The Biblical Training of Our Children, Part 2

Introduction: The Task Defined – Negative Injunction and Positive Direction

0:03 This sermon was preached on July 19, 1988, at the Southeastern Reformed Baptist Family Conference.

0:12 Now may I urge you to turn with me in your Bibles once again to the 6th chapter of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 6.

0:26 And I shall read in your hearing tonight, as I did last evening, the first four verses of this chapter. Ephesians 6 and verse 1.

0:40 And by the way, there seems to be clear indication from this passage that when the assembly at Ephesus gathered, Paul assumed the children weren't shunted off somewhere in junior church. They were present to hear the epistle.

0:58 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment. That it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.

1:18 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord. Now this evening we move on in our study of this text to take up the second major division of the text and of our theme, namely, the task defined. Having considered the task assigned, and ye fathers, we now move to examine the words in which the task is defined. And those words are these. Provoke not your children to wrath, but nurture them. And in this task, the task defined, we have the negative injunction, provoke not your children to wrath, the positive direction, but nurture them, and we have them both in what I am calling the assumed framework of that task. And God helping us, and time permitting, I hope to trace out those three heads tonight,

2:41 the negative injunction, the positive direction, and the assumed framework. First of all then, the negative injunction. No sooner has Paul, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, captured the ears of the fathers in the assemblies at Ephesus, but that their ears receive a clear negative injunction. Now I know we live in the day in which everything is supposed to be positive.

The Negative Injunction: Do Not Provoke Your Children to Wrath

3:17 There is a great antipathy to anything that is couched in the negative. And this whole climate is just another manifestation of the growing and increasingly unashamed hostility to the whole fabric of biblical revelation. When God reveals His mind, in such things as the Ten Commandments, He mixes the negatives and the positives. He has His thou shalt nots and His thou shalts.

3:53 And as we shall see, God willing, in subsequent studies, under the heading of godly admonition, the overall flavor of admonition is negative and not positive. And in the very nature of training, unformed and inexperienced, children, there is infinite wisdom and compassion expressed in this dominant negative motif of the admonitory sections of the Word of God. But we notice that Paul begins with the negative injunction. And you fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.

4:38 With a realism born, of an honest and accurate assessment of human nature, and of the sin which cleaves to the best of Christian men, Paul begins his definition of the task assigned to fathers with the negative injunction. Now we must of course begin with the question, what do these words mean? When Paul wrote by the inspiration of the Spirit, Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, what precisely did he mean? Well, you will remember, if you were here last evening, that we noted that the structure of this entire section is one in which we have three couplets of divine directive, starting with a directive to an inferior, and then balanced with a directive to the superior. and then balanced with a directive to the superior. and then balanced with a directive to the superior. And in this section, Paul begins with addressing children with respect to their duty.

5:47 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, honor your father and your mother. And then in this particular couplet, he does exactly what he does when he treats wives, and then husbands, subsequently servants and masters, and what he does is this. Having given a specific directive to the inferior, he then gives explicit directives to the superior, which will make the compliance of the inferior as delightful and as easy as possible. So having said to children, obey your parents, honor your father and your mother, he begins his definition of the task of godly parenting by telling fathers to secure a climate in which they are not unnecessarily provoking their children to anger. For it is only in such a consciously created climate that the compliance of the child in the realm of obedience and honor will most likely be secured

7:12 by the enablement of the Spirit of God. And so what God is saying to fathers in this negative injunction is this. Do not, in the administration of the training of your children, do not unnecessarily provoke them to carnal anger. Do not carry out the administration of your nurture in such a way as to create a climate that is constantly stirring up this passion of anger in your children.

7:52 Now he does not say, don't ever make your children angry. Some of you might go home and say, oh boy, that's great. Next time dad tells me I've got to be in at 11, I'll say, that makes me angry. And Pastor Martin, you preach, you're not supposed to make me angry.

8:07 I'll come in at 1. No, no kids, it doesn't work. He does not say, don't ever do anything that will make your children angry. What he is saying is, do not provoke them to anger.

Understanding 'Provoke' – Not to Anger or Discouragement

8:21 That is, do not unnecessarily create situations which will either stir up in them the sinful passion of anger or even stir up righteous anger, because the moment there is anger, there is an adversarial relationship. And the nurture of our children cannot effectively be carried on in an adversarial relationship. Now for further light on what he means, we turn to the parallel passage in Colossians 3, which brings in another nuance that is most helpful. In the parallel passage in Colossians 3, we read in verse 21, Fathers, provoke not your children that they be not discouraged. Now the word he uses for provoke here is a word that can mean to stir someone up to a virtuous or a vicious or sinful attitude or action. In 2 Corinthians 9, 2, he speaks of how the Macedonians' generosity provoked other Christians. It stirred them up to the virtue of open-handed generosity.

9:47 But now he says, Fathers, do not stir up your children that they may not be discouraged. Literally, provoke not your children that they lose heart.

10:06 That's a much better rendering of the word. Do not provoke them in such a way as to cause them to lose heart. Now bring the two things together and what do you find the apostle emphasizing? You find him emphasizing on the one hand that in parental molding of our children, we are always prone to do things or fail to do things which will unnecessarily stir up a climate of anger and create an adversarial relationship or we may provoke our children to lose heart and instead of an adversarial relationship, we find a relationship in which they are utterly without spirit. And so the adversarial relationship and also the relationship in which there is discouragement. I can never please Dad. I can never please Mom.

