11-06-25 Study of Ephesians Chapter 6:1-4 Gods Pattern for Children Part 2

➡ This Bible study focuses on the book of Ephesians, specifically discussing God’s design for parenting. The key message is that parents should not provoke their children to anger, but instead raise them with discipline and instruction from the Lord. The study emphasizes the importance of parents and grandparents being involved and taking responsibility for their children’s upbringing, based on God’s teachings rather than worldly standards. It also highlights the need for Christians to live uniquely, distinctively, and in accordance with God’s word.
➡ As Christians, we should live by God’s standards, not the world’s. This includes how we raise our children, which should be based on the Bible, not modern psychology or societal norms. Children are gifts from God, and we are given the responsibility to guide them towards honoring Him. If we follow God’s instructions, we will be blessed, but if we don’t, we will face heartache.
➡ The text discusses the historical and current mistreatment of children, from ancient Roman practices to modern-day issues like child abuse and neglect. It emphasizes the importance of parents, particularly fathers, in raising their children with love, discipline, and guidance. The text also criticizes societal attitudes that view children as burdens or nuisances, and highlights the role of parents in preventing delinquency. It concludes by urging parents not to provoke their children to anger, but to raise them with understanding and care.
➡ Parents’ actions can greatly impact their children’s mental health. Negative behaviors such as drug use, unfaithfulness, and anger can lead to children feeling unloved and contemplating suicide. It’s crucial for parents to show love, avoid favoritism, and allow their children to grow independently. This will help children to develop a healthy self-esteem and reduce the risk of mental health issues.
➡ Parents should avoid favoritism, setting unrealistic goals, and overindulgence for their children as these can lead to frustration and anger. It’s important to understand and communicate with your children, know their goals, and provide them with a safe space to express themselves. Parents should also be patient, reward their children generously, and make them feel loved and valued. Lastly, parents should be mindful of their children’s experiences when they are under the care of others, ensuring their safety and well-being.
➡ The speaker shares personal experiences and advice on parenting. He emphasizes the importance of allowing children to make mistakes, teaching them manners, and not neglecting them. He warns against excessive discipline and advises parents to listen more than they talk. The speaker also stresses the need for discipline to be about the child’s growth, not the parent’s anger or frustration.
➡ The speaker emphasizes the importance of a single moment in shaping a child’s life, and encourages reflection on the blessings and guidance received from God. He expresses gratitude for the lessons, wisdom, and love God provides, and hopes that these can be applied to positively influence not only their own children, but all children they encounter. He prays for strength and peace during challenging times, seeking all this through faith in God’s son.

Foreign. Welcome guys. This is our Thursday night Bible study. We’re into the book of Ephesians and this is an outgrowth of our study in Revelation and with its sister book X. And we’re into, excuse me, the second part of our discussion that deals with our children or us being as children with elderly parents. Okay, doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make any differentiation between a child being a child at 3, 6. I mean that’s the growth assort in, in Bible. But it, but in this context there’s no difference between a child at 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 or a 38 year old.

Okay. Just like we started last week, we’re going to finish up this week looking at what God’s pattern is for children. And if we, if we recall from last time, this is the beginning passages of Ephesians 6. Okay, so we’re into, we’re getting into the last book of Ephesians as we migrate through this study and we, we looked at really verses one through three last time and we’re really going to hit verse four tonight. All right. And then we’re going to close it up and move on to a review of the entire family again next week.

And then we’re going to migrate straight into Ephesians 5:12, which is the armor and process of God. We’ll spend a number of weeks in that, but that’s where we’re going. So, so the key here for us in this discussion is God’s design for parenting in verse four of children. And it simply says this from the scriptures. It says, and fathers, do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Now in scriptures it also says that basically discipline is don’t spare the ride and spoil the child. Okay.

There is some capital punishment if you will, if you like that term that parents need to take place with their children through certain types of actions that your children do that will only get changed through some sort of capital punishment. He doesn’t say beat your children, but he does say you need to discipline your children as God disciplines you. And he does take a two by four to us sometimes. And as parents social you now all of us have got grandkids. We’re experiencing issues today, Missy and I with issues associated with children and grandkids. And matter of fact, I want to be transparent.

We had, we, we, we had a fundamental disagreement last night on how things should progress with the issues that we’ve got going. And, and while we were talking about it, and then we agreed to just Table it. We, we, you know, we’re coming to a senses as to what God wants us to do. Well, that’s the same thing with you, okay? You cannot. You cannot be in a situation as men, head of the family, and not deal with your children’s grandchildren. Your grandchildren. Your. You’re still the head of the family. And it doesn’t matter what happens with your children and the parenting of your grandchildren.

What matters is your involvement. That’s what’s key. This is like a mafia. You got the guy that’s head of the mafia, and everybody comes in as part of that mafia. And they have to place the head of the mafia. That’s you guys. That is you in your family. And if you’re being a wimp, it is not going to work. Now, you might not always be right. That’s just the nature of human life. But God says you need to be in charge. You need to be in charge as long as you walk this earth. So that verse six, chapter six, verse four, is a tremendous statement of responsibility for parents.

It, again, with an economy of words, covers a vast field of accountability. You may have books or treaties or volumes that you may have read, or I can tell you, you can go online and search Parenting 101, and you’re going to get flooded with books about the opinion of the author as to how you should parent your child. Say God, put it in one verse, very simple, very concise, to the point. Do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. That is Parenting 101. You don’t need to go buy books.

