In "Dealing with Our Awakened Children, Part 4," Pastor Albert N. Martin continues his series on counseling spiritually awakened children, emphasizing the need for parents to possess a Bible-based theology of their children's natural condition, God's sovereign grace, and the ordinary method of grace in Christian nurture. He warns against encouraging false hope or presumption, or driving children to despair, advocating for a 'dispositional or process mentality' rather than a 'decisional or crisis mentality' in assessing their spiritual state. Martin provides specific counsel, including sustaining a dominant emphasis on the objective realities of the gospel, the duty to believe, and the continuous nature of repentance and faith, while also addressing the dangers of 'Protestant priestcraft' and decisionism in child evangelism, particularly in older children. He underscores the importance of consistent, loving nurture, even when spiritual awakening wanes, and the necessity of biblical discipline to subdue the will and deliver the soul from hell.
Primary Texts
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Proverbs 23:13-14This passage is expounded to demonstrate the biblical basis for physical discipline and its connection to delivering a child's soul from hell, serving as a conduit of grace.
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Deuteronomy 31:9-13This passage is expounded to show that God commanded the law, including its threats and curses, to be read to all, including 'little ones,' to instill the fear of God, countering the idea that children should only be raised in faith, not fear.
Protecting Older Children from Decisionism and Peer Pressure16:47
Testimony of Persevering Faith and Parental Wisdom25:01
Discerning Childlike Faith and the Role of Discipline30:57
Inculcating the Fear of God and the Nature of Sin41:19
Assuring Children of God's Promises and the Relevance of God51:01
Key Quotes
“Our two greatest fears, when dealing... when dealing with our children, is that we should, on the one hand, encourage a false hope or the sin of presumption, or, on the other hand, that we should discourage them and drive them to despair.”
“If these things are understood, I said it will then create in us not a decisional or crisis mentality, but rather a dispositional or process mentality.”
“But the very duty of the gospel is to believe as and where you are, out of the context of your sin and failure and contempt, continue to believe that he justifies the ungodly.”
“Never let your child think that his full acceptance in your heart is conditioned on whether or not he is a Christian.”
“We can tell them, believing on the Lord Jesus, all sinners who believe are saved. If you are presently believing on the Lord Jesus, you are saved, but mommy and daddy do not know your heart. We cannot play God and tell you what is in your heart.”
“Thou shalt beat him with the rod and deliver his soul from what from hell in other words the conduit of saving grace in great measure is bound up in the proper use of the rod that's what my bible says.”
“I submit that we live in a climate and a society radically devoid of the fear of God by that I mean the recognition that God even existed as relevant to life and I think that question that he asked brings this whole issue up is it alright then just to assume that we're dealing with a wrong doing just say I'm sorry I'm not a horizontal to your brother to your sister and then we forget about it that's all there is it may bring problems if you say to the children you have to also get right with God because God exists and what you're doing also has to do with God what you're doing is you're inculcating the fear of God by that I mean the awareness that God exists and that God is relevant to what you do that's what we better inculcate that's what's desperately lacking and needed.”
Applications
All listeners
Have a Bible-based theology of the vital issues concerned with counseling children: their natural condition, sovereign provisions of grace, and ordinary method of grace.
Exercise sanctified restraint on your natural desire to know your children are safe from God's wrath, lest you encourage false hope.
Cultivate a dispositional or process mentality rather than a decisional or crisis mentality regarding your children's spiritual state.
Impress upon your children that faith, repentance, trust in Christ, love for Christ, and obedience to Christ are dispositions or processes, not token testimonies.
Sustain a dominant emphasis on the objective provisions and realities of the gospel, not subjective experiences.
Sustain a dominant emphasis on the duty to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as an immediate, present responsibility.
Sustain a dominant emphasis on the continuous present nature of true repentance and faith.
Sustain a loving, consistent, non-nagging pattern of nurture, even when a child's period of awakening wanes.
Never let your child think that his full acceptance in your heart is conditioned on whether or not he is a Christian.
Never tell a child he's too young to be saved.
Never play God intelligently by telling a child he is saved.
Don't expect a standard of grace beyond the Bible and your own experience.
Don't give the impression of indifference, even in apparent times of their spiritual indifference.
Don't draw back in the general expressions of your love and delight in your children, even if they manifest no spiritual awakening.
Remember God is sovereign in the salvation of our children, and the best of means are but means at best.
If you have told a child they are saved, lovingly explain that you had no right to play God and only God knows their heart.
Wisely undo past mistakes over the long haul within the context of continuous nurture, letting your enlarged understanding frame ongoing nurture.
Be very careful about the spiritual influences to which you subject your children, avoiding decisionistic environments.
If older children have been subjected to decisionism, sit down with them and intelligently explain your concern that they might place undue confidence in a past decision, redirecting their focus to Christ and the ongoing duties of Christian living.
Protect your children from decisionistic Christian conferences and camps that rely on peer pressure and emotional contagion.
Do not play God by pronouncing your children saved or lost; rather, let the Word of God pass judgment on their claims and encourage them in the way of faith.
Enforce the duties of the law and gospel upon children by means of nurture, including the rod, to subdue the will and impart wisdom.
Be not weary in well doing when consistently applying discipline, as character is formed by resolving 'little things' over time.