11:21 Why? Try. Is a climate in which godly nurture cannot effectively be carried on. So we must avoid that which unnecessary, unnecessarily creates either the adversarial or the non-motivational climate of godly nurture.

Common Ways Fathers Provoke Children to Anger or Discouragement

11:46 Now having established the meaning of the words in the negative injunction with the parallel passage shedding its peculiar nuance and light upon it, now let us ask this question. What things are most likely to provoke our children to anger or to provoke them to lose heart? You know what I wish I could do at this point? Because we have children here, I wish I could turn the one-way communication into a class and say no one over 18 can open his or her mouth.

12:26 And I want you kids with judgment day honesty and you young men and women who don't like to be called kids anymore, and so I won't insult you, you young men and women, to have you tell us what is it that most frequently has provoked you into an adversarial relationship with your parents or provoked you into a non-motivational attitude in which you said I won't even try to please them. It doesn't work. But since I can't do that, though I'd like to, let me suggest from observation, from trying to listen to kids, from the painful discovery of my own heart and the painful input of my own children, as I sought to rear them with an open climate in which they could tell their dad when he was unnecessarily provoking them to anger or to become dispirited, what are some of the most common ways in which even good and godly fathers and often mothers taking the clue from the fathers or fathers taking the pattern from their wives rather than correcting their wives and being the pace setters in such a godly climate, rather they become the ones who engineer a climate

13:53 marked by adversarial and dispirited relationships among the children. Well, let me say that first of all, children are most frequently provoked to anger when, in summary, we cease to be like God in the totality of our parenting experience. You see, God is the great and perfect Father. And He is the model of what we are to be as fathers.

14:31 And this is established in so many passages. One is embarrassed by the richness of Scripture, but think particularly of Psalm 103. Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. He knows our frame.

14:49 He remembers that we are dust. He will not always chide, neither will He keep His anger forever. God is not unreasonable in the venting of His righteous parental anger. Nor is He unreasonable in the extent and in the intensity of His chastisement.

Specific Parental Failures Leading to Anger

15:10 And God, you see, calls upon us to be fathers like unto the pattern of Himself. And all of these things that I will mention, and they are only a selected list, they are things in which at the bottom line we are not like God, our Heavenly Father, in His treatment, His treatment of His children. Fathers, do you want very quickly to provoke your children to anger? Then indulge, first of all, in patterns of excessive discipline.

15:46 Matthew Henry said, discipline is medicine. But he who feeds his child with medicine as his normal fare will find soon that the medicine has no effect upon him and the child has no appetite for wholesome food. And there are fathers who either out of a distorted view of what it is to nurture their children, or out of a horribly unmortified strain of carnal meanness, are excessive in the discipline of their children. And children, even in their fallen state, have an innate sense of fairness.

16:30 And when you've stepped over that boundary of fairness again and again in excessive discipline, you inevitably provoke those children to anger in direct violation of this negative injunction. Then there is, secondly, the horrible sin of partiality and favoritism. You see it exemplified in Genesis 25, 28 in the case of Jacob and Esau. You see the horrible effects of it in the case of the sons of Jacob.

17:07 It's as though Jacob learned the pattern and passed it on. And that favoritism openly displayed to Joseph before his brothers provoked them to anger, not only against their father, but against their brother, and set up problems not only in the parent-child relationship, but in the sibling relationships. You see, God is no respecter of persons. Fathers, be like God.

17:37 Do not show a sinful, carnal partiality and favoritism based upon the natural chemistry between you and one child or another that predisposes you to be more lenient and to be more considerate of one as opposed to another. You'll provoke the neglected one to anger in direct contradiction to the word of God. Thirdly, most often our children are provoked to anger by hypocrisy and the double standard. Hypocrisy and the double standard.

18:15 They see you ready to put the belt or your hand upon their backside when they have wronged one of their siblings, and you force them to say, I'm sorry, I was wrong, will you forgive me? And yet they hear your angry words to your wife, and they never hear you saying, Honey, I was wrong, I sinned, will you forgive me? They never see you gathering the family together saying, Kids, we know you overheard Mom and Dad having heated words. Dad is the one who provoked that situation.

18:55 I sinned against God. I sinned against Mommy. I've asked God's forgiveness and sought it in the blood of Christ and have obtained it. I've asked Mommy's forgiveness and she has granted it.

19:09 Children, will you forgive your dad for that outburst of carnal anger? They see you demanding of them transparency and honesty and the willingness to humble yourself, but they don't see you doing it in your own relationships. And when you lay upon them a burden that you will not bear, you provoke them to anger in direct violation of this injunction. Furthermore, in the fourth place, you provoke children to anger by a pattern of neglect and insensitivity.

Further Failures: Silence, Demeaning Words, Unclear Expectations, Inordinate Control, and Living Through Children

19:50 A pattern of neglect and insensitivity. There are times when in the strange development of the independent judgment and the will of a child that the child pushes to know whether or not there is a wall of protection around him that will save us far and no further. And if you want to provoke your children to anger, just neglect the child so you don't feel when he's pushing and your antennae are not out picking up the signals when they're asking for attention, when your son just wants to have a walk with you to try to find out what's going on in his mind and in his body as an emerging teenage boy. When all your daughters want is they're beginning to merge into manhood and psychologically and emotionally and physiologically are being prepared to be a wife and a mother, they just want to feel the strong arms of a loving man around them with no eroticism. And they send out signals. They plop down next to you in the couch and all you do is squiggle away and put the paper down between you.