You don’t need to go listen to tapes or go to psychiatrists or. Or whomever you might go to to figure out how to raise your children or deal with it. It’s pretty clear what it is. See, this is God’s parenting for the children. So as we begin, I want you to remember something that’s very important at this outset of our discussion. You see, this principle is based upon Jesus Christ himself. As God redeemed people. We are called to be unique. We’re called to be different. We’re called to be set apart. We’re called to be distinct. We’re called to separate from the world.

All of the books and all of the tapes and all of the doctors that you go talk to are of this world. Do you understand what I’m saying? You’re getting instruction from anybody but God himself. In fact, the whole Epistle of Ephesians, as we’ve come to understand in Our previous discussions points to the reality that we are not to live as the rest of the world lives. Well, if you go to the world to get your points, you’re living in the world standards and that’s a problem for you. Why? Because you’re held accountable for how you raise your children and how you influence your grandchildren.

That’s your responsibility. We live in light, not in darkness. We live in wisdom, not foolishness. We walk in the spirit, not flesh. Do you get where I’m coming from? You’re a spirit being first, living a physical life experience as what? An illusion. Say we are unique because we have the knowledge of God and we have the word of God and we have the spirit of God. And God has called us to live in uniqueness and distinctive waves. In fact, that extends even to the relationships of work, of family, of friends and everything you do. We don’t conduct relationships in the family the way unregenerate people do, the way the world does.

You, you’re distinct because you’re regenerated. You become a new person. But you then take that newness and apply it to world standards. Why? Because that’s what you listen to. We have a completely different plan and a pattern that God has given us to operate in. In Leviticus chapter 18, when God established the standard. Standard. Okay, guys, understand what that is. That is the standard by which you’re going to be held accountable beginning in the Old Testament all the way to the New Testament. Right? We talked about this. Your examples are in the Old Testament of how you need to conduct your life.

The application of those standards are in the New Testament. In Leviticus chapter 18, when God established the standard of behavior for Israel, he pointed out this reality of uniqueness. This is what he said. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you. In other words, what he’s saying is the same thing that Paul says in the New Testament. Do not conform to this world. Do not love anything in this world. Do not associate with evil.

That’s what he’s telling them. You shall not walk in their statues. You are to perform my judgments and keep my statutes and to live in accord with it. Okay, self assessment. Oh, by the way, thanks for the kind comments about me. Always coming back to real world in your own self assessment. This is where we’re going to be right now. How do you live your life? What decisions you’re making? Where do you get your source? If you’re not getting your source from the truth, from the Bible. You’re living in this world. You cannot be in both places and be regenerated.

Can’t do it. In other words, we’re different guys. You do not go the way that the world does. You don’t conduct your lives or your relationships the way the world does. Later, in that same 18th chapter of Leviticus, God further says this. Do not defile yourselves by any of these things. For by all these, the nations which I am casting out, remember what he did. He cast out all of the pagan gods. All right? This is in Leviticus. Before Christ, every. He says, I am casting out the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled.

Thus you are to keep my charge, my commandment that you do not practice any of the abominable customs. That’s society, guys. You do not practice any abominable customs which have been practiced before you so as not to defile yourself with them. And he says this. I am the Lord your God. You should not come away not thinking that he’s just giving you the commandment of your life. It’s a call to be different. It’s a call to be distinctive. And God has maintained this desire for his people all the way through time. This started in the Old Testament, it went through the New Testament.

And here we are today, just living another chapter of Acts in the same condition. We must be separate. The standards, the principles, the statutes, the commandments by which we should conduct our lives before God in the family and before the world are unique. Your standards are completely different from the world. If you are a Christian, if you have been saved, and now you understand your responsibility because I’m telling you that, and therefore you’re raised to a higher standard because of knowledge. If you continue to seek the knowledge of what you’re living through from the world you’ve just defiled the standard in.

Regardless what you did, what. What area of your life that you’re trying to deal with, we are to follow principles which are not in any sense assisted by human wisdom, nor are they refined or defined by human wisdom. We are not to succumb to the pressure of the world. We’re not to listen to the world’s diagnosis of what might be wrong with people or marriages or families or your children. We’re not to listen to the world’s diagnosis at all. We are to turn to the word of God. We are to live distinctively. And God is not saying anything different today.

He’s still saying, do it my way. Or leave because I’m not going to put up with it. He’s going to give you enough rope to hang yourself and then he’s going to say enough’s enough. And he’s going to turn you over to what Romans says, your reprobate mind. And as far as parenting role is concerned, that too is summed up in that verse that we just read. And thereby here lies the God’s pattern. It doesn’t sound anything like modern psychology. It doesn’t sound like the things that we have been told about childhood education and about how to raise a child.

And it doesn’t sound anything like what the world is currently saying. And it shouldn’t because number one, it’s divine. It doesn’t come from this world. So we’ve already ready, already discuss and found out. The pattern for the husbands is completely distinct from the world. The pattern for wives are completely distinct from the world. The pattern for children in response to the parents is distinct and so is that for parents in regard to the children. See guys, this is not a message of secular psychology as you can well understand by now. This is not a message of conventional wisdom.

This is not a message, a discussion of political correctness. See, what we’re talking about is the truth from the word of God. That’s what we’re discussing. And the place we have to begin is with the recognition that all children, what are gifts. You understand that word? Gifts? You don’t cause it to happen. You just, you just do the physical act that God gave you to create a child. And he’s either going to give you a child or not. Your children are gifts and are owned by God himself. They’re not yours. What have I said all along? You own nothing.

