It's the part of parenting that both parents and kids agree is unpleasant, uncomfortable and not fully understood. Discipline. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah clears up the confusion and shares the value of discipline as expressed by King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived. With the conclusion of his message, Power Up Your Parenting Skills, Proverbs for Parents, here's David.
Well, as you know, I'm a parent. I've had four children. I have now twelve grandchildren and one great-grandchild and four more on their way.
So I'm into the parenting business and I Learned a lot about being a parent as I learned with Donna the things to do and not to do. We made some mistakes, but we stayed together and prayed for our kids and helped them grow up. And now we're watching our children do that with their children. And it's wonderful to see that many of the principles that we learned and taught them, they're teaching too. Parenting is a tremendous opportunity and a great responsibility.
I'll be honest with you, sometimes you just shake your head and say, Now, what do I do? But the Lord God is with you, and the principles of the Bible are so helpful.
So we are getting ready to finish up this two-day discussion of Proverbs for parents, and we'll get to that in just a moment. But before we open our Bibles together to the book of Proverbs, let me just remind you again that Israel matters a lot to God. And I'm sure his heart is wounded as he sees what is happening in our country now, as many are. cursing Israel and uh anti-Semitism is on the rise here and um It's um Really disturbing thing because the Bible says if you don't bless Israel, if you curse Israel, it does not fare well for you. History has proven that.
And oh, how important it is that we stay focused as believers on the nation of Israel and love these people as God would have us love them. This book is all about God's heart for Israel, and it's yours for the asking during the month of August for a gift of any size to Turning Point to help us with the teaching of the Word of God around the world. Thank you so much for your support. And now, Here is part two of Powering Up Your Parenting Skills: Proverbs for Parents. What I really want to talk with you about primarily is the fact that parents are not only called upon to disciple their children.
They're called upon to discipline their children. discipline is almost going out of style. And if you don't believe that, Travel on an airplane. I'm quite a traveler. And when I see them coming through the front door.
I began to pray as they moved toward my seat. Oh Lord, keep them at least seven or eight rows away. Because it is overwhelming to me how parents. Allow their children to do anything and don't even make any attempt to bring discipline or control into the life. Where did this all start?
Well, it didn't come from Solomon, I promise you, because let me tell you what Solomon has to say about all this. This would not get me any acclaim on talk shows today, but I'm just going to read to you what the Bible says. First of all, the Bible says that discipline is proper for every child. That's the first principle. It's proper for every child.
Notice chapter 3, verses 11 and 12. Here are the Proverbs: My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest his correction. For whom the Lord loves, he corrects, just as the Father, the Son, in whom he delights. Proverbs 29 and verse 17 says, Correct your son, and he will give you rest. Yes, He will give delight to your soul.
Hebrews 12, 7 says, if you endure correction, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father does not chasten?
So no matter how big or how strong or how mean, every child is to be under discipline. What is happening in this world of ours that is dominated by humanist philosophy is the accumulated effect of several generations of young people who have not been under any discipline at all. And in the name of freedom, we have turned them loose too soon, and we are living with the sad result of our negligence. Paul Harvey expressed the conviction of many of us when he said these words. He said, I am against giving youth more freedom.
They have already about as much freedom as an unguided missile. Jesus didn't campaign for unlimited freedom. He bound himself to God's will. We need some Christian youth with direction and purpose and faith and dedication, and that is born in the home.
Sooner or later, we have to decide that. Hmm. Last I knew, parents were still supposed to be in control. And discipline is proper for every child. Notice the second proverb: discipline proves our love for our children.
Proverbs 13:24 is known to most of you. It says, He that spares the rod hates his son. But he who loves him disciplines him properly. Chastens him early, says the new King James. Do you remember your parents saying something like this?
I'm going to discipline you, and I want you to know this because I love you. Or maybe this sticks in your mind as it does mine. This hurts me more than it does you. That last statement seemed to always be reserved as an introductory remark before I was really going to get it. Isn't it interesting that the number one reason that parents give for not disciplining their children is because I don't want to spank them because I just love them too much.
But in reality, when we refuse to discipline our children, we are demonstrating the exact opposite: that we do not love them, we do not love them enough. To stand in the way of their making the kinds of mistakes that can multiply into the critical, life-threatening mistake. Dr. James Dobson in his bestseller, Dare to Discipline, has written that the parent has got to convince himself that discipline is not something he does to the child, but something he does for the child. The attitude toward the child must be, I love you too much to let you behave like that.