21:09 You're dead! You're sending that girl back to her room angry and bitter. You're violating this injunction. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger by excessive discipline, partiality and favoritism, hypocrisy and the double standard.

21:35 Neglect and insensitivity and closely akin to it in the fifth place by weaving about yourself a cocoon of silence. The non-verbal pomp. How many a child has been made angry and bitter because dad simply won't talk. He had a dad who never talked.

22:02 He felt the anger. He felt the frustration. He felt the irritation. And rather than reject that pattern and cry to God for grace to establish a new one, what is he doing?

22:16 He's just pushing the buttons in the computer and what was programmed into him over the years is now coming out dictating the patterns of his own parenting. And then he hides behind the fact, well, it's just my personality. Personality schmality, my friend. It's nothing to do with personality.

22:35 It has to do with biblical principles. God is the great communicator. He no sooner made Adam his first son and Adam is called the son of God, the first thing he did after he blessed them was to open his mouth and talk to them. And the image of God created he them, male and female created he them and he blessed them and he said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and have dominion.

23:09 And all of these cocoons of silence ultimately have their own materials in Eden after the fall. It is sin that has given us the fabric with which to weave the cocoon of silence that cuts us off from our children and makes them angry. Then, sixthly, bitter. And demeaning words and deeds provoke our children to anger.

23:46 You remember that little ditty we used to say as kids? When one of the neighbor kids head, hey, old big nose. Or when they found out I had Swedish blood in me, they'd call me blockhead. The same way we'd find out someone was Italian, we'd call him Dago or Wop.

24:05 We lived in a sort of little United Nations up there in Connecticut where I lived. That's why we had very little hangups. We had our little Italy, our little Ireland, our little Sweden, our little Scotland. We laughed at our ethnic differences and when we got mad we called each other's name, but then we always hugged and made up and went down the park and played ball together.

24:24 We aren't all hung up about this business. Everybody afraid to say anything ethnically. We didn't have that. But there was that little ditty that really isn't true.

24:39 When someone was trying to really dig at us and say things, we'd say sticks and stones will break my bones, but names can never hurt me. It's not true. Sticks and stones may break my bones and all I need to go is to an orthopedic doctor and have him set the bone and in six weeks I'm good as new. But names from a father, demeaning words from a father, fit the description of Proverbs where it speaks of words that pierce like a dagger.

25:17 And there are adults sitting in this place tonight who have inward weeping wounds inflicted from a father or mother who's a dummy, stupid, klutzy. You want to provoke your children to anger? Indulge in demeaning, bitter words and deeds. You want to provoke them to anger?

25:48 Be imprecise and unclear in what you expect of them and then clobber them as though your expectations and directives were as clear as the noonday sun. Many a child is provoked to anger when he is summarily disciplined before the court of father and mother's law when that law was not made clear and precise. It wasn't a matter of willful disobedience. There was imprecision.

26:13 And they are angered because they know they have been wronged. And then you want to anger them? This is particularly true as they begin to develop into their pre-teen and teenage years. You smother them with inordinate control over every burp and hiccup.

26:34 You're so determined they're going to come out right that you don't give them room to breathe. And they enter adulthood crippled. You've not given them enough rope to know how to wrestle with decision-making principles and make a wrong choice and skin their knees and bump their head and learn from it. And they sense that they are growing into adulthood but you're smothering them with an inordinate control.

27:04 And they become angry. They want to bust out of the whole thing. And then one of the most common ways that children are provoked to anger is this. When frustrated parents who've never submitted to the will of God for their own lives dictated by providence attempt to live their unfulfilled frustrations through their children.

27:30 Living your own fantasy life through your kids. We heard this morning about how nature teaches us certain things. Does not nature itself teach you that sometimes that son that you wished would be born with your athletic ability is born with just a modicum and lo and behold it's your daughter that's got more native athletic ability than your son? I speak from experience.

28:01 I do. I never forced my son into athletics. When he showed little interest I didn't push it. Much as I wish I had a son who would have loved athletics, no.

28:15 But his interest lay in working with his hands and I encouraged that. But my daughter Beth all I had to do was to teach her at age seven or eight how to put her feet and how to hold a bat and she hit frozen ropes every time. The best natural swing of any kid I've ever seen. And so every day when she'd come home from school in her preteens dad would take fifteen minutes to go out in the backyard not with his son but with his daughter and pitch it and I mean she's a natural hitter everything hit back towards second base line drives one after another.

28:49 The other day she hadn't touched a bat in years we were in the backyard she's now married. She said dad I got an itch to hit the ball I said come on let's go out I mean frozen ropes boom, boom, boom one after another. In my age it takes me fifty minutes to even begin to get anything like a stroke back to get the hips and the shoulders she goes out there pow, pow, pow tremendous amount. But you see there are fathers who can't hack that.

29:15 And what do they do? They push their sons to be something God didn't make them. God made them with the hands of a pianist not a shortstop. God made them with the coordination to be farmers and not football players.

29:34 You want to make your kids angry? Then you live out your unfulfilled frustrations and fantasies through them. Force upon them what you wish you had been. Not what the word of God says you ought to have been and you're determined they shall be but what your own carnal desires wanted you to be.