You don’t even own your children. See, God gives them to us and then has given us the manual on how to raise them. Children don’t come out of the mother’s womb with an operating manual. And they’re demons when they come out. We’ve already discussed that. That’s Ephesians 2. The only operating manual that is consistent with change in managing your children is the Bible. That’s it. And some of you have gone to school to become psychology 101. And you know what? All you’re doing is telling them what you think. That’s not scriptural based. That’s not the truth.

And if you’re paying for it, shame on you. Genesis 4:1. And she can see that is a. And Borcain and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. I’M not going to get into dissecting this verse. I’m just going to say this. Eve knew who was the source of her children. She went right past Adam to God. In Genesis 4:25, it says later on she bore a son and called his name. Set for God, she said, has appointed me another. See, children in the Old Testament are inheritance from the Lord, not just gifts to you, but see that what grows God’s kingdom.

You hearing what I’m saying? If you weren’t born, you would not be able to go home, not have the choice to go home. So every child that God grants to a family is that child’s ability to make a decision to go home or not. And yet we kill them. They are given to you and I to be the praise of his glory and to be a blessing to us. We get them for 18 years to raise, and then hopefully they become mature adults and do right in their life. And at some point in time, we get the joyous experience of having grandchildren and some of us great grandchildren.

But see how often you know what? I. I’m. I’m as guilty as this as you. Conversations that I have with my wife about issues that we’re having with children is no different than you guys. We try to understand. We try to figure out how to correct. We try to figure out what to help, how to do it, what we should do. We’re. We’re in the same boat as many of you. And it’s hard, it’s not easy. Let’s see, how often do children become a headache and a heartbreak because God’s pattern for parents is not properly followed? We find our children who have problems in adulthood.

Life is based upon. I want you to hear me how you raised up. It’s nobody else’s fault. The buck stops squarely on your forehead. So as we look at the. What scripture gives us as the divine standard, then we are looking at our responsibility and we’re looking at the path to joy and blessing in our lives, of the children and in our own lives as well. If we raise them in accordance to scripture, you’re going to be blessed. That’s what it says. When you do not do that. Self assessment, guys. When you do not do that, you’re gonna have heartache.

And that’s not fun. That’s not fun at all. Clearly, the instruction here in verse 4 is given to parents. That’s how it’s addressed. In fact, the word fathers is occasionally in the New Testament, translated as the word parents in plural form. We cannot exclude the mother at this particular point, we have to include the mother in this as she comes under the leadership of her husband. The instruction is given to the parents because they have responsibility, they have rulership, they have leadership, the oversight to bring their children to the place where they will honor God. Now, the standard is established here is not only unique in our society, matter of fact, it is totally opposite of our society.

If you begin to apply the standard, divine standard that God has laid out, you are going against every principle that is laid out in today’s society. And in doing so, you not only have to make that shift, but you have to make the shift to ensure the outcome. Therefore, listen up. There should be no third party education of your children. There should be no societal activities that doesn’t conform to the standard. What message are you sending to your children by telling them the what the divine standard is, but allowing them to go do something goes against it.

See, Paul establishes this. For example, just to illustrate what was going on in the world in which the Apostle Paul wrote this. Okay, at the time the Apostle Paul wrote this, remember, he was at Ephesus, he was writing to the church at Ephesus, but he was writing to all the churches because every letter that went to the church was spread around. There was a Roman law. I want you to hear me because it’s the same law today. There was a Roman law called petria potestus. Literally it meant father’s power. And under this law, a Roman father had absolute power over his family.

Now as we’ve talked about, the view of leadership in the Gentile world was one of dominant dictatorship and that worked in the family as well. So the Roman Empire and I want to get into Muslim, but I’m not. The Roman Empire gave the father the right to do whatever he wanted to in regards to his family. Are you hearing what I’m saying? For example, which goes on today. All right, hear me out. A father could sell his children as slaves. That goes on today. Matter of fact, a family sells their daughter as prostitutes. That’s going on in the United States, guys.

A father could make them work in the fields in chains if he wanted it so they couldn’t run off. And there are illustrations of this throughout all ancient literature, if you would read history. So the father could take the law into his own hands and, and punish his children. And he could even by Roman law, execute his own children, sacrifice. Guys, are you hearing what I’m telling you? The Roman law is in effect today. For as long as the father lived, there was no age limit. What Did I just say, guys, you’re responsible as the head of the household, no matter how old you are, until you are taking out of this world your head of the house.

And in Roman law, there was no extent of his control. In fact, when a child was born, it was not uncommon for that child to be placed before its father’s feet. And if the father stooped to lift the child, it meant he acknowledged the child and it could live. Why in the world do you not understand this issue? On abortion, you can. You can birth the child and then make the decision based upon what you see in that child, whether to keep it or kill it. In certain states today, if he turned and walked away, the child was thrown out on the street to die or to be picked up and raised as a prostitute or a slave.

Guys, that goes on in the family today by the attitude of what you have for your children, you might not make the physical choice to throw them out on the street, but in mentally you done it. Here’s a. There’s a letter that I have, I have from Hilarion to his wife alice. It’s from 1 BC the year before Christ was born. And it was found in ancient sources. And it says, this hillaron to his wife, parties, greetings. Nice opening to a letter to your wife, parties, greetings. Now, guys, you really don’t want to start a letter to your wife like that.

