Non-Evangelistic; Legalistic; Prayerless Unbelieving Use

The point: Seize the opportunity after applying the rod to press the central issues of sin and grace, showing children their sin is against God and leading them to pray for forgiveness and a new heart.

A brother from the congregation graciously pointed out Martin's omission of evangelism as a suffix to discipline, serving as an example of how to offer constructive criticism.

see if I can give you the basic outline of what you covered this morning under failure number six, that is the detached or the isolated use of the rod of comfort. I said, yes, that's correct. And I used the analogy of prefix and suffix. And he said, as I remember, the prefix you gave us was that we should instruct our children from the word of God before we apply the rod, seeking to convince their judgment that what they are about to receive is righteous and to elicit from the child the fact that if we as parents are to be obedient to God, we must discipline them. I said, yes, that's what I so...

3:40 - 4:48 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The person who is meticulous and careful and detailed in his obedience out of love to Christ and the fear of God is not a legalist. He's a God-honoring Christian.

The legalist praying in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican is used to illustrate legalism with regard to acceptance with God, holding up works as currency.

No, he isn't. He is a careful, obedient, sensitive child of God. I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right. And I hate every false way, the psalmist said, and Jesus said, he that is faithful in little is faithful in much, and he that is unrighteous in little is unrighteous in much. Your true disposition to honesty is not determined by what you do with the thousands and millions in the local bank, but what you do with the pennies and dimes that are in the petty cash drawer at work. If you're a thief, it'll show with your pennies. And so that's not legalism. The person who is m...

9:46 - 10:45 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The person who is meticulous and careful and detailed in his obedience out of love to Christ and the fear of God is not a legalist. He's a God-honoring Christian.

The Pharisees' legalistic views of Sabbath keeping, where they condemned Jesus for healing and telling a man to pick up his bed, illustrate their impersonal and inflexible rules.

the circumstances surrounding the individual and you remember how Jesus had to confront this again and again particularly with regard to the Pharisees and their legalistic views of Sabbath keeping. They had their predetermined set of rules, which didn't allow the picking up of any kind of household item on the Sabbath. Even if Jesus healed a man and said, take up your bed and walk, he broke our rules. They didn't care that a man was given a new lease on life by the power of God, perfectly consistent with Sabbath rest and rejoicing in God and Sabbath delight.

12:10 - 12:52 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Parents are exhorted to be like God, judging righteously and not according to appearance, taking into account the child's temperament, specific circumstances, and…

Martin recounts an incident where his father accidentally skinned his youngest brother's finger in a door, but was so broken up he couldn't take him to the doctor. This illustrates how external appearances can be misleading and lead to wrong conclusions, emphasizing the need for righteous judgment in discipline.

And as I was thinking of a way to illustrate this, I thought of an incident that took me back many, many years. I can't give you the exact time, but my youngest brother. He is approximately 20 years younger than I.

18:57 - 19:11 Read in full sermon

The point: Pray that God will keep you from a cold, inflexible, impersonal, legalistic use of the rod.

Richard Baxter's 'Christian Directory' is quoted to support the idea that discipline should be differentiated according to the child's temperament, countering the stereotype of Puritans as stern and inflexible.

Whereas with others, 10 stripes are not enough. A hundred stripes don't even seem to dent him. Listen to Baxter. Poor Puritans.

24:52 - 25:01 Read in full sermon

The point: Cultivate a spiritual discipline of prayerfulness in conjunction with the use of the rod, lifting up your heart to God for wisdom, restraint, courage, and discernment.

Nehemiah's prayer to God while standing before the king is used as an example of cultivating a discipline of prayerfulness in the midst of circumstances, even without formal kneeling.

To get off and formally get on his or her knees in a secret place and pray. I said, cultivate a discipline of prayerfulness. Nehemiah was standing in the court of the king, and when the king asked him a question, why is thy countenance sad? Scripture says, so I prayed unto the Lord and I said unto the king, did he say, oh, excuse me, King off to his prayer chamber and then come back in all sweating as they will now know it was ejaculatory prayer.

31:21 - 31:50 Read in full sermon

The point: Make it plain to children that discipline is administered in God's name, not merely because parents are bigger or stronger, to establish a proper framework for authority.

A story of a father disciplining his college-aged son for disobeying car rules, even though the son was physically larger, illustrates the principle of parental authority being exercised in God's name, not just by physical strength.

But we do this in God's name. And I believe in most cases, if that is properly set into the framework of the discipline, a five-foot-one, 98-pound little wisp of a mama could lay a pretty good thrashing on a six-foot, 285-pound teenager. In fact, I remember a very touching incident. I told some of the men last week.

49:53 - 50:18 Read in full sermon

The point: Wherever possible, administer discipline in private to avoid embarrassing the child before siblings or playmates and to allow for individualized application.

Martin shares a personal anecdote about his parents finding private or semi-private places for spankings in a small, crowded six-room house with ten children, marveling at their wisdom and ingenuity.

So if people say, Well, I've got too many kids. The house is small. There were ten kids in our family. Never any more than eight at one time.

53:57 - 54:04 Read in full sermon