Specific Parental Failures Leading to Discouragement

29:58 Well these are just a partial list or this is but a partial list have I struck home with some? Then listen to me men, stop it. This is a perfect world a present imperative verb and when a present imperative comes it means if you're doing it stop it and don't ever start it. Do not provoke your children to wrath.

30:19 First of all setting unrealistic standards for them. Setting unrealistic standards for them. It's being unlike God. He knows our frame.

30:33 He remembers we are dust. To change the imagery squeezes no blood out of a turnip only turnip juice. And yet at times we set unrealistic standards out of personal pride out of competition with someone else's kids and our desire to maintain respectability with their parents. There's all kinds of infrastructure among parents upon which alter the lives and the wholesome psyche of children are sacrificed.

31:07 Don't provoke your children to lose heart by setting unrealistic standards. Picture the kid who goes out the first day of track tryouts and he says you know coach I've been told that I got the build of a high jumper and I think maybe I fooled around a little bit in the backyard and someone taught me how to do a scissors kick in the old western role I haven't tried the flop yet I feel I need to be taught but I think I maybe could make the track team as a high jumper. What do you think coach? And he looks him over and he says yeah I think maybe.

31:38 Then he goes over and he sets the bar at seven foot six. He says now if you've got a high jumper in you kid let's see. Now this is what I want you to do. I want you to run up to the bar this is the way you approach it this angle, this many steps this is your take off foot and when you do this boom, boom, boom six times and the poor kid all he does is manage to get up high enough to hit his head on the bar and knock it off.

31:57 And he goes home and says I'll never be a high jumper. What happened? Unrealistic standards. What will a wise coach do?

32:06 He'll set that bar low enough for a toddler to get over it. And he'll give him the basics of how to get the technique and lo and behold the first time he tries he clears it by two feet. He feels like King Duck reborn. He says boy that's great.

32:23 Coach says wonderful. Let's set it up higher. He sneaks it up just two inches. He says now try it again.

32:29 Well by the time the guy's cleared the bar ten times a sense of confidence a sense of identity has entered. Why? There were realistic standards set for him. Then what did he do?

32:39 It fed that thing called heart. Without which all the native ability in the world will never make a high jumper out of him. The difference in athletic competition at the highest level is usually not raw ability. Raw ability is pretty well a washout.

32:58 It's heart. And God says do not provoke your children to lose heart by setting unrealistic standards. Secondly, by failure to give verbal reinforcement and praise for well doing. You see some parents the only time they communicate is when they're pointing out faults.

33:22 There can be ten specific duties that you had to do in a given day. You did nine of them reasonably well according to your parental directives and lo and behold you blew one of them. The only one you hear about is the one you blew. And when that goes on week after week what happens kids?

33:41 Tell me. You figure what's the use? You lose heart. Listen.

33:47 If the Apostle Paul can write these words to that messed up church at Corinth there's usually something in your kids you can praise. He could write in chapter 11 and verse 2 these amazing words. Having already had to deal with so many abnormalities and more yet to deal with. I praise you that you remember me in all things and hold fast the traditions even as I deliver them unto you.

34:21 If Paul can find something to praise in the Corinthian church you can find something to praise in your children. Fathers do not provoke them to lose heart by setting unrealistic standards by failing to give verbal reinforcement and praise for well doing. Do not make them lose heart by nagging and harping on matters. Everything the Bible says about a contentious wife being like the dripping of a faucet.

34:55 Better it is to dwell in the corner of a rooftop than in a wide house with such a woman. The principle is the same with a child dwelling with nagging harping parents. Constantly reminding of their foibles and their faults until they lose heart. And now I'm going to say something some of you won't like but I don't care it's biblical in your controversies with God and not with me if you don't like it.

35:24 By robbing your children of the physical and verbal expressions of affection which you owe them. Many a child loses heart because mom and dad and particularly dad the authority figure in the home never touches, never hugs never embraces and never says I love you. I tell you men if we're to be fathers like God God has opened his mouth and told us again and again of his love. I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Oh Ephraim how can I give you up? You're so degenerate and apostate if I'm to be true to the covenant I must give you up. But I'm so bound in covenant love to you how can I give you up?

36:31 God's not ashamed to say to his people I love you. And all the pictures of his embraces God uses the figure of his love as the figure of the intimate relationship of the shepherd who takes the lamb in his bosom. There is the physical intimacy of the shepherd with his sheep. The scriptures give us such pictures of God showing his love indeed as well as in word.

37:05 And when John says my little children let us not love in word only he's assuming that's the easiest and most normal but indeed and in truth. One of the most moving experiences I had at the last conference was after touching on this issue. A 20 year old young man came to me son of a preacher. His face was glowing.

37:30 And he said oh Pastor Martin I've got to tell you something wonderful happened today. After you preached this morning I preached this aspect of it in the morning. He said my dad came to me after the sermon with tears and threw his arms around me. First time he's ever hugged me since I was a baby.

37:46 And he said to me son I love you. First time he's told me that since I was a baby. 20 year old kid whose spirit was disheartened because his dad couldn't say to you son I love you. I feel funny so much.

38:07 Try it you may like it. You say that's effeminate. Show me from this book was it effeminate when the prodigal frozen in his tracks by his shame had the father run to him. Read the text carefully.