That’s like saying, who are you? Know that we are still, even now in Alexandria. He’s. This is what he’s writing. He writes, being away, do not worry. If when all others return, I remain in Alexandria, I beg and beseech you to take care of the little child. And as soon as we receive wages, See, apparently he was a soldier getting paid by the state. He says, I will send them to you. And then he closes it. This way, if. Good luck to you, you have a child. If it is a boy, let him live. If it’s a girl, throw her out.

I want you to give serious thought to today. That is a documented from ancient times, unwanted children were commonly left in the Forum in Rome. Now, we talked about that they were collected at night by the people who would then nourish them to make slaves out of them and stock the prostitution houses with them of Rome for their financial gain. I want you to think about immigration. I want you to think about those children that come across not by parents, but by traffickers who bring them into this society and our government sends them into slavery. That’s going on underneath your nose and it’s even in the churches.

Senica, the well known Roman orator orator said this. We slaughter a fierce ox, we strangle a mad dog, we plunge the knife into the sickliest cattle. Children who are born weak and deformed, we drown. So guys, got to see this. Paul was writing to a world where children were abused today. Paul was writing to a world where children were abused then and it’s happening today. And children were murdered just like our world where they are slaughtered largely before they can ever come out of the womb by millions through abortion. Our times are no different, but one and a half million children at least annually, and probably a lot more than that, who are allowed to be born or consequently beaten, burned and abused by the parents to the degree that they have to be removed from their families.

Did you get that number? Let me say that again. This is all statistics guys. This is 20001 1/2 million. That’s 1,500,000 children are beaten, burned or abused. And that’s a year 200,000 of such die killed by their parents to burning, drowning, being thrown out windows off bridges, killed with knives, hammers, razor blade, you name it. Our world today is not a lot different than that of the ancient world. Time magazine reported one survey that 70% of parents, if they had to do it over again, would have no children. They said is the reason you’re too much of a nuisance.

Somewhere between 30 and 50,000 children a year are used for pornography. The parents are doing this, guys. A third of all children born wind up in foster homes because they’re unwanted. Millions are left at home alone to be raised by the television while their mothers go to work. Even the chancellor of New York City’s 1 million student school district said this society has turned against children. That’s you hostility toward children in ancient times and even in modern times or the same. Nothing has changed for 3,000 years. No, let’s go back 6,000 years. Go back to Nimri.

Nothing has changed since Nimri. And we think it’s all just current event. And because of that we don’t want to get involved. So against that background and that understanding of understanding ancient history and current times, here’s the words. Paul. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord and see fathers under scripture is, is normally used for the male head of the family, but sometimes used to speak appearance in, in plurality. So as you read the scriptures and he talks about fathers, it also applies to mothers like Hebrews 11:23 it says by faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents.

And certainly the mother is involved with the father and we can extend it here to include her. Proverbs 4:3 shows this dual role. It says, I was my father’s son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. Proverbs 1:8. Hear the instruction of thy father and forsake not the law of thy mother. Both parents are involved under the headship, the jointness, the unity of the headship of the husband in bringing up the child. And gentlemen, your wife is not told by scripture to raise her children. You know who’s told? You are. The study was done by two researchers from Harvard, Sheldon and Eleanor Glorick, husband and wife team.

And they identified all of this in the study. Four crucial factors in predicting children who are not delinquents. Oh my gosh, four factors to tell you your child’s not delinquent. You get where this is going. They have put all children in the delinquency bucket and expects the parent to do four factors to determine they’re not delinquent. So they’ve already condemned all children to begin with. One of the highest institutions of our system that already says, oh by the way parents, your child’s delinquent only if you can determine that they’re not. This is a multi year study and oh by the way, it was found to be 90% accurate.

Go back to Ephesians 2. Your children are born demonically, but it’s only through the grace of God, through parenting that they understand what life should be all about. They said these are four essential factors to prevent delinquency, just purely from the observation of worldly people. One, the father’s discipline should be fair, firm and consistent. Well that’s biblical, guys, you don’t need to have researchers tell you that that’s biblical. Two, the mother’s supervision in the home, knowing where the children are at all time, knowing what they’re doing and being available to them. Well that also biblical. That’s not something new.

Number three, the parents unceasing affection demonstrated to each other and to the children frequently. Oh guys, that’s also biblical. Man, you’re to love your wife, wife, you’re to honor and cherish your husband. And if you do that, your children see it. This is not something new. And oh by the way, fourthly, the family’s cohesiveness, time spent together, well that’s also biblical, the unity of the family. So you had two researchers, husband and wife team from Harvard that said oh, we’ve done a test. And that test in these categories will tell you whether your child is delinquent or not.

Well, that’s from Scripture, guys. If you’re doing what you should be doing from Scripture, you won’t make delinquent children. Both parents must be involved. And as we look at the thing itself that is indicated here in this verse, we’ve got to notice there’s a negative and there’s a positive in terms of the instruction, and we have to consider both. Then the negative is this. Fathers, don’t provoke your children to anger. If you’re responsible to raise your child like Scripture says, you should not provoke your children to anger. That’s how the word of God sums it all up.