Avoid 'diversionary tactics' in discipline; confront and resolve challenges to the child's will and authority directly.
Get your philosophy, psychology, and theology of child training out of the Word of God, reflecting God's discipline in your own.
Sufficiently clarify that sin is ultimately against God, conditioning the conscience by the Word of God, even if not in every instance.
When disciplining, explain to the child that they have sinned against God, who commands obedience and provides for them, bringing to bear God's goodness and greatness.
Over the long haul, bring in the 'darker sides' of God's character, such as His judgment against sin, to impress upon children the terror of God as well as His goodness and grace.
Do not shy away from reading the law and its curses to children, as God commanded, to instill the fear of God and counter the idea that children should only be brought up in faith, not fear.
Be armed with the Word of God and basic theology to apply wisdom in each situation, knowing when to bring forth somber or brighter aspects of biblical instruction.
When children ask if God hears their prayer or if their sin is forgiven, assure them of what the Scripture says God promises, without making subjective judgments about their sincerity.
Inculcate the fear of God in children, meaning the awareness that God exists and is relevant to everything they do, even if it creates 'problems' of conscience.
A full transcript is available on the
tab. 60 paragraphs, roughly 59 minutes.
Machine transcription
Recap of Previous Lessons: Fears, Theology, and Mentality
This adult Sunday school class was held on March 8, 1987, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. For the past three Lord's Days in our adult class, we've been engaged in a study of the broad but intensely vital issue of counseling our spiritually awakened children. And what I will attempt to do, by sticking very closely to my notes, is, in eight to ten minutes, bring into focus the main points of the three previous classes, which represents approximately close to three hours of instruction and discussion. The first thing I attempted to do, by way of question and answers from you, was to establish that our two greatest fears, when dealing... when dealing with our children, is that we should, on the one hand, encourage a false hope or the sin of presumption, or, on the other hand, that we should discourage them and drive them to despair.
And having established that every sensitive Christian parent does indeed have those fears, I then raised the question, what are the things most important in the heart and mind, in the understanding, and judgment, and in the understanding of our children? And I said, well, first of all, that we should encourage a false hope, or the sin of presumption, or, on the other hand, that we should discourage them and drive them to despair. And I said, well, first of all, that we should encourage a false hope, or the sin of presumption, or, on the other hand, that we should disparage them and drive them to despair. And I said, well, first of all, that we should discourage a false hope, or the sin of presumption, or, on the other hand, that we should discourage them and drive them to despair.
And the answer was, first of all, that there must be in the mind and heart of the parent a Bible-based theology of the vital issues directly concerned with such counsel. And those issues, I suggested, fall into three categories. We must have an...
understanding of their natural condition, both spiritually and domestically. Secondly, the sovereign provisions of grace for them in the gospel and in the framework of Christian nurture. And then thirdly, we must have an understanding of the ordinary method of grace with children raised under Christian nurture. It will be a method, ordinarily, in which the nurture generally becomes the conduit of God's saving grace. Secondly, a method in which the precise time when nurture became implanted grace will probably be unknown to the children or to the parents. And then thirdly, it will be a method where the children which demands that we as parents cautiously and hopefully await the emergence of individual post-puberty Christian identity and patterns of thought and of life. So that's the first thing we as parents must have if we are to give proper counsel. A Bible-based theology of these vital issues. But then secondly, we must have a sanctified restraint,
on our natural desire to know that our children are safe from the wrath of God. It is natural that we should desire to know that our children are safe from the wrath of God. But that natural and legitimate desire must continually be under the discipline of a sanctified restraint, lest we find ourselves encouraging a false hope in our children, or a false sense of security in ourselves. Now, if these things are understood, I said it will then create in us not a decisional or crisis mentality, but rather a dispositional or process mentality. Rather than pressing upon our children to think of a specific time when they prayed a sincere prayer, we must have a sense of security in ourselves, and we must have a sense of security in ourselves. Blameful, insensitivity, the past, the present, the present, the present, the present. This is what God is telling us to do in our lives, in the present, and our lives. If we
are to be saved from these things, and pinning our hopes upon them, pinning our hope upon us, and pinning our hopes upon them, we will seek to impress upon them that faith and repentance, trust in Christ, and the subsequent love to Christ, and obedience to Christ will be dispositions or processes in them. We cannot set out a token testimony on our children. And so from God's perspective, we must think of different ways of living. We must not be suspicious of the situation within our claims, or the circumstances of their actions in our lives. We must have an when they pass from death unto life. We may never know, they may never know, at what point among the many periods of awakening when they made what appeared to be sincere and earnest cries to God, which of those was indeed the point of their passing from death unto life. Now having set forth those perspectives, we then last week descended to some specific councils and the specific councils I gave were these. Number one, sustain a dominant emphasis on the objective provisions and realities of the gospel.
Specific Counsel: Emphasizing Objective Gospel, Duty to Believe, and Continuous Repentance
We must not allow ourselves or our children to focus upon the subjective realities and provisions of the gospel, a new heart, loving Christ, the fruits of regeneration, but we must focus, focus upon the objective realities and provisions of the gospel. Secondly, we must sustain a dominant emphasis on the duty to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ is a duty. Immediate faith in Christ is a present responsibility.