38:36 The father threw his arms around his neck. And the father kissed him. He was paralyzed in his shame and self reproach. All the overtures had to come from the father.

38:51 And that's a picture of our Savior. I'm not at all ashamed to say my 27 year old son would no more think a shake in my hand in church in front of five or six hundred people than spitting in my eye. I'd feel insulted if he gave me just a handshake at the door. He's my son!

39:13 He hugs me. And every time he hangs up the phone his last words are I love you dad. And you know what? The son that he adopted at age five has picked up the same pattern.

39:31 I love you pop pop. And lo and behold the little two year old granddaughter. I wobble pop pop. And there's a climate of the verbalization as well as the physical expression of love.

39:51 If we were disembodied spirits who could float in the ether and simply communicate in some super terrestrial manner of our affection fine. But we are not disembodied spirits. We have nerve endings and we have auditory nerves which can hear words. Fathers do not provoke your children to be discouraged.

40:24 And especially as they come into those preteen years and teen years and they don't know who in the world they are. Between zits and funny feelings once girls were always yuck. And then they began to be hmm. And now they're hmm.

40:46 And they don't know what to do with all of this. And suddenly the nose that they never even examined now it feels so big and it ain't shape right. And they're for sure convinced they're the ugliest thing. Oh they need one place where the words I love you and where the arms that say I love you keep them from being disheartened.

41:11 That's your job dad. Don't provoke them to anger. Don't provoke them to lose heart. Last night after the meeting I sat with a woman in her early thirties who said when I went off to school and left my dad all I got was a handshake and good luck.

41:40 I tell you it makes me want to weep to think of all of the dispirited children produced by dads who will not say I love you and will not express it physically. Now it should be evident dear men if we're to obey this injunction this prohibition that we as fathers and our wives with us in a supportive role as mothers must increasingly know our children they are not static in their identity they are developing and elements of personality will burst out at age four that you never saw at age three and others will seem to be submerged for years and then will break out and the thing that provoked them to anger at age four won't touch them at age six but then there are things that will provoke them to anger at age six that never entered the picture at age six. What is the picture at age four? You've got to constantly pray oh God help me to know my children with holy discernment. It means you've got to establish verbal communication you've got to be willing to talk about every silly banal thing sometimes for an hour before they feel loosened up enough to really tell you what's down here.

Obeying the Injunction: Know Your Children and Yourself

43:08 You see the thing that's eating at their gut is here but then there's about four pints of just froth on top of it and you've got to sit and wait and get all that froth pumped out, pumped out, pumped out, pumped out until you feel Lord if I get one more ounce of froth I'm going to barf. But you hang in there and you realize my grace is sufficient for thee and you say Lord give me grace to hang in there something's in her gut something is in his gut it's eating Lord they haven't got it out yet Lord give me grace to even look interested and there are times I can remember as a parent Lord give me grace to even keep an interested look on my face but then the thing that was eaten and then it came out for others don't provoke them to wrath don't provoke them to wrath it means you're going to have to increasingly know your children they change and if you're to know them you must be with them there must be meaningful communication constant observation secondly we must know ourselves we change you know it'll be the most frightening thing I look out in the faces of many of you men probably a quarter of you a fifth of you older than I but the majority of you younger than I and you know what's going to shock you but you mark my word there are patterns that were evident in your dad

44:37 and you saw them as a teenager and you didn't like them and you said if I ever become a father and I've got teenage kids I'm never going to be like that but listen to me that stuff was so programmed in by the power of example that unless you take specific concentrated measures to mortify those things you get to that stage in your life with your kids and without trying those patterns will start coming out of you in ways that will shock you will humble you and will drive you to your face in brokenness before God you've got to know yourself and hear me men if you've got a godly wife she is your best mirror next to the bible and have the spiritual courage to sit down with her periodically and say honey what am I like in the eyes of my kids I tell you some of my most heart wrenching sobering judgment day tearing up spiritual upheavals came when I sat at the kitchen table with my wife and I said honey I know you've got something you want to tell me something that's about to lay it on me she said well honey the kids have been coming to me oh yep what have they been saying they've been saying mom

46:04 what's bothering dad and when I've asked them I'm now speaking as she is what do you mean what's bothering dad well I noticed for the past week every time he comes out of the study he's got a frown on his face and I noticed that when I've tried to send out a signal he's not picking up on it and then if she saw the pattern beginning to emerge she became my in house Nathaness and she said Albert N. thou art the man and when she did I had to do one of two things I either had to follow the impulse of my unmortified male ego and try to argue around her observations and rationalize her rationalize under and carnally try to manipulate but thank God she wouldn't be argued around or manipulated she'd just quietly listen if I made that attempt and when I was all done look me straight in the eye and say honey they're right and hold her ground with reality until I got in touch with reality and repented before God repented before my children and amended my ways oh you dear wives intimidated by your husband's ability as a debater

47:32 go to his conscience and stick at his conscience even when he gives you a string of arguments that would seem to carry a court of law when he's all done and you can't answer all his arguments go after his conscience and stick at it until he humbles himself that's being a helper answering to his need what's he need when he's rationalizing not a wife that's a pushover a wife that'll lovingly point his sin out and hold her spiritual finger under his nose until he bends now you wives you've got to learn the holy art of putting a little perfume on your finger you've got to learn the holy art of getting to his conscience if necessary with holy subtlety like Nathan got to David's conscience if he'd have walked into David grabbed him by the thigh and said David listen I know all about your affair with Bathsheba he might have had his head taken off so he says David I've got a story to tell you remember your old days as a farmer I'm going to tell you a little agrarian story and before long with subtlety given of the Holy Ghost he got to his conscience so man if we're to obey this injunction we must increasingly know our children that means we've got to be with them we've got to observe them we've got to listen to them