When you see parents letting their children run wild and not standing in the way of their disobedient behavior, do not make the false conception. Conclusion: That they must really love their children a lot because they don't want to touch them. They don't love them enough. to stand in the way. of that which is destroying them and those around them.
So disciplined. Is a demonstration of your love for your children. How many of you know? That when the Father up above disciplines us, it's because He loves us. When he works us over, it's because he cares about us.
You know, there's an old adage that if you're a football player, And you never get chewed out by the coach, it's probably not because you're good, it's because you're unimportant to the plan for the team. What you want to worry about is when they never say anything to you at all, when they just act like you're not there, when you're standing on the sideline and they don't even know your number.
So, when you get chewed out by the coach, it's because they probably think you're going to have a part in the game plan, so they want to make sure you get it right. Almighty God. wants us to be a part of the game plan. and he wants us to get it right.
So just as we discipline our children, God disciplines His children as well. Number three, discipline postponed will be ineffective. Notice what it says in Proverbs 19:18. Chasten your son while there is hope. And let not your soul spare for his crying.
Do not set your heart on his destruction is another translation. Chasten your children while there's hope. I had a woman come to me some years ago and she wanted to know how early she should begin to discipline her children because she was starting to have some troubles. How old should they be before I began to discipline them? And I made the serious mistake of saying, well, how old are they?
She said the oldest one's eleven and the youngest one's nine. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the game was over. And she lost. You can't wait. The Bible says you have to discipline them while there's hope.
What does that mean?
Well, you have a chance to make a difference. If you wait until all of the values and the systems are well in place in their lives and then you try to intervene, you will have a very difficult time making any impact on that child. And I encourage you Not to wait. But to begin early. And I am not a psychologist nor a family counselor.
I am not here to answer all the questions of the particular variety of how do you deal with that and how old should a child be, but I am here to tell you. That when your children began to demonstrate rebellion against you. That is the seed of rebellion in their heart because they're born with an old nature. And that rebellion needs to be confronted or it will grow into a full-size rebellion.
Some psychologists have suggested that the troubled teenage years are just a condensation of all the discipline that has or has not been administered in the early years of the child's life. When you examine what some parents are told by modern psychologists, you can understand why discipline is postponed and avoided. There are so many conflicting ideas in the great mass of man's wisdom. That the only option left to the modern secular parent is to put all the various theories in a hat and pull one out at random. These diverse ideas have one common denominator.
They are the product of this world. And of man's wisdom. Why not take what God says? Do the best you can to take the principles of God's Word and put them into operation. One man said this.
Alas, we arrive at the door of adolescence. The dynamic time of life, which comes with a pimple and goes out with a beard. Those flirtatious years when girls began to powder and boys began to puff. It's an exciting phase of childhood, I suppose, but to be honest, I wouldn't want to stumble through it again. By the way, have you heard of the new wristwatch created exclusively for the anxious parents of teenagers?
After 11 p.m., it wrings its hands every 15 minutes. And most of us parents know what that's all about.
Well, discipline postponed will be ineffective. Here's the next principle: discipline purges wrong conduct from a child's life. That's what the Proverbs say, 22, 15 says it this way: Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Let me read that again.
Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. But the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. How do you correct misbehavior? You make children understand there's a penalty associated with what they do that is wrong. I love the story about the mother of three very small children who was trying to get ready to go out with her husband for a late dinner engagement, and the children all slept in the same room upstairs.
They were playing the games that children all play, especially when their parents are supposed to be doing something else beside parenting. They would not quiet down. They continued to talk and laugh and get out of bed, even though they were threatened regularly by their irritated mother. Finally, when she had all she could stand, she went to the bottom of the stairs and she shouted: If I hear one more word out of any of you, I'm coming upstairs. And everything quieted down.
About five short minutes later, the noise level began to build again. True to her promise, she grabbed a towel, wrapped it around her head, which had been totally immersed in the kitchen sink in the rinsing stage of her shampoo. Up the stairs she stomped and into the room, which had now gotten very quiet. I'm not coming up here again, she said.
Now you kids, stay in bed and be quiet. The silence was deafening as she walked out of the room, but as she stood outside the door for a moment, she heard the littlest of the children ask. Who was that?
