The Fool: Parents Or Children

➡ Paul, the voiceover for a ministry called Your Daily Bread, discusses the importance of family and the challenges it faces in modern society. He highlights the rise in rebellious behavior among children, the increase in divorce rates, and the decline in traditional family values. He argues that society’s shift towards individualism and away from family values is causing harm to children and society as a whole. Paul emphasizes the need for parents to teach their children obedience and respect, as these are key to maintaining a healthy society.
➡ This text emphasizes the importance of teaching children self-control and righteousness for the betterment of society. It highlights the severity of disobedience in the past and encourages parents to pass on wisdom and teachings to their children, as seen in the book of Proverbs. The teachings, when followed, are said to bring blessings and a good life. The text concludes by urging everyone to stay strong in their faith and continue to make a positive impact in the world.

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God Is Government Called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, verse 11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting Scripture, but Scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today’s focused discussion will be the full, parents or children. In 2 Timothy chapter 3, we go back to this, we commented on it earlier, we read about the difficulty of the last days, 2 Timothy 3.1.

In the last days, difficult times will come, and coming upon the children in our generation is all of the last day’s uniqueness in terms of corruption, when men are lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents. One of the characteristics of the last days is a defiance toward parents, and society tolerates it. Society teaches them to rebel against authority, it teaches them that. It wants to pass out condoms and require that no parent have the right to know that so that they cannot push off on that child their own religious convictions.

Rebellious, undisciplined, selfish, sexually stimulated, angry, bitter, frustrated, destructive children are the products of a society that is disobedient to its parents and that is without natural affection. Without natural affection. They don’t have the normal love of family. Verse 3, the first word, unloving, astorgos, without natural family love. We have obviously an abused and an unloved generation of children. Children are seen by many as a burden so that one-third of all childbearing age couples are permanently sterilized. Fathers have forsaken their love for children. Six million children in our country, more than that now.

I think the figure is quite more than that. Many millions, we should say, have no father in the home at all. Mothers have gone also in self-indulgent abandonment and the pursuit of their career or whatever it is they want. And there are millions of lonesome, latchkey children who sit behind their locked doors with the shades pulled, overexposed to television. Three-quarter million and upwards live in foster homes, residential facilities, institutions, mental hospitals and are otherwise incarcerated in juvenile facilities for criminal behaviour or even in prisons. It is even possible now, since 1979, to divorce your parents, a precedent set by a Milwaukee court.

This is the chaos in the lives of children. The philosophy of the last days is anti-family. We all know that, we’ve talked about that. The feminist agenda is anti-family. The homosexual lobby is anti-family. The abortion thrust is anti-family. One of the authors and lecturers, F. M. S. Fandiari, on Humanist Philosophy said, to free the child, we must do away with parenthood. We must settle for nothing less than the total elimination of the family. Let me tell you how far this has gone. In 1960, 1% of children under 18 experienced the divorce of their parents.

In 1960, 1% of children under 18 experienced the divorce of their parents. In 1990, 50% half of them. We’re talking about liberating the child. What we’re doing with the child is liberating him into the humanistic, socialistic propaganda of our time. Humanist psychologist Richard Farson advocates the following rights for children. They should be free from physical punishment, free to vote, have total sexual freedom, and economic freedom. What kind of idiocy is that? The social engineers, as far back as 1979, began to celebrate the international year of the child, and they called for children to be freed from four things.

They should be freed from traditional morals or values, from parental authority, including any punishment, from religious discrimination, and from nationalism or patriotism. And it always interests me that 80% of the media in America have no religious affiliation. So they carry the agenda very well, and very aggressively. One of our US senators wrote me a letter to say that the anti-family forces are bent on fulfilling the following goals. These are the goals he listed. Abortion for the happiness of the mother and father, if there is one in the home. They want to fulfill these goals.

Abortion, government controlled family planning, legalisation of homosexual marriage. And that will be here very rapidly. Equal rights for children, government training for children, and minimum wage for children for housework. Can this really happen? Can it really happen? We face a serious situation. Dr Michael Novak wrote in Harper’s magazine, I quote, clearly the family is the critical centre of social force. It is the seedbed of economic skills and attitudes toward work. It is a stronger agency of educational success than the school, and a stronger teacher of the religious imagination than the church.

Political and social planning, in a wise social order, begins with the axiom, what strengthens the family strengthens society. Even when poverty and disorientation strike as over the generations they often do, it is family strength that most defends individuals against alienation, lassitude or despair. The world around the family is fundamentally unjust. The state and its agents and the economic system and its agencies are never fully to be trusted. One unforgettable law has been learned through all the disasters and injustices of the last thousand years. If things go well with the family, life is worth living.

When the family falters, life falls apart. And Michael Novak is exactly right. From the standpoint of just somebody observing the family, from the human wisdom viewpoint, it’s obvious that all is well when the family is healthy. And when it’s not, there’s no hope for a society. The only hope then to shade the generation to come is to submit ourselves to what the Word of God teaches about the family and about raising children. And frankly folks, it’s not that difficult to figure it out. It doesn’t take years and years and years.

