Your Child Has the Bands, was copyrighted in 2022 and 2023, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2023 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.