Now, I suppose something could be said for scaring our children into obedience. But God has a better way. And God's better way is the application of the board of education to the seat of knowledge. How many of you know that works? The psalmist says something similar: It is good for me that I have been afflicted.
That I might learn thy statutes. He confesses earlier in the Psalms: Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I have kept your word. Hebrews 12.11 says it this way. No chastening for the present seems to be joyous. But grievous, nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto which.
They are exercised thereby. In other words, Discipline isn't fun, either for the child or for the parent. And it's grievous, it brings hurt. But afterwards, it proves. that it can provide the result you're looking for, which is Godliness in the life of a child.
I realize That this again runs cross-current with most modern councils. If you want to ruin a party, stand up and give a little speech on how to discipline your child. Because nobody seems to be very much involved in it these days. Let me give you the next principle: discipline properly administered will not hurt your child. Listen to this very frank Proverb 23, 13.
Withhold not correction from the child. For if you beat him with the rod, he will not die. Isn't that a great thought?
Now it may sound like he's dying But he's not gonna die. On numerous occasions, I've been told by honest parents that the reason they don't discipline their children is because they fear they may cause some physical harm. Let's face it. We've been all the ballpark in this area. We've come through the permissive age of no corporal discipline into the present age of the child abuse syndrome.
We didn't spank our children then because we didn't believe in it. We don't spank them now for fear that someone will report us to the authorities. If we're really honest, most of us do such an inadequate job of discipline not out of the fear of hurting our children, but rather out of refusal to inconvenience ourselves. We yell at our children from one end of the house to the other because we're too lazy to get up and go where they are and take care of the problem. We let all of the intentional problems grow.
How many of you know that if you don't deal with it right when it begins, it escalates, and two things happen: they get more disobedient, and you get more angry. We're going to talk about that in a moment. Let me give you the next principle from Proverbs: Discipline proceeds in spite of crying. The Bible says in Proverbs 19, 18, chasten your son while there is hope. And don't let your soul spare for his crying.
That's one of the translations of Proverbs 19, 18. You know, some parents just, they can't stand the thought that their child will cry. And how many of you know that children have got this figured out? We had one child, and I won't tell you which one it was. The thought of a spanking initiated in immediate sobs.
So emotional. But I couldn't imagine how they could be any worse after the punishment had been administered. And then we had another child that absolutely refused to cry no matter what happened. But it doesn't make any difference. You're to administer discipline even if there is crying.
Crying purges out. the things in that child's life that need to be dealt with. Parents know how bedtime prayers can be full of surprises. One little kid. smarting after punishment, finished his prayers with the usual blessings for all of the members of the family save one.
Then turning to his father, he said, I suppose you noticed you were not included. I think. The next principle goes like this: Discipline provides help for the child, not release of anger for the adult. This is really important because here is where the watershed is with regard to abuse. No Christian should ever do anything to cause physical harm to their child.
God has created a certain part of the anatomy with enough padding.
so that there can be an administration of justice. without abuse. But listen carefully. Ephesians 6:4 says this: Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and the training of the Lord. My good friend Dr.
Haddon Robinson wrote a little paper on this one time that I got a hold of, and this is what he said. Even though I am to punish my youngsters, I must be certain that the discipline is for their positive good. All of us can sympathize with the mother who said in exasperation, Well, the kids were making such a racket that I went in and spanked them. It didn't help much, but it sure did me a world of good. Too often, we spank our children because we are irritated, or we scold them and nag at them to release our own frustrations.
Chastening and admonitions require thought and spiritual sensitivity if it's to be of the Lord. My discipline, no matter what it is, should be designed to bring my children to God. In all of the passages about discipline in the scripture, not one that I know says that discipline is exclusively to penalize. It is always used in the positive context of instruction and correction. It should never be an occasion for a parent to take out his anger or his own irritation on his child.
If you're angry, Wait. That's the only reason to wait. But don't use your anger as a weapon against your children. Remember, you're big and they're little. I don't know where the abuse syndrome started.
I hate everything that's related to it. I see little children who have been the result of child abuse, and I cannot comprehend how anyone could do that. But, my friends, when you protect a society that kills the unborn, It's not long before people reason, well, I could have killed him before he was born. It doesn't matter if I beat him around a little bit now that he's here. We've raised a culture of disregard for the human life.