48:58 it means we've got to increasingly know ourselves and what are the patterns that we are falling into that may be provoking them to anger or provoking them to lose heart and here we must be willing to be vulnerable to our children how many of you sit down periodically with your children and ask them to evaluate you as a parent it's humbling but I tell you it's salutary what have you got to lose except a little pride that ought to be nailed to the cross anyway what have you got to lose except some unmortified carnal pattern of life that ought to be put to death anyway you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath for a suggestion of how broad this category is I turned up the sermon of a preacher of another generation on the text in Colossians fathers provoke not your children that they be not discouraged listen to his words when is this mandate violated first when parents deny them a just allowance in what is necessary to maintain them suitably to their birth the apostle has judged this so enormous a sin that he hesitates not to say that he who commits it

50:27 has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel secondly fathers provoke their children when they give them unrighteous and inhuman commands as when Saul would oblige Jonathan his son to hate and persecute David a very virtuous and innocent person upon which this generous son most unworthy of so bad a father was vexed and inflamed with anger 1 Samuel 20.34 if the daughter of Herodias had any spark of this good nature she would have been in the same manner offended at that cruel and barbarous command her mother gave her to ask of King Herod the head of John the Baptist on a charger Matthew 14.8 it's also provoking a child when without any necessity he compels him to perform sordid and servile actions such as are beneath his birth in this rank I put those two who without cause assail their children's ears with contumelious words that's just a big word for demeaning words whether they are inspired by present passion or an ill-favored custom has habituated their tongues to such venomous conduct and then he goes on to demonstrate what in his day were the ways in which fathers provoked their children to wrath you see Paul by the Spirit was a great realist

Transition to the Positive Direction: Nurture Them

51:56 and he knew that if the relationship to our children was marked by the adversarial climate or the dispirited non-motivational climate we could never give them the positive nurture which they need I love the realism of biblical psychology dear people may I give you a warning beware of being tyrannized by the experts don't live in addiction to Dr. Dobson he's basically someone molded by humanistic psychology and though I have no doubt he's an evangelical Christian Dr. Dobson is not a biblical theologian you will know more about how to rear your children if you live in the word of God than if you're addicted to Dobson provoke not your children to wrath provoke them not that they lose heart but now we have the positive direction we've looked at the negative injunction and obviously we'll only be able to begin the positive direction but I told Pastor Fortner I came determined that I would not just run through material but seek to discharge what I trust is the constraint of the word upon my heart the positive direction what is it? look at the text

53:21 it begins with what the Greek grammarians call a contrasting or an adverse an adversative particle a strong an adversative particle you fathers do not be provoking your children or them to your children to anger but in direct contrast to all of the effect of doing that but and then the whole task positively is set forth in these two words nurture them I love God's economy with words I wish I knew how to master it as a preacher God puts the whole task in its positive frame by saying nurture them and therefore we have in those two words the objects of this directive and then the substance of this directive who are the objects of this directive? nurture them you have a pronoun and you good English students I hope they still teach this in English that you look when you have an indefinite pronoun to its immediate antecedent who is the them

54:49 of the passage well if you look it's very clear we are told children obey your parents we are further told we are to honor father and mother and then the apostle says fathers provoke not your children but nurture them so the objects of this directive are our children nurture them all that them is is to be the concern of our nurture doesn't say nurture their souls nurture their bodies nurture their minds nurture their psyches it says nurture them now hear me out packed in that little word then is God's pointer to the fact that every Christian parent ought to have a well grounded biblical understanding of the nature of what a child is if you do not understand what a child is biblically and theologically you cannot practically fulfill the task of nurturing them you've got to know what them is in order to nurture them and in the time that remains that's as far as we'll go tonight

The Nature of Children: Image-Bearers of God

56:16 I want us to look at the objects of the training what are they what are these children we are to nurture well they are first of all creatures made in the earth in the image of God they are not little well planned biological successes of our own sexual union nor are they unplanned biological accidents of our carelessness or of a theology of no conscious family planning no they are creatures made in the image of God Genesis 1.26 and 7 is clear that man originally created was the image of God in his body, soul, psychosomatic entity he was God's image and hear me now though the fall has affected and marred the image it has not destroyed nor changed man's essential identity as image bearer of God how do we know it in Genesis 9 and verse 6 God says whoso sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God

57:42 made he him sinful men who murder other sinful men are yet image bearers and the same truth is brought out in James 3 and verse 9 where it speaks of people who curse their fellow men and in so doing they curse those who are made after the likeness of God you say what's the big deal in the nurturing of my children if I know they are image bearers of God oh parents listen it means from the time that they are conceived until we first hold them in our arms and you mothers nurse them at your breast and you dads dandle them upon your knee they have that noble exalted dignity of being image bearers of the living God of heaven and earth they have all of that unique capacity to know God and hold communion with God they have moral accountability and they are stamped with immortality they shall exist forever as body and soul entities in heaven or in hell but image bearers they were conceived and image bearers they will be