Faith exercised in the context of the present condition of our children is their responsibility. And so we must sustain this dominant emphasis on the duty to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And in emphasizing that point, I did so in order to avoid on the one hand the pitfall of replacing the place of faith, the unique place of faith in Christ, with love for Christ or obedience to Christ. We must not make the gospel to our children, love the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.
The gospel to our children is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. And then I was seeking in giving that exhortation to avoid the pitfall of thinking they must cease to be sinners before they can believe on the Lord Jesus or have reason to believe their faith is genuine. We are sensitizing their consciences continually by, imposing the law of God upon them, and that we must do. And therefore, very subtly, they can begin to think that their performance with respect to the duties of the law must somehow reach a certain measure before they can comply with the duties of the gospel. But the very duty of the gospel is to believe as and where you are, out of the context of your sin and failure and contempt, continue to believe that he justifies the ungodly. And then my third counsel was that we sustain a dominant emphasis on the continuous present nature of true repentance and faith.
Sustaining Nurture and Avoiding Conditional Acceptance
You see, again, the decisional mentality has affected many of us more than we realize. And though there are a few places in the New Testament where conversion or saving grace are joined to tenses of the verb that point to, to their initiation or their once-for-all uniqueness on the threshold of passing from nature into grace, the dominant emphasis of the verbs in the New Testament with regard to faith indicates that faith must be perceived as a disposition of believing, a continual reposing of the soul upon Christ, and likewise with repentance, a continual turning from sin unto God through Christ. And then my fourth counsel was sustain a loving, consistent, non-nagging pattern of nurture even when the period of awakening wanes. Never let your child think that his full acceptance in your heart is conditioned on whether or not he is a Christian. And very interestingly, I had an evangelist call me from North Carolina this week broken to pieces.
And for 35, 45 minutes he spoke to me on the phone. He said, I've been wronged. He said, I see what I've done. My 15-year-old daughter who's shown all the marks up till now of responsiveness to spiritual things is beginning to manifest that there's no internal affinity.
She's not a rebel, but it's clear now she has no heart for God. And as I probed, it was evident that he had made it plain to that girl by his dealings, that her full acceptance in his heart and affection was conditioned upon her manifesting that she was a true Christian. And he wept on the phone and he said, I've been all wrong and this is what I've taught. What can I do?
Five Negatives in Counseling Children
I thought it was most appropriate that coming on the heels of our study there should be such a clear affirmation of that principle. And then in conclusion, I gave you these five negatives. Never tell a child he's too young to be saved. Never play God intelligently.
Never tell a child he is saved. Don't expect a standard of grace beyond the Bible and your own experience. Don't give the impression of indifference, even in apparent times, of their spiritual indifference. And then growing out of that fourth counsel, don't draw back in the general expressions of your love and delight in your children, even if they manifest no spiritual awakening.
And finally, remember, God is sovereign. In the salvation of our children. And the best of means are but means at best. And children coming out of the womb of the most careful, prayerful, balanced Christian nurture have ended up lost and damned.
Whereas other children coming out of the context of no Christian nurture or the poorest of nurture have manifested themselves to be the children of God and risen to the place of being pillars in the house of God. And God delights to make it known that salvation is of the Lord. Well, that's a summary of what we covered in the three lessons. Now then, we said on Wednesday that you would be given opportunity for questions growing out of this, not oracles on all cases, but hopefully an opportunity to bring the word of God to bear upon some specific concerns.
And one question has been handed to me. A second was, I believe, sent to me in the mail. And it will take another whole probably class down the line. It deals with a whole matter of family devotions, which I don't think it would be appropriate to take up here.
But this is a very vital question and one that may be of concern to more than one of you. What should a parent do if he has already already, led a child to a decision or told a child that he or she is saved and now sees his mistake? Now, if I understand the question rightly, the person who raises the question is not asking what should a parent do who has encouraged a child to call upon God for mercy, who has set before the child the promises of God's mercy. If that's leading a child to a decision, then hopefully, all parents will be doing that many times in the course of their parental influence.
In every period of awakening, and the child is disturbed and says, what must I do? We have one message. Believe on the Lord Jesus. When?
Here and now. And how does faith express itself? In calling upon the Lord. We encourage them to call upon Him.
In that sense, that is a decision.
But now I believe what the question implies, at least, is this, that in leading the child to that decision, there was some form of what I call Protestant priestcraft, or Protestant absolution, in which the parent then said, now dear, have you called on the Lord? Yes. Well, if you've called upon Him, then God says, you are saved, you are saved, you must not doubt it now, you must not trust your feelings. In other words, that parent had the decisional mentality which focused the whole issue upon one specific Christ, the basis of calling upon God.
Now, if a parent has done that and has told the child that he or she is saved, not told them they will be saved if they trust in the Lord Jesus, that if they are trusting in the Lord Jesus, they are saved, but the parent has gone a step further and has assumed his ability to read the heart of the child and said, true saving faith exists in you, I, your mommy, I, your daddy, I, your daddy, I, your daddy tell you you are a Christian. Now, that's the point, you see, where we cannot go. We can tell them, believing on the Lord Jesus, all sinners who believe are saved. If you are presently believing on the Lord Jesus, you are saved, but mommy and daddy do not know your heart. We cannot play God and tell you what is in your heart. Now, you've seen your mistake, what do you do? Well, it all depends on you.