And so we live in this delicate balance between the importance of corporal punishment. And the very careful protection of our children and our young people from abuse. And God can give every parent who trusts Him the wisdom to administer discipline so that they never cross the line. I can tell you, I was disciplined. By my parents.
My father Had the ability to put the fear of God in me. And when I did something really bad, And my mother said, I'm not going to deal with this. Your father's going to deal with it when he gets home. I knew the meaning of fear. And when he got home, He dealt with it.
But my father nor my mother ever hurt me. or ever did damage to me. as a person. I can honestly say that the best I know, I've raised four children and I've never. hurt any of my children.
but I've gotten their attention a few times.
So you can do it. Don't let the world tell you, don't let them pour you into the mold that says, you can't discipline your children because that's child abuse. Not to discipline them is to abuse them. Not to deal with their rebellion is to abuse them. Finally, Let me give you the last principle and we're finished.
Discipline prepares a child. for the most important decision in his life. What is it about a Christian home that prepares a young person to deal with life and deal with eternity and deal with the reality of knowing God in a personal way? Discipline sets the context for it. And that's not just my word.
Let me read to you this Proverb from 23, 14. You shall beat him with a rod and deliver his soul from hell. Isn't that interesting? When you channel a child in the right direction, you give him the very best opportunity to know Jesus Christ. When you let him express his own way and go and do his own thing.
He usually will do that thing which is not in honor to the Lord. Positive, corrective discipline within the home provides the kind of atmosphere that makes it most possible for a child to come to a personal decision about God. Although there are many who come to Christ in the middle or later years of their lives, the vast majority of Christians in our churches are Christians as the result of growing up in a structured Christian home where some form of discipline was practiced. Parents who teach their children love by caring enough to confront them. Also, teach them much about their Heavenly Father, who is just like that.
My friends, if you want children to grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, it's got to start with you. I'm not here to say that every time a child goes wrong, it's always the parent's fault. I'm reminded. That God had two children, put them both in a perfect environment, and they both rebelled. God has given to us the choice to make.
But we want to guide those choices by protecting the environment in which the choice is made. And bringing up a child in an atmosphere of loving discipline gives that child the best opportunity to know God and to go on and have a productive life. But, mom and dad, it starts with you, and it starts with this. You cannot impart what you do not possess. And if you do not know Jesus Christ personally, you will never be able to lead your children beyond the place where you yourself have gone.
So I want to ask you this question. Do you have within you That which is necessary for you to bring your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Do you know for certain that Jesus Christ is your Savior? Is there something about your life that gives security and stability and strength? to your children as they see your faith walk.
Because you're a follower of Christ. And if you do not have that, that's the place to start, whether you're old or young. That's the place to begin. To put your trust in Jesus Christ, Father. To know God through his son, mom, and then through that relationship, to let that influence trickle down to the lives of your kids.
That's where it all starts.
So I end up where I always end up, don't I? At the foot of the cross. Where Jesus Christ can make a difference in your life. If you don't know him, He sent His Son to die for you. that you might have life everlasting.
Amen. And you can receive Him today by just asking Him to come and forgive your sin and take up His abode in your heart. And He will do that. I know He does that. I've seen it happen over the years.
So many people whose lives have been changed because Christ came to be a part of their everyday experience. This is Friday, and so it's important for me to tell you that you need to get to church this weekend. I have so many friends who do what I do in the church world, and they all tell me the same thing. There are so many people that they lost during COVID who got comfortable with staying home on the weekends and never came back. It will be to your detriment if that's your story.
So don't let it be your story. Step in and do the right thing this week. Get back to church. You may feel awkward at first, but if you do it, God will honor it and you will soon be back in the fellowship of God's people, growing and ministering to others. I know he will honor you for that.
And then we'll see you next week on Monday. Hope you'll join us then. Till then, have a great weekend. The message you just heard originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor Dr. David Jeremiah.
Turning Point is also on radio and TV this weekend. To learn where you can find it, visit our website davidjeremiah.org/slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's inspiring new book, God's Heart for Israel. It's yours for a gift of any amount.
You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard New International and New King James Versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah's decades of study. If God is using this ministry in your life, tell us how by writing to TurningPoint, PO Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us Monday as we continue Powerful Principles from Proverbs on Turning Point with Dr.
David Jeremiah.