The Nature of Children: God-Designed Individuality and Fallen in Adam

59:06 even if they burn in hell forever as the marred distorted image bearers they are in hell because they are of such dignity as to make hell a necessity there's no hell for beasts there's no hell for the most wild vicious beasts beasts that slew a whole village because the beast is not an image bearer of God and hell itself is witness to man's uniqueness as image bearer of God secondly they are creatures made with God design and God wrought individuality you've got to understand that you see you weren't there in the womb when all of that mysterious selection was going on from the gene pool that was going to determine the basic elements of their physiology the basic elements of their mental capacity the basic element of their native personality stamp but there was someone there in the womb Psalm 139 makes it plain if you've not heard Pastor Hofstetler's tape from the Bluffton conference several years ago I commend it to you on Psalm 139 the biblical doctrine of self-image a masterful treatment of this principle David says

60:35 God was there when and then he uses the imagery of a weaver in his shop and he is taking one strand after another and upon the loom he is making that fabric which represents the expression of his own artistry and aesthetic sensitivity though you mom and dad were not in the womb overseeing and superintending all of that selection almighty God was and when we as parents recognize that then we're prepared to accept hear me now even those abnormalities that are woven out of the raw materials of man's fallenness for God says who maketh a man blind or deaf or blind or dumb or maimed but I Jehovah and you and I in nurturing our children must recognize that we are nurturing those who are creatures made in the image of God secondly creatures made with God designed God wrought individuality thirdly creatures fallen in Adam and that means two basic things they are sinners in general or they are generic sinners and they are sinners in particular

62:04 that is they are particular sinners and what do I mean by that terminology simply this Romans 5 12 as through one man sin entered into the world and death passed upon all men for that all sinned from the moment of conception they are liable with that horrible condemnation of their organic unity with Adam he is the federal head of all humanity and when they are conceived their age of accountability has come and gone you hear me it's come and gone the moment they are conceived David said behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me therefore they are born condemned born spiritually guilty born spiritually blind born morally perverse they go astray from the womb speaking lies the foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child from its conception contrary to all modern psychology that says all forms of potential for nobility and goodness and altruism and the good of humanity are bound up in the child let the experts and the social manipulators surround this bundle of inherent goodness

63:33 and we will see it blossom into the new world system rubbish folly is bound up in the heart of the child and I'm sick and tired of hearing Christian parents say well this is a stage this is a stage this is a stage my friend no it's just another bundle of its folly being untied and manifested that's what it is not a stage the terrible twos the tribulating threes and the fearsome fours no it's sinful folly by degrees manifesting itself they are sinners in general in the whole biblical doctrine of our organic unity in Adam Adam's federal headship we need to know that as it applies to our children that they are not only sinners in general guilty depraved morally perverse spiritually blind and impotent it seems to me that this is an aspect too often overlooked they are sinners in particular and what do I mean by that just this there is woven into the texture of the soul of every child peculiar tendencies to special sins as a result of the whole state of fallen humanity

65:01 some children in their conceived individuality have a conduit of potentiality for a vicious temper far out of proportion to another child conceived in the same womb equally guilty in Adam equally depraved equally blind equally perverse equally spiritually impotent but uniquely predisposed to have a trigger temper and you've got to understand that as a parent others are uniquely predisposed to thievery others uniquely predisposed to deceit and cleverness and manipulation and listen some are uniquely predisposed to become sexual perverts now listen to what I did say and don't go out and say I said something I didn't I did not say anyone is conceived with a mechanistic necessity of becoming a lesbian or a homosexual but I'm saying that some are conceived because of the influence of sin upon humanity and its subtle and pervasive insinuation into the totality of the stream of humanity that from conception

66:26 some are more predisposed in the direction of sexual perversion as some are more predisposed to lechery with those of the opposite sex some are more predisposed to pride and selfishness look at it in the scriptures Jacob by temperament felt far more at home watching Mama make pancakes while Esau was out hunting rabbits Jacob had a more feminine strain in his temperament that could well have predisposed him to be a pervert that's what I'm talking about you better have your eyes open parents asking God Lord help me to see what specific areas my children are more predisposed to this or that sin for if I'm to nurture them then surely in those areas I must concentrate my energies and my prayers but then fourthly they are creatures who come to us moldable and undeveloped they do not come to us with their lives fixed and hardened into patterns of thought and behavior

The Nature of Children: Moldable, Undeveloped, and Susceptible to Grace

67:53 their psyches and their minds and their souls are like their bones their bones come relatively flexible thank God that the head bones slide or they'd never get through the birth canal and as they grow older and the bones fix and become hardened that's the great truth of Proverbs 22 6 I do not know the proper translation of Proverbs 22 6 and I certainly don't know the proper meaning of the text but this much is clear train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it the contrast between the moldable child and the unmoldable adult is undebatable in the text that's clear train up a child and when he is old he will not depart the child flexible moldable the old man fixed the old woman fixed hardened petrified in his patterns and dear people we need to understand this it will never never never know how to know how to nurture our children and this is more beautifully displayed in the Lord Jesus than anywhere else you see it was not sinful for Jesus to be moldable and immature and pliable imagine the first time Mary entrusted him