It all depends how old the child is. I think that's my first response. It all depends how old the child is. If you did this and your child is four, five, six, or seven, then just by a changing of your patterns, you will probably undo it very quickly.
If the child shows that he is beginning to grasp upon that and say, well, mommy, I must be saved because you remember last year in the spring, I asked the Lord to come into my heart and you told me if I was sincere, he did. Therefore, I must be saved. You just lovingly then say, well, honey, daddy, mommy really had no right to play God. Only God knows your heart and mommy or daddy was so anxious to know that you belong to the Lord that mommy or daddy went beyond what mommy or daddy really should have done.
So you must not trust in the fact that mommy or daddy told you you were saved. If you are truly believing on the Lord Jesus, it will be shown in your heart in your life. The Holy Spirit will witness with your spirit that you are a child of God. The patterns of your life will show it and just be open and let your child know that you now understand the way of God more fully and appropriate to the child's age and circumstances.
Wisely undo it over the long haul. Remember, you have them in the context of continuous nurture. It's not like a relative you see once a year at Thanksgiving and you decision them three years ago and you see your error and you've got to just put the whole nine yards on them all at once and say, forgive me, I butchered your soul and lay it all out. But you have them in the context of nurture and let your enlarged and more accurate understanding frame that ongoing nurture and in most cases the thing will take care of itself.
That would be my response to the question.
Protecting Older Children from Decisionism and Peer Pressure
Someone else want to pick up from there? And press that a bit further if the questioner himself is not satisfied maybe he or she would like to declare himself. Yes, George?
Yes. All right. I would say that if that had been done in the question is I have to remember this for the tape. The question is what should we do in the case of an older child?
Suppose that somewhere in pre-teens or early teens we decisioned one of our own children or one of our own children was decisioned elsewhere. He says, where we must be very careful to the spiritual influences to which we subject our children. Because remember their hearts are natively antinomian hearts. Hearts that will turn the grace of God into lasciviousness.
Deceitful hearts that will take up with a false hope quicker than a rabbit takes up with carrots. Now knowing that we do not want to put our children under spiritual influences that will undo in a decision framework all that we have been seeking to build through years of godly nurture. So you beware of sending your kids off to Christian camps to youth conferences and other things where decisionism is the order of the day. Because if you read the reports of Christian camps as I do at least one two I can think of two or three that I'm on their mailing list and I get them regularly and of youth ministries in the United States. In particular for the most part the way they keep themselves in business is by proving to the Christian public that they are a marvelous womb of bringing children to spiritual birth. And they quote their statistics we had 157 kids brought to Christ in one week last summer in this big weekend bash we had so many brought to Christ and all of the rest. For example in Eternity Magazine in one of the insert articles is by a pop rock quote Christian rock star who's engaged in rock evangelism and right in there she mentions
the tremendous blessing at a certain well known rock Christian rock convention held in England and it names right to the number 767 decisions for Christ or whatever the number was. So I'm not just spouting this off the top of my head alright as parents then we must be careful that we do not subject them to influences that would undo what we are establishing. Now if we have or if we have done that and they are older then I think we need to sit down and intelligently commensurate with their age level just tell them look this is our concern we thought we were doing what was in your best interest here is our concern we feel dear dear son daughter that you will place undue confidence in that decision you made a week two weeks two years ago in that situation the word of God is clear that if that decision was an expression of God's work in you and you are truly believing on Christ truly repenting of sin these will be the patterns now if you see the patterns then encourage them not to focus their attention upon that decision but upon the Christ who from that point on has been the object of their trust
and upon the duties and privileges of living as a Christian and just open that up to them and say mummy and daddy see that perhaps we have been off center in this matter or we have been and we ask you to forgive us we were well intentioned we meant well but we would fear let us your soul should be in jeopardy by allowing yourself to put too much stock in the fact that you had wonderful feelings or this great upheaval because we know from the scriptures that even in mature adults men can taste the word of God and the powers of the world to come they can receive the word with joy and yet the scripture says all of that notwithstanding prove to be something less than true Christians now that's that's what that's true of mature adults how much more of volatile teenagers with all of these tumultuous emotions hooked into all of the body chemistry changes and the psyche emerging out of of infancy into adulthood and all of that all the more reason plus the fact the tremendous peer pressure and this to me is one of the most cruel things about these Christian conferences and camps in their decision decision making mills because the peer pressure is such that once one of the leaders of the gang throws his stick on the fire to give himself to Christ then it becomes a mass movement and you don't want
to be left out standing there in the cold without throwing somebody said what are you talking about well I got to remember so many of you come out of backgrounds where this stuff would sound weird but one of the common practices in Christian camps the last night is to have dedication services and everyone stands with a stick and then a challenge is given to dedicate yourself to Christ and if you are the stick represents giving yourself to him and so someone comes forward who will be first to dedicate himself to Christ and the stick is thrown on the fire and before long in most of those situations that I've witnessed the peer pressure is such that the vast majority do that you don't want to be on the outside if the in thing is saying you're dedicated to Christ and there may be tremendous emotional contagion we must not underestimate emotional contagion and peer pressure for example those of you who are Met fans if you were ever at Shea Stadium with 40,000 people and everyone's saying in unison let's go Mets the air becomes electric with it and you're caught up well that's a psychological not necessarily a supernatural spiritual manifestation and so because all of those factors are present we must be very very careful not only to try to neutralize that influence if our children have been subjected to it but dear people protect your children from it protect them from it some of us have known what it is