And it’s the majority that don’t want to do it. We want to take our anger out on our children to provoke them to do what? Anger. You can’t control yourself. Self assessment. See, you don’t want your to make your children mad. You don’t want to make them angry and don’t want to make them hostile or bitter. You don’t want them to turn against you and all that you hold dear. Oh, help you. See, Colossians adds this. Lest thy be discouraged. In other words, you don’t want to destroy them. That’s what scripture says. Provoke, you will notice if you will is used only here in Romans 10:19.

That term, it means to irritate. It’s an intense form to make angry. Don’t do that which angers your children. Don’t do that which irritates them, provokes them, frustrates them, exasperates them or embitters them. And is there being a lot of that done today? Absolutely. Parents are creating bitter children. They might not know it, but see their actions will be replicated through their children as they grow older. So you might. You might. Parents might do, say, and do all the right things and nurture and love and all this other stuff, but as parents, they’re not parents. They’re not a unit.

And all of the issues associated, that doesn’t allow them to be a unit. When you think about it, drugs, alcohol, unfaithfulness, on and on and on and on. You are creating exactly the replica of who you are in front of your children. That’s what you’re doing. That also goes in front of your grandchildren. See, here’s another statistic. 10 to 15% of all children. Think about the birth rate of all children. 10 to 15% of them have contemplated or tried suicide. Why do you think that they just automatically comes up by themselves? No, it’s a direct reflection of the parents.

1/4 of the admissions to the sacri psychiatric unit of children’s hospitals are suicide related. Just go to Children’s hospital website and get this. Even children as long as well let’s just say as young as six or seven have tried to take their lives. There was an article published in Los Angeles Times some years back that I have the. There was 11 year old had slashed his wrists and he said as he sobbed I just want to go to heaven. I can’t stand these stomach aches and being unhappy. If only I could die. It’s so hard to live.

Living in this house is horrible. I just want to die because nobody cares if I die or, or not. What I’m giving you is a reflection of today’s society and for years this world called psychologists and other experts question whether young, young children could really suffer severe depression and intentionally seek death. This world says oh you know what your child now just leave it. You know, just give a pill to your child, calm them down, give them leave, let the anxiety go away and they’ll be fine. To do what? Cause more anxiety by the way. So what happens? Children begin to research.

They understand how to take their life. Some of them dart in heavy traffic, some of them swallow poisons just to get rid of the parents. There was just sighting in in information that’s. That’s out on the Internet. There’s a 12 year old girl that hanged her doll by its neck, dragged her little sister, cut both her legs with scissors, slashed her wrist and overdosed on hypnotic drugs. Where’d she learn that? A 12 year old. And I told you that puberty is getting closer and closer and closer to almost birth. Why parents. This girl explained in the article I read I’d be better off dead.

Then no one would ever have to look at my ugly face again. That is what the parents told her. You’re ugly, you’re not beautiful. I don’t even want to ask you to do self assessment because if you do that you ought to be taken out behind the barn and dealt with. Read an article. 11 year old boy tried to kill his dog. Attempted to suffocate his baby brother with a pillow. Jab pins and needles into his own stomach. And when he was asked why he said this. Because mother doesn’t have any love for me, said the six year old boy.

Here’s another one. I’d rather die than to be spanked. They want me dead. A battered 10 year old whose 13 year old brother had committed suicide earlier, said this and everyone kills and everyone dies. There’s no way out. Where are you? As parents, as grandparents, as people in your community, you’re responsible to teach. Well, here’s another one. I got several. I don’t know when I’m going to stop reading these. 11 year old boy, preoccupied with death and the idea of joining his dead grandmother, threatened to throw himself in front of a car. And oh, by the way he did.

He was beat and disfigured his face but didn’t die. And so finally he jumped out of a two story window to his death. He wanted to go be with somebody he thought loved him. A five year old girl obsessed with knives burned her three year old sister, tried to choke her with a shoestring, threatened her mother with a knife, ran from the house into heavy traffic. A six year old boy who wanted to die because nobody loves me cut himself with his father’s razor, was later found hanging from a second story window. You don’t need any more illustrations to understand your responsibility.

And then you have judges, you go, you go in front of the court, juvenile court and the court is completely disfranchised, so totally disaffected, so totally removed from the system that there’s absolutely no hope whatsoever for the child. And because of that, what you do is turn your child into a tragic child. And here is what the court says, the judge said in this case, here’s some easy steps as parenting that you need to follow. Spoil him, spoil him. Give him what he wants and do it whether or not you can afford it. This is a judge.

Just charge it. Go get, go get credit cards, charging them up so you can get him off your back when he does wrong. Nag him a little, but don’t spank him. Foster his dependence on you. Don’t teach him to be independently responsible. Maintain his dependence on you so later on drugs and alcohol can replace you with. He’s older. This is a judge. I’m not going to give you his name, but it was a courted judge in a case. Protect him from all those mean teachers who want to discipline him from time to time and threaten to sue them if they don’t leave him alone.

Oh, parents make all of his decisions for him because he might make mistakes and learn from them. If you don’t, criticize his father to him or his mother. So your son or daughter will lose respect for his parents. Whenever he gets into trouble, just bail him out. Besides, if he faces any real consequence, it might hurt your Reputation. Never let him suffer the consequences of his behavior. Always step in and solve his problems for him so he will depend on you and run to you when the going gets tough. And never learn how to solve his own problems.