69:23 if they used forks and spoons in Palestine of course as far as I know they didn't after our kind but let's contemporize the situation and she feels it's time to go putting the food into his mouth and let the Lord Jesus the baby the young child Jesus sitting in his high chair this is his coming out day when he's going to have his first bowl of spaghetti and he's going to try to get it in his mouth with his own fork do you think the Lord Jesus hit the target every time no I'm sure he had spaghetti from his ear to his navel yes because the scripture says and Jesus under the tutelage of Mary and Joseph was growing an imperfect verb he was growing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God in man and he did all the klutzy things a teenager does when he hasn't caught up with his appendages I imagine more than once he botched up a job in Joseph's carpenter shop not out of perversity but he was a klutzy teenager he said I never thought of that he said well the Bible says it he was growing in stature he passed through every single element of prenatal development I know of no

70:51 Christian parent here who would say that Jesus went from conception on Monday to nine months stage of gestation on Tuesday no it says that Mary became great with child and Joseph watched their tummies swell in the stretch marks etched across the flesh and the nine months were there she brought forth that babe with her groans and her cries and her moans and it came forth in the blood and the mucus with which every baby is born you see that's crass that's biblical and what was true of his prenatal development was true of his development as a little boy to coordinate his hands I imagine it was a beautiful exercise when he was learning his Aramaic alphabet maybe he had trouble with that Hebrew guttural the first time he tried to pronounce it and he couldn't say I hate maybe he had mummy help me I can't get it down here enough Jesus you must try this way he didn't get everything he wanted he was not normal growth in wisdom in stature he didn't have perfect manners at once

72:20 he grew in social graces he never did anything that was sinful but he did a thousand things that were natural in the maturation of ordinary humanity oh my dear parents nurture me Prosecutor лаг Store home the difference between the severe rebuke about the teenage son who deliberately and willfully and with the High Handed Rebellion breaks the curfew of eleven o'clock on Friday night in the absent mind the teenager who literally honestly forgot to bring his watch on their third game of hoops and the score was tied and everyone was tired and everyone was blocking everyone's shot and throwing up air balls and the game went on longer and by the time they were done one of them said, Hey, what time is it? It's quarter after eleven. Oh man, I'm in trouble. And the kid comes home and before he can even open the door the father has told him, You're doxed.

73:34 You're grounded. Blah, blah, blah. You're not nurturing them. Do you forget as an adult?

73:41 It's a standing joke with my wife and me now. We've got the lost glasses syndrome.

73:48 Just before I left I said, Honey, I've caught your disease. Where are my glasses? My ride to the airport is waiting. Can't find my glasses.

73:58 She said, Where have you been? I said, Oh, now I know. They're down in the cellar. When I went down to have a little exercise before I took my shower I took my glasses.

74:06 All the time. Now is that sinful? No. It's part of growing old.

74:13 And there are things that are part of just growing up that are not sinful. Oh, parents, learn the difference. Nurture them. What them is?

74:23 I'll tell you what them is. Them is creatures who come to us moldable and undeveloped. And we need to recognize it. And finally, they are creatures susceptible to the influences of common and special grace.

74:39 And I close on this note. They are creatures susceptible to the influences of common and special grace. What do I mean? Simply this.

74:49 It is part of God's glue to hold society together with a measure of something short of sanity and anarchy. If people know common decency. If they understand courtesy. The symbols of respect and honor between men and women and inferiors and superiors.

75:12 Industry and frugality and proper roles and modesty and a host of other things. We must recognize that our children come to us susceptible to the influences of common grace. And though we surround them with those influences and they are never converted, we may merely send them to hell respectable, upright, responsible, productive citizens. But that's far better than sending them to hell.

75:41 Dragging half the society with them.

75:44 But they are susceptible to special grace. And who knows but what every one of our children may be elect. I abominate the teaching that says there is in the Bible any warrant to presume or assume that the child of every believing couple is elect. There's no shred of evidence in the Bible.

76:05 But I tell you there's nothing in my Bible that says every one of my children may not be elect either. It's one thing to say they must be elect because they are my children. That's presumption. No foundation in Scripture.

76:22 It is going beyond Scripture to say oh well there's no way all of my kids could be elect. Who says? God is often called the great vast majority of His elect in whole families. And we need to nurture them realizing they are susceptible to the influences of special grace.

76:43 And God's greatest conduit to convey special grace to a child, a child born in a Christian home is the nurture administered by a godly father and a godly mother. Well, the positive directive, the objects, them, that's as far as we've gone. God willing, tomorrow night we'll look at the substance of the directive, nurture them, what does it mean, and then the means at our disposal in the chastening and in the admonition of the Lord. Let us pray.

Prayer for Grace to Nurture Biblically

77:16 Our Father, we're so thankful for Your Word, that Word which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway.

77:34 We thank You we're not at the mercy of the so-called experts who call light darkness and darkness light and good evil and evil good. We thank You that we know who we are because You've told us. We know what our children are because You've told us. Help us, help us, oh God our Father, that we shall by Your grace determine that we will not provoke our children to wrath or provoke them to lose heart, but that we will give ourselves to nurturing them, that we will do whatever we must do to nurture the totality of what they are, to become whole men and women in Christ, to face the whole of their biblical tasks when they come to adulthood. Oh God, help us. The task is beyond us. But Your grace is pledged to us and in that grace we rest.

78:33 Hear us and be with us in the remaining hours of this night. May we rest to the refreshment of body and mind and come to the new day full of expectancy and joy in the Holy Spirit. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.