to have to try to undo in our children the decisionistic framework of the Christian schools they attended because that's the only time that we're available to us and to undo it without creating a hypercritical attitude in them to their peers and to their teachers you talk about walking a tightrope and some of us walked that tightrope for years and that's why we bless God that there's a Christian school now where there is a genuine concern for their souls and where the duties of the law and the gospel are pressed but where decisionism is not a part of the fabric of that instruction and how thankful to God we should be because the other option as opposed to the decision mill Christian school are the presumption mill Christian schools where all the little children in Christian nurture are called covenant children and assume that they're little Christians and that they're being raised as Christians and they're never challenged with the duties of the gospel they're not told the threats of the law they are brought up in the assumption that the seeds of faith and actually in some cases regeneration is there and all it needs is the nurture of the home and the school and the church to bring it into full blossom so you see we want to steer between the rocks and the shoals on the one hand of decisionism and on the other hand of a presumption
Testimony of Persevering Faith and Parental Wisdom
and have a true urgency without decisionism as the framework in which our children are nurtured in the church in the home and in the school now that's a rather likely answer to your question but I hope at least amidst all of that there's been some stuff that will be substantial alright yes Mr. Bishop yes excuse me for those of you visiting with us Mr. Bishop's word carries weight with many of us because he's been with us well for 24 years I think right Mr. Bishop 23 years he's been a deacon for many years and is our minister of visitation and has gone through some deep struggles with the pilgrimage of his own children and it's out of that context that he speaks to us and you who are visiting among us or new among us ought to be aware that his words come in that context to us so we welcome them Mr. Bishop your souls came that day when I spoke very sincerely very warmly to my son about his need of Christ very sincere like I'm sure all people are concerning their children and I received him and my son read the word he prayed he seemed to
have a changed life and this caused me great delight and joy and this went on for many months and I became a man and I began to see that there wasn't reading the word there wasn't praying his attitudes were wrong the things he said the things he did weren't consistent with the Christian life and I knew I had to deal with that but frankly I was afraid because I wanted to believe that my son really belonged to the Lord but I had to deal with it and I prayed for months and finally I sat my son down and said you gave evidence one time that you knew the Lord you read the word you prayed your attitudes were good you were a good man and the whole life was changed because you see now you're not reading the word you're not praying you're not living the Christian life and I've come to the conclusion because of this because of the fruits that you're not a Christian well he was shocked he was hurt he was wounded but 13 years after that through the influence of one of the members of this church Paul came to saving faith in Christ and his whole life was radically transformed and he looked back to those days and he said no I wasn't a Christian and he related to me some of the things that he did that he was shameful of and then I told him just recently I said my son as much of sincerity I have for you and concern for you before you were saved and come to know the Lord I now have that same concern that you will continue on the ways of the Lord because the hardest deceitful of all things are desperately wicked
and the only way that you know that you're in the way is to follow Jesus Christ with all your heart and all your soul and you'll be and so I for this day I say that my son is in the Lord Amen Amen Well thank you for sharing that Paul coming out of the matrix of a relatively young congregation with few older men among us it's good to have that testimony validated and in a very real sense you see what we're telling our children is what we tell one another we may say as Paul did of Timothy he says the unfeigned faith which dwells in your grandmother Lois your mother Eunice or Eunice and I am persuaded dwells in you also but suppose Timothy had turned away from Christ and from the way of holiness and from the gospel Paul's persuasion that unfeigned faith dwelt in him would have been altered and he would have had to say as he did of Demas at one time he said my fellow worker Demas then he had to say he has forsaken us having lost love this present age you see one of the essential qualities of true saving faith is and if we don't know this after our studies in Hebrews I don't know where we've been is that it is persevering faith and its genuineness is seen not only in the ability to articulate
its proper object namely Christ but to manifest its continuous voice vital dynamism we continue by faith in attachment to Christ the fruit of which is a life of obedience communion with Christ desire for his people his word his ways etc. and this is the point that Mr. Bischoff was making in his exhortations to his son even now that though there are much more solid grounds to believe now that unfeigned faith dwells in his son it's not a faith that he's going to have he can declare automatically is saving faith unless it proves itself to be persevering faith and that's the whole teaching of the word of God and it's that aspect that we need by God's grace to set before our children we don't use the big theological terms but appropriate to their age and circumstances we seek to impress that biblical truth upon them alright other questions arising from the materials we've covered out of your own struggles with these things well the question is if we've pressed upon our children the necessity of confessing their sins and calling upon the Lord for forgiveness and giving them the promise that God says those that repent and believe on the Lord Jesus are saved
Discerning Childlike Faith and the Role of Discipline
if they've gone the next step and said well therefore I am saved and have it were pronounced themselves saved we may then have to give that emphasis well whichever daughter it is and we could say one of the three names of our brother Jeff that if you had truly believed on the Lord Jesus you will be believing on him right now do you believe right now that you deserve God's punishment for your sins do you believe Christ took the punishment for sin upon the cross are you trusting only in what Jesus did for sinners and if the outward life is such that there are no glaring contradictions of what faith and repentance would produce in a child now remember that in a child we're looking for childlike fruits of faith and repentance then we can hopefully have some encouragement that perhaps God has implanted life in them but encourage them on in the way if there are glaring contradictions it may be the contradictions of indwelling sin don't assume because there are two or three weeks of a pattern of contradictions to repentance and faith automatically if they've shown a pattern for a year or so that they must be just stony ground here as in not saved because what about you and what about me have we gone through periods