Self assessment time here, guys. You have children that are in this mess today. If you want to turn your child into a delinquent, let him express himself any way he feels like. Don’t run his life, let him run yours. Don’t bother him with chores. Do everything for him. Then he can be irresponsible all of his life and blame others when things don’t get done right. Oh, and be sure that you give in when he throws a tintra tamper. Believe his lies. It builds up his confidence because it’s too much hassle to try to sort through to get the truth.

Oh, and he goes on. Criticize others openly in front of him. Do it routinely so that he will continue to realize that he is better than everybody else. Give him a big allowance and don’t make him do anything for it. Praise him for his good looks. Oh, that’s good. He doesn’t need it. He doesn’t never need any character. And this goes on and on and on with what was said. And we look, sit back and look and say, what’s going on with our children? The point is this, guys. God is not only giving you a gift, he’s giving you a treasure.

You have this child and you can exasperate that child. And you may ask, how do parents do that? Well, I’ve just given you a litany of how they do it coming from a judge in the court system. But let’s talk about what scripture Sundays. I’ve identified 10 things that Scripture says we should do. I’ll try to wrap this up by eight o’. Clock. Number one, by over protection. Fence them in. Never trust them. The demons. Fence them in. Do not trust them. Don’t give them the opportunity to develop independence. And deprivation will instill an angry mood.

Parents must give children room to express themselves, to discover their world, to understand who they are, to try a new adventure with risk and not be held totally accountable for the outcome. Gradually releasing them to what? Live independently. Let the rope out. Overprotection frustrates and angers the child. We live in a world where that’s a tendency among Christians. Why? Because they want to protect their child from what’s going on in the world. And their child never grows up. You got to keep them under your control all the time. But you got to be very careful about doing that and how you do that, because the manner by which you do that could exasperate them.

They got to have the ability at a very early age to think for themselves as well. Secondly, favoritism. Isaac favored Esau over Jacob. Rebecca favored Jacob over Esau. And the sad results are well known. We’ve already studied this. Don’t compare them against each other. Every gift is a gift. They weren’t created by you. Therefore, why are you going to show God gifts, Favoritism. They’re each unique, uniquely different. You need to love them the same without regard for each, without special regard for each. No respect of persons. That’s scripture. No respect to persons. That means favoritism. You’re not to have a favorite child.

If a child feels that you love another in that family more, then that is very frustrating for them. Thirdly, you can cause a child to become angry by setting unrealistic achievement goals. I could tell you stories about this life, stories about this. And I’ve said this to you guys as transparent. How would you like it for your father to come to you at 8 years old and says you need to pay rent without any explanation of how to do it? Some parents literally crush their children with pressure. Pressure to excel in school, pressure to excel in sports, in music, or any activity that you think they need to excel at.

Oh, that’s the operating word. You think, what are you living? You’re living your life through your child now. And a lot of our unexcelling abilities as parents are fostered in what we want our child to excel in. Why? Because you didn’t. And it really has little to do with the child. It has everything to do with reputation that you want. You want the glory for what your child does. Because now people look to you as having this great child that. You know what? This becomes very frustrating when your child does not understand when they have reached a goal in life.

No sense of having fulfilled an expectation. Why? Because you’ve already reset the bar. I want you to think about it. Think about the pattern that you set for your children or are you are setting for your children or your grandchildren. Think about that pattern. You, as soon as you’re born, oh, they got to do this. You go buy. If it’s a boy, you go buy sports outfit to put on the baby because you’re going to be a great football player there. All right? You do it. And it leads to anger and bitterness in the child. I’ve dealt with a lot of children in a lot of different ways, and I don’t have.

I don’t have the right answer. As you would if you were in our house and listen to Misty and my. Our conversation. Even when it gets heated, we. We fight over trying to figure out what the right answer is. We know what the end result we want. But how to get there is not often yet identified. I have not dealt with except two families in my whole lifetime where children have killed themselves. And in those two families it was not pretty. A 12 year old boy hung himself from his bunk bed and a 14 year old girl overdosed.

In both cases they left notes. Pick it up. The content of the note was they kill themselves to get their parents off their back. The girl felt she could never accomplish enough to satisfy them and she did it to hurt them. You can frustrate your child to anger by overindulgence as well. By giving them everything they want, by picking up after them always. By allowing them to throw all responsibility and accountability on others. Not holding them accountable. That’s not scripture. You can exasperate them by letting them sin and get away with it. See, that’s not teaching them the ways of the Lord.

But what you’re teaching them is how to do this, this behavior successfully. You provide no roadblock. Ultimately, when they face the world and people don’t serve them, what do you think is going to happen? They’re not going to take any responsibility for their own misdoings. They will get angry and bitter and violent. It’s exactly the kind of generation we’re seeing race today. Just with you can exap exasperate your child by discouragement. And I think this comes in two ways, guys. Number one, it’s a lack of understanding and lack of reward. Because both of those destroy motivation and they destroy incentive.

You must understand your children. They don’t come out with operating manuals you’re to put there to understand your children. Understand what they’re thinking. You can’t understand what they’re thinking if you don’t communicate with your child. Go to your room, watch television, get on the computer, do whatever you want to. Leave me alone. Understand what they’re trying to accomplish. Do you even have a clue what your children’s goals are? Are grand? As grandparents, do you ever talk about your grandchildren’s goals? What do they want to do? What’s their dreams? What motivates them? What makes them happy? What do they see in doing those things? How do they feel? Got to understand why a certain thing happened, why a certain behavior occurred, why a certain incident went a certain way.