It doesn’t take a whole lot of techniques to figure it out. It always amazes me the amazing economy of words with which the Lord says everything. And what he says is this, teach your children to obey you and to respect you. That’s the sum of it all. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment, with promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. By the way, these are the only verses in the Bible that command children.

Children should be taught these. They should specifically be taught these things. They should be taught to obey. Children, by the way, the word children is tatekna. It’s the general word for offspring. It doesn’t necessarily identify an infant. There’s another word for an infant. It’s just talking about children in general. No age is in view. From the birth all the way to being young people, as long as they are under parental control and parental care, as soon as they are old enough to know what is right, they are to be taught to obey their parents.

That strong self-centred depravity has to be harnessed, and obedience is the key to that. They must be taught to obey. The word obey is hoopaku. Aku has to do with hearing. Hoopa, under, to get under and listen. Obedience is the issue. Teach your children to obey. And really, that’s the issue. And I’ll tell you something. As you raise your children, and you’re consistently doing that, there will be times when they fight against it more aggressively than other times. And those are the battle times when you have to consistently force the issue of their obedience and make the consequence severe enough so that they get the message.

It’s not going to be ten years of battle. It’ll be ten years of teaching, with here and there a few weeks of real warfare as they endeavour to fight to maintain the freedoms of their own evil nature. This is so serious to God. Listen to what it says in Exodus 21 verses 15 and 17. And he who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. Whoa! That’s some serious respect. In the old economy, you hit your mother, you hit your father, you’re dead. And listen to what the rest of it says.

Verse 17. He who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. Kill those children who don’t show their parents respect. You say, whoa, is God that serious about it? God knows that there is no way, as he identifies his people in Exodus, as he calls them out to be a witnessing nation in the world, there is no way to perpetuate righteousness in a family unless there is obedience. And it is so serious that that law of God be perpetuated from Israel and spread around the world that he says if you have any child that won’t obey, just kill him.

Disobedience and disrespect, punishable by death. That is how serious an issue this is. You can’t pass on righteousness to a generation. You can’t even have a society that controls itself. You can’t have anything that is ordered unless you have people who have learned submission, obedience, and the big word, self-control. When you teach your children to obey, you teach them self-control. You teach them how to repress their depravity, how to win the victory over their sinful impulses. You do it by making the consequences severe enough that they won’t do it. It’s the only hope for society.

It’s the only hope for the preservation of righteousness. It’s the only hope for the truth of God to be passed on, is an obedient generation of children. So serious was God at the start of this that he said kill the ones that won’t do it. One can imagine if there was capital punishment for all rebellious children, what kind of an impact it would have. We’ve got all these people running around trying to stamp out spanking. If they only understood this verse, they would really be enraged. Obviously God in his mercy and his grace, at this time in redemptive history, does not repeat this command here in Ephesians.

But at the very outset of the foundation of establishing a people and giving them his law, and wanting that law preserved and passed from generation to generation, it was serious enough at the beginning. And the implications were profound enough that he said if you’re going to pass this on, you have to have obedient children, committed to self-control and righteousness, and just kill the ones that aren’t. Now turn to the book of Proverbs with me, because the book of Proverbs is the heart of the teaching of parents to their children. When you get into Proverbs, you’re getting into the book which basically parents taught to their children, something you ought to teach yours.

Chapter 1 verse 8. Hear my son, your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head and ornaments about your neck. You know what that means? They make you a beautiful person, they make you a gracious person, they will bless you. Listen to what your father and mother teach you. Chapter 2 verse 1. My son, if you will receive my sayings and treasure my commandments within you, make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding. A father is saying, listen to what I’m telling you as he passes on divine truth.

Chapter 3 verse 1. My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Do not let kindness and truth leave you, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. In other words, listen to what I tell you and wrap it around your body and live it out in every area of your life. Chapter 4 follows with the same idea. Verse 1. Hear, O sons, the instruction of a father and give attention that you may gain understanding, for I give you sound teaching.

Do not abandon my instruction. When I was a son to my father, tender, and the only son in the sight of my mother, then he taught me and said to me, let your heart hold fast my words, keep my commandments and live. Now that’s a faithful father. Chapter 4 again, down in verse 10. Hear my son and accept my sayings and the years of your life will be many. Chapter 5 verse 1. My son, give attention to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding. Chapter 7 of Proverbs verse 1. My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you.

Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching is the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers and write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, you’re my sister. Chapter 8 verse 32, it just goes on. Now therefore, O sons, listen to me, for blessed are they who keep my ways. And then just a couple more. Chapter 13. A wise son accepts his father’s discipline. Chapter 13 verse 1. A wise son accepts his father’s discipline. Chapter 15 verse 5. A fool rejects his father’s discipline. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of who’s the fool, parents, or children.

Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].