when through the power of remaining sin the evidences of grace have well nigh been submerged well isn't that possible with a child then so we must be very careful about either pronouncing them saved or lost you see and there's the wisdom in what Mr. Bischoff has said he saw a pattern over a lengthy period of time particularly as that son began to emerge into his post-puberty independent identity wasn't that the crucial issue Mr. Bischoff and said now son that decision that produced these things for a while now that you have come to the place where you're making choices on your own with the maturity of mind and judgment of a young man in the light of the word of God you have no biblical grounds to claim you are a Christian and here is why he wasn't playing God and saying you are not saved but you have no biblical grounds to claim that you are saved and you let the word of God pass judgment upon that child on the other hand you can say to the child you say that you trust in the Lord Jesus and that you love the Lord Jesus and mommy and daddy see some things to encourage us that you may well be trusting in the Lord Jesus and if so then if you are trusting him and trusting him if you love him
then these are the things you will desire to do these are the things God expects of you and the whole question of are they are they not saved that they want to have resolved immediately and we'd love to have resolved immediately may simply not be brought to resolution because of the very nature of Christian nurture and that's what's difficult because that's why I said we've got to have that sanctified restraint upon our own natural desire to know that they are safe and it takes grace to keep restraint upon that desire while having an open funnel of the proper expression of that desire in nurturing them by the duties of the law and by the and the duties of the gospel laid upon their consciences and even where possible enforced in their attitudes and actions for example some of you have heard me say I can remember my mother saying to my father give him some more dad he's not sweet yet I was never spanked enough just to go with a set jaw and do my duty I was spanked until my will was submissive and I did my duty cheerfully and if it wasn't cheerful in the depths of my heart I had to be a pretty good actor and at least make it appear on my face and in the speed with which I did it that's the truth and I thank God for that you see that
was enforcing the duties of the law and of the gospel upon me by means of nurture the rod and reproof impart wisdom in fact I've come to appreciate this text in a new way thou shalt beat him with the rod and deliver his soul from what from hell in other words the conduit of saving grace in great measure is bound up in the proper use of the rod that's what my bible says doesn't say thou shalt beat him with the rod and deliver his soul from the torture of being unable to function as a self-centered willful person in a world where that's impossible it says thou shalt deliver his soul from hell and that text was one of the ones that we often pleaded before God when we would prayerfully implement biblical discipline we've said Lord give us grace to be faithful and I say though I'm going now into an aspect of nurture I feel it's necessary to underscore in that early period of the formation of the will of the child and the categories of authority there may be times if you have a particularly willful child or if you have several children then it seems that all you've done is spank bottoms from morning till night and you say Lord am I doing something wrong and you go back over with your wife and review the issues
where there was a confrontation of wills and you say are we expecting too much and you evaluate and you pray and you ask God for wisdom but the amazing thing is if the issue was settled most frequently now it's not an absolute rule most frequently by the way the time they're five or six years old you then begin to say am I getting soft because weeks may pass in which you haven't had to apply the rod of correction because the will has been thoroughly subdued to the constituted authority structure of the home now you see by so doing that God is using that conduit of the nurture of the rod and correction or using that to be the very conduit of his grace in which he is subduing the soul to himself and to his government and to the government of his son thou shalt beat him with the rod and deliver his soul from hell so as inconvenient as it is mothers and fathers and you seem to have to be dropping this and dropping that to track down this issue and bring it to a resolution be not weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap if we fall faint not and you get weary with it you get weary with it yeah I'll let that little thing go but you see
characters made up of the accumulation of the little things characters not formed by big heroic deeds and tests the big tests simply reveal the character that's been formed by what I call the stalactite stalagmite process if you go into some of these caves and caverns and you see these huge stalactites and stalagmites you say how'd they get there a drop of water with a lot of limestone in it over many dozens sometimes hundreds of years a drop at a time until these huge stalactites and stalagmites are formed well that's the way characters formed it's the drop drop drop of the little areas where they challenge your will challenge your authority and you must bring that to resolution and I urge you dear parents avoid what I think is one of the biggest curses that has invaded the Christian world what I call the diversionary tactic that when there's a confrontation of wills you run away from the battlefield and subscribe over here but that issue of confrontation and challenge was not brought to resolution what do I mean by that simply this there's a three year old toddler running around the living room as you go to visit someone's home and he goes over to take a very expensive vase that's sitting
on a side table and you say to that child now you must not touch that vase now you may question the wisdom of the person leaving it there but for the sake of discussion you must not touch do you understand daddy you're not going to touch if you touch it daddy will spank and lo and behold you come in the room three minutes later and you see him walking right over to lay his hands upon that vase the temptation will be diversionary tactic take the vase away that's what I'm talking about diversionary you stand there and watch and the minute his hand touches it before he can destroy it what did daddy say you take that child aside and give him appropriate discipline not diversionary tactics dear people you leave the will unchallenged and unconquered and it's one of the curses of modern secular psychology and it's one of the curses of modern secular psychology and it's one of the framing and shaping a lot of the garbage that's going out in Christian books on child training get your philosophy and psychology and theology of child training out of the word of God now there is a form of discipline of withdrawal of privileges God does that with his children he says he hides his face that's one of the forms of his discipline