I remember the thing that got to my craw more than anything as a child, and I’m not saying I was a. I’m not saying I didn’t deserve getting in trouble, but I never got the ability to sit down and say, why. Why did I do that? Was never asked of me. There was no teaching moment. There was only a disciplinary moment. You did this. Okay, here’s. Here’s your issue. You’re going to have, instead of sitting down and understanding, regardless of the punishment, setting down and understanding why and then talking through it so that they get an idea of what they might should have done from the wisdom of the parents, grant them a listening ear.

Guys. One of the thing I was able to do, being transparent, one of the things I was able to do after going through two sets of daughters, the third daughter, I just said, okay, this is it. You can come and talk to me about anything, and it’s not going to go anywhere. It’s not going to go to your mom, it’s not going to go to your sister. We’re not going to talk about it again, but you can talk to me about anything. Oh, my gosh. The years of womanhood is not something that is typically easy to talk to from a man.

But you know what? We talked about it. We went over it. I understood what she was doing. You know, all the things. But you know what? That gave her confidence that people loved her regardless of what she did. And I look back on it and sometimes I really get sad. I really get sad. And see, just like you’re to love everything that happens in your life and you give thanks and praise for what’s good and evil, the hardest thing as a parent is to do that to your child. You need to reward them graciously and generously.

Generously love them, no matter what the issue is. You need to give them the approval and honor and be patient with them, or they’re going to get defeated and discouraged. There’s nobody on their side. You have to be on your children’s side. Number six, you need to not sacrifice your child. You need to make your child feel like he or she is constantly not an intrusion into your life. They’re not an interruption and they’re never a bother to you. Now, I know those of us who have grandchildren typically like coffee and paper in the morning when we read, and here comes the grandchild running in and all they want is a morning hug.

And as soon as they begin to jump, you say, stop, I’m reading my paper. I’m having my coffee right. No, no, no, no. Your time is to be with them. You want to do what you want to do. See, that’s how we’re programmed. So the husband and wife want to go where they want to go. You just farm the kids out somewhere so that you can go somewhere you want to leave them. Now, I’m not saying that a husband and wife shouldn’t have a date night or maybe a mini vacation, but doing it without the children all the time, you need to think about that.

They don’t grow. You put them in a situation where there’s a third party taking care of them. Well, I want you to understand when you do that, that third party is in control of them. Not just from a safety point of view, which is what we typically look towards when we do that, but a mindset. Do you even know what goes on in the home when you drop your children off to some third party to watch? Maybe overnight so you and your husband, or your husband and your wife can go overnight somewhere? Do you have a clue what goes on in that house? I’m going to tell you a story, another true story.

My, My wife and I never went anywhere without the children. We were invited to go on a Baja cruise with some friends. We thought about it, thought about it, and we said, okay, if we do this, where are we going to leave our children? You know, we, we thought that the grandparents would be the great place to leave our children. So we called Sid San’s mom said we would like to go on a Baja cruise. It’s. It’s three nights, four days. Would, could we bring the girls over and allow them to stay with you for the weekend? Oh, my gosh.

Grandmother said, yes, let’s do it. You know, no big deal. Well, that weekend changed my oldest daughter’s life for the rest of her life. The trusted grandfather was not the grandfather that we thought. And it wasn’t 15 years from that time that I had a conversation that I got the truth. Both grandmother and wife withheld it from me because they knew I. I would have killed him for what he did. But it changed that 4 year old daughter for the rest of her life. Even today, I’m telling you, your parents, the people you think are the most trustworthy in this environment, if you don’t have a clue as to who they really are, you’re putting your children at total risk.

Number seven. You can provoke your children to anger by failing to allow for some growing up. What does this mean? You got to let them make mistakes. Just manage the catastrophic ones. Okay? Don’t Allow them to get into a situation that the. Whatever decision they make will be a catastrophic issue. That’s what you manage. But they have got to make mistakes. I’ve learned over the years. You know, when I was growing up, everything was proper. Even though the family I was raised in was not proper, Everything was proper. If I spilled a glass of milk on the table at night, oh, my gosh, all hell broke loose.

Now Misty and I pretty much just laugh it off, okay, it’s. It’s spilt milk. Let’s just clean it up and go on with it. See, there’s no manual for dexterity. We all spill stuff. We just don’t get mad when we do it. So you give them a little job, and if they do it in an acceptable way, but it’s a little bit of progress, you need to commend them. You need to build a positive process attitude inside of them. So what? I mean, tell them to go, you know, okay, clean your room. If you want to do this, go clean your room.

Okay. What do they do that instead of putting things away? They just picked everything up, threw it in the closet, and show shut, shut the door. They still clean the room. Maybe it was not exactly how we thought it might need to be, but the process was the process, and they should understand that. They did a good job. Next time, give better instructions and let them share some of their ridiculous ideas. I remember watching my children go through a field of blue bonnets. We got pictures of them going through fields of blue bonnets and ruining your clothes.

Because if you’ve ever sat in blue bonnets, it will stain your clothes and it does not come out okay. And I remember just seeing the glee about them and doing that and understanding that the new clothes that they had had on, we’re just fixing to throw away, okay? Because no way to deal with it. But the amazing process of watching them deal with nature in a way that would allow them to express themselves was the benefit of the day. Ridiculous. Children with tea parties let them do silly things. Dear allies, manners are taught at that tea party.