Inculcating the Fear of God and the Nature of Sin
the withdrawal of privileges he says you don't do my will I'll shut up the heavens and I won't give you rain he takes away privileges and bless you so there is a doctrine of the withdrawal of privileges the only way to discipline is not the rod there is there are other strands of discipline in which our discipline is reflective of our heavenly father but I don't see in my bible a doctrine of diversionary tactics you pitch your will against the will of the almighty and he doesn't accommodate himself into a diversionary act well then you be like God in your discipline of your children or you're going to send out false signals to your kids about God his law and his gospel and the results in many cases will be tragic well that was a digression but it kind of grew naturally out of some of the things that were raised alright yes alright that's a good question for the sake of the tape I'll repeat it since all sin is ultimately against God how much should we explicitly press that issue when dealing with our children when they sin against mommy and daddy sin against one another well again my answer would be Jonathan that under a framework of nurture we need not in every single instance make that explicit and patent verbally to our children in other words if every time one child shows selfishness or cruelty or insensitivity
to another we've got to stop and give a theological lecture on the nature of sin being against God ultimately and his law and all of that wouldn't get much done during the day but along the way there must be sufficient clarification of that issue so that we are properly conditioning the conscience by the word of God so that when they confess their sin they can confess it in the spirit of Psalm 51 against you oh God and you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight that if God makes them returning prodigals they'll say with the prodigal I have sinned against heaven and in your sight and then no more worthy to be called your son and so from time to time we may have to give a more extensive impression of that in our family devotions there will be opportunities to enforce that in a non confrontational setting when it comes up naturally in the Bible story we're reading or in the portion of the word of God and certainly from time to time even as with our discipline for example one of the things that we did periodically if it wasn't just what I would call a band-aid type disciplinary action that could be dealt with quickly and passed over but of a more serious nature take the child aside sit him down and say now look
did you know that you were not supposed to touch that vase when you did that did you know you were disobeying daddy and mommy well what does God say mommy or daddy must do to you mommy daddy must spank why must they spank because God says so so in taking that vase touching that vase you sinned against who against God and mommy and daddy love God and want to serve God so what must we do you must spank me you mean God says we must spank you and you're honing the conscience and the perspective of that child to know you're not spanking them because you're bigger and because you've been irked and peeved but you are administering the rule of God in your home and that that child then must be brought to see you have not just disobeyed mommy and daddy but mommy and daddy is God God says you must obey mommy and daddy when you disobey mommy and daddy you disobey God you have sinned against God the God who gives you your food the God who gives you this nice warm bed who gives you your clothes and eyes to see and you bring to bear the goodness and the greatness and the graciousness of the God against whom they've sinned other times over the long haul in your nurture you will bring in what I would call the darker
sides of God's character you'll say you've sinned against the God who took angels and they sinned just once and you know what God did to them he sent them down to hell with no chance ever to be saved that's the God against whom you've sinned and you will bring upon the child's consciences the terror of God as well as the goodness and grace of God and along that line I was meditating this week on this statement that I said had an element of truth but has a terrible seed of heresy bring your children up in faith not in fear and I was going back over the old covenant where a child just by virtue of being born in the right place of the right bloodline was part of the covenant community and yet God said that every seven years the book of the law concluding with the pronouncements of cursing and blessing was to be read to the entire community of God's people Deuteronomy 31 verse 9 Moses wrote this law delivered it to the priest the sons of Levi and Moses commanded them saying at the end of every seven years at the set time of the year of release in the feast of tabernacles when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing
assemble the people the men the women and the little ones and the sojourner that is within your gates that they may hear that they may learn and fear the Lord your God and observe to all the words of this law that their children who have not known may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land whether you go over the Jordan to possess it and in that book of the law were the pronouncements of blessing and of cursing and this idea that we simply bring up our children under the blessing of the promises of the gospel without the threats even of the gospel the gospel has threats as well as promises if any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ let him be accursed he that believeth not shall be damned he that believeth not the wrath of God abides upon him so even in the new covenant there are curses as well as blessings and this idea that we'll somehow bruise the tender little psyche of a child God was not so fastidious he said gather even the little ones and read this book of the law which culminates in its blessings and in its cursings but again it's the necessity of being balanced over the long haul and in terms of each situation we need wisdom from God to know whether
this is a time to bring forth the more somber aspects or the brighter aspects of biblical instruction and motivation for example I can remember a situation with one of our children when the first time I became aware that a lie had been told a real serious blatant calculated lie well not only was there discipline for the lie but at that point there was thorough instruction as to what lying would do to all meaningful communication between a father and his son or daughter and the result was that for several days that child went around under a tremendous cloud daddy has said that if I lie all communication will be broken we won't be able to talk and have our talk mean anything and the impression was made that truth is at the foundation of all meaningful communication between human beings well that's the time you press it you see and there again there's no little manual that you can thumb up what to do the first time we need to be armed with the word of God and with this basic theology that I outlined in the first and second lesson so that God in each situation as we lift up our hearts for wisdom will help us and then you see it takes the pressure off us of feeling well if I didn't do this one exactly right and that one exactly right no you can throw out the