They want to do everything perfectly. They want to set the table right. They want to have everything just right. These little cups. And, you know, you the parents, you got this little chair because you can’t bring the big chair in, you know, the table small. So you got to sit in the little chair and do all this stuff. But you know what it teaches them? Manners. Number eight, don’t provoke your children to anger by neglect. If there’s any biblical illustration of this, I Would probably say, you need to read David and Absalom because that was neglect.

David spent no time with him, no time in shaping him. Absalom ultimately hated his father with passion, tried to pull off a coup to determine to dethrone his father and take his place, all by the process of neglect. Lack of consistent discipline is neglect. And that’s really the worst kind of neglect, because they don’t know, they don’t understand what’s right and what’s wrong. I’m not talking about neglect of time and things. I’m talking about the neglect of discipline. You have to teach them discipline. And you have, as scripture says, consistently use the ride as spanking in luck.

You have to do that. 9. You can provoke your children to anger by obsessive words. Oh, my gosh. Another true story. I learned to turn my mother off. I could sit in front of her, look at her and not hear. My mother constantly taught and she talked about what she wanted you to hear, not what was going on in my life, but everything that was going on in hers. And I was a child and she was telling me all of this adult stuff. And I learned to turn Arab. Now, my dad had a little help. My dad was hard of hearing and had a hearing aid.

So when he didn’t want to listen to her, he just turned the hearing aid off. I didn’t have that luxury. I had to develop a way that I could say yep, ever softly, yep. And not here, guys. You need to be a listener, not a talker. You’re not going to learn about your children if you’re talking. And the words that an adult chooses to use without understanding who they’re talking to can take their heart and turn it into shreds. We typically say things to our children that we would never, ever say to anybody else. Why is that? Because you can get away with it.

But when you do that, you have just cut, cut, literally cut a road of destruction through their mind and their heart. I’m going to end with this number 10, don’t abuse your children. What? An angry child is often a beaten, abused, overzealous, punished child, usually from anger vengeful to the parent who only cares that he has been inconvenienced or irritated. Not that the child needs correction for his own good. You’re typically doing that for you. Think about raising your children. Always. My dad didn’t do this. I always. Except I can tell you one time that I didn’t.

And I got. I was. I was so upset that I didn’t sit back and wait. But usually in the years of raising the girls, I always thought five minutes before I did any discipline, I put myself away to think, why. Because I did not want the discipline to be me. Follow what I’m saying. I wanted the discipline to be them. And if I was so angry that I was going to over discipline them, I gave myself a timeout because I was a very strong young man and I could have hurt them. And I wanted to give myself time out to make sure that I wasn’t going to over indulge in a process of discipline because I got hurt.

It’s not about me, it’s about them. They’re young people. They need to be nurtured and loved. They do need to be disciplined. But the discipline should be in accordance with the crime, so to speak, not how you feel. My dad could have killed me for some of the things I did and he probably should have in a lot of ways. I mean, I’d probably. But that didn’t happen. Nor was I going to punish my children more than what was necessary to change their mindset. And I can tell you something today I can look at the girls and they can know exactly where my mind’s at.

If I think, if I think something is going aide and I look at them, they’ll question me as to what you’re thinking about. Dad, what do you think? All right. And that was how it was in teenage and young adult years. I did not have to do much at all other than look at them and they knew what I was thinking. So, guys, parents, we’re going to end tonight with this. We’re going to go back to the family next week in a brief overview. Just one night to bring all this together. But you need to do some self assessments, not only as parents, but as grandparents and teaching your children who are parents that you see what they might be able to do differently in order to achieve the results of a great child.

With that, I’m going to wrap it up. Any questions? Comments? Oh, yes. We done? Yeah. David. Oh, Jim, this is, this is you speaking to me. And I’ve got three girls just the same as you. And I can remember this particular moment as though it was yesterday. And my youngest girl was talking on a little handheld phone and we lived on a river and she slipped on the. The boat ramp was all mossy. She slipped on it and dropped the phone, went into the water and I said to her, you bloody idiot. And the moment I said it, I could have bitten my tongue out.

Because from that moment on she has Done everything in her power to prove how good she is and how. How to please me. I don’t know. She. She’s. She is a beautiful. She’s 45 and. But of just that one. One moment, I just. I. If I could have it back, I would. Yeah. Doesn’t take much, Jim. Yeah, you. You make the right point. It just takes one. Just takes one to shape a child. Yeah. One moment. To shape a child. And if you don’t sit back and think about what you have that God gives you, you know what? He graces you, and everything you do wrong, he graces you and he says, do that to my children, and we don’t start to even think anything else.

Guys, we’re good. Very valuable, Jim. Thank you. All right, let’s pray. Father, thank you for tonight. Thank you again for a lesson from your scripture. Thank you again for the truth. Father. My only ask is that you use the discussion tonight to open the hearts of many, to give them the wisdom of a few and place an action, that which can be provided to the area of influence that each one of us has. Other one. I thank you for giving us road maps, principles, ordinances. And Father, thank you for giving us memories so we can use those in understanding your truth.

Father, I thank you for the love that you give us, the grace that you show us. And I can only hope that by your examples, we can actually apply it to our individual lives in a way that benefits not only our children and grandchildren, but any children that we come in contact with. Because there’s so many that you would influence, Father, ask you to be with us, give us the strength and. And the ability to have peace in this turbulent time. And I seek all of this in your son’s death.
[tr:tra].