highs and the lows but if the overall nurture is constantly under the scrutiny of the word of God God is not going to hold you accountable by letting your kids become misfits in society and spiritual shipwrecks because you didn't discipline perfectly you didn't instruct perfectly if
Assuring Children of God's Promises and the Relevance of God
Lord it out ahead of time and all the categories fixed no such person exists except in his own mind and the Bible has a word for that kind of person alright we got time for one more quick question yes alright the child has prayed asked God to forgive him and then looks up at daddy all of us want a priest don't we daddy does God hear my prayer is my sin forgiven well we can answer and say what the scripture says God , God promises that if we confess our sins and trust only in Jesus to forgive us he does forgive us and we read the word of God we tell them what God says does God hear our prayer yes the Bible says ask and it shall be given you call upon me and I will answer you seek ye the Lord call upon him God delights to hear our cry yes God does hear our prayers and we can assure them of what the word of God says and if we can get that firmly fixed in our minds we can pronounce what God declares without having to go the next step and make a subjective judgment well this is really sincere heart prayer born of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit it may or may not be and we would have to be God to sort that out but we're never wrong assuring them of what the word of God says
yes Pastor Nichols well just with reference to this whole question it seems to me that there's another whole perspective or slant or issue here and it is that and I think I'm saying this because of what I believe is one of the special and peculiar difficulties of this generation of which I am a part which it concerns me greatly lest it be passed on to the next generation which we are parenting and it is this we have a tendency to live our lives as though God does not exist and as though God is not relevant at all to anything whatsoever that we do including wrong doing so that therefore if we do wrong if I do something wrong to my brother here as long as I say I'm sorry Jim the whole thing is over and done with reality has no more dimension to it than that the horizontal the realm of the human the the realm of this world and space and time because that is all there is I submit that we live in a climate and a society radically devoid of the fear of God by that I mean the recognition that God even existed as relevant to life and I think that question that he asked brings this whole issue up is it alright
then just to assume that we're dealing with a wrong doing just say I'm sorry I'm not a horizontal to your brother to your sister and then we forget about it that's all there is it may bring problems if you say to the children you have to also get right with God because God exists and what you're doing also has to do with God what you're doing is you're inculcating the fear of God by that I mean the awareness that God exists and that God is relevant to what you do that's what we better inculcate that's what's desperately lacking and needed yes and it may produce problems they may say am I forgiven does God hear my prayer I'd rather have those problems than the problem of a society where there's no conscious and awareness that God even exists amen amen well some of us who had our consciences nurtured the other way can say amen to that because I could never though I was not converted till I was almost 18 years of age I could never sin with abandonment and without going to bed every night for fear I'd drop into hell that's the truth and I knew wherever I was God's eye was upon me and it haunted me and I used to remember being angry why can't I be like other kids who can sin with abandonment and either they're good fakers or it really doesn't bother them
but it bothered me because I was brought up in that climate that wherever I was God saw me God took account of every thought every word every deed and a day of judgment was coming when I'd stand before him and if I wasn't right with him I'd go to hell forever now it wasn't pleasant for me for years to lie in bed and many a night go off to sleep with the concept of eternity haunting me and I would think of a thousand ten thousand a million a billion I'd say no somewhere somewhere somewhere God would let me out of hell and the words of scripture would come back forever and ever forever and ever forever and ever and you say that could have driven me mad well it could have but thank God what it did is it drove me away from a lot of sins that could have snared me kept me in a disposition in which the gospel came as very relevant when the truth that someone took the wrath of God for me was offered to me that was good news and so I would simply baptize that so that we we create problems when we condition a sensitive conscience yes that's right we do God says you may create problems with your kids when you read this book of the law and the little ones hear I mean they'd hear some pretty R rated stuff in that book of the law you read what's in that book of the law that the little ones were to hear forbidding certain sins
and the curses of God and God threatening to take them into a foreign land and God using strong language about tearing them like a lion little kids were to hear that that they might fear and they might come to recognize the claims of Jehovah their God so may God help us to think biblically in these matters and not be influenced by the mindset of this age or by a diluted form of evangelicalism that has too much of the world's perspectives and not enough of the word of God in this whole area of dealing with children well let's let's do it let's do it let's pray our time has gone from us our father we do thank you for this time we've been privileged to spend together thank you for your children whose hearts desire is to be faithful to the stewardship of parenthood and yet Lord as we've wrestled with these things we have been brought again to feel our ignorance our weakness our own native tendency to extremes and we must cry out with the the apostle Paul who is sufficient for these things oh Lord by your spirit make us sufficient that we may properly
nurture our children in the chastening and admonition that is of yourself bless them these meditations the discussions of the past weeks and help us to be wise and gracious and above all do for our children the good what we cannot do for them give them hearts of flesh and hearts that truly repent and believe in the Lord Jesus and walk in his way
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Passages Expounded
Proverbs 23:13-14
This passage is expounded to demonstrate the biblical basis for physical discipline and its connection to delivering a child's soul from hell, serving as a conduit of grace.
Deuteronomy 31:9-13
This passage is expounded to show that God commanded the law, including its threats and curses, to be read to all, including 'little ones,' to instill the fear of God, countering the idea that children should only be raised in faith, not fear.