Introduction: The Danger of Child Abuse

Opening Remarks and Prayer

0:02 not to foul up the training of your children. This is cassette number one in a series given by Pastor Albert N. Martin in the adult Sunday school class of the Trinity Baptist Church on January 7, 1991.

0:16 I believe a number were perhaps somewhat slowed down by the fog. It was much more intense in certain parts, and we'll just wait a few moments while people are seated, and others who I saw coming into the parking lot shed their coats and get to us. And while they're doing that, let me express for myself and for my wife, at the personal level, our thanks to many of you who remembered us in special ways at this holiday season with cards and notes. While we've not been able to respond to all of those personally, we want you to know that those expressions of love and affection and love and affection and affection and affection and affection and appreciation are deeply appreciated, and others expressing it in tangible ways. Some of the things, we've had to accept the gift as an expression of love, while the present relationship between us and the scales would not permit indulgence in the lovely things that were given. That's a tongue-in-cheek way of saying, those who gave us goodies loaded with calories, we find our joy in sharing them. Sharing it with others who don't have to be fighting a constant battle with the bulge.

1:34 But we do sincerely thank you. Now, I do believe that everyone is seated. Let us ask God's help and blessing upon our time together.

1:49 Our Father, we do thank you that you have brought us safely to this place this morning. We thank you for your mercy in preserving us, as we have already prayed, surely, the lines have fallen unto us in pleasant places. And as we have our Bibles in our hands, and will soon open them and wrestle with practical concerns, and believing that in your word there is a sufficient revelation to guide us, we give you thanks for all of the mercies that come into sharp focus in such seasons as these. We thank you for having the Bible in our own tongue.

2:30 We thank you. We thank you for being reared in a country where learning to read was forced upon us, when many of us in our folly would not have chosen to learn that discipline. We thank you for our liberties that allow us to come unmolested and unimpeded to this place. We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit, who has been given to give us both understanding of your word and ability to obey it, albeit imperfectly and yet truly.

3:01 For all of these mercies, we thank you and pray that your blessing would rest upon our time together today. We plead in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, I'm sure every believer in this place would agree with me when I say that sin has introduced into the world a whole universe of things that are ugly, deformed, vile, and even loathsome.

The Reality of Child Molestation and the Broader Issue of Child Abuse

3:34 And among such things, few are more vile and more loathsome than the sexual molestation of children. And while it was an unpleasant thing to consider this issue as we were led in the study of it some weeks ago from this pulpit, it is the burden of your elders' hearts that to be forewarned is to be forearmed. And lest any of you think that perhaps our thinking was a bit distorted, and out of touch with reality in addressing a subject publicly in a church context, I hold in my hands the magazine called Ministry, International Journal for Clergy. And while it is printed by the Seventh-day Adventist, it goes out to probably, I don't know what the circulation is, but I'm safe to say, probably, hundreds of thousands of people. And one of the articles in the Ministry magazine for January 1991 is Sexual Molestation of Children by Church Workers. And the article is not written by a kook who happens to be riding a hobby horse, but it is the reprint of an article by Richard R. Hammer,

5:00 who is an attorney and a CPA specializing in legal and tax issues, affecting clergy and churches. He is editor of the magazine Church Law and Tax Report. This article is reprinted with permission from the Church Law and Tax Report of July-August 1989. And there follows an article that I've not yet fully read.

5:26 All of those pages, two, four, six pages, in which case histories that have made their way through various courts, have been summarized and in which forms are suggested in the hiring of church personnel. So brethren, if any of you think that it was a distorted perspective that led us to commit ourselves to addressing this issue, may I say it lovingly, you are out of touch with reality. I say it lovingly, but I say it nonetheless. However, this morning I wish to discuss with you a broader concern with respect to the treatment of our children, namely, what I am calling general child abuse.

Undergirding Presuppositions for Discussion

6:10 What was addressed from the pulpit the other night is more technically called child molestation. But I want us to consider together, and several of you have even spoken to us about this matter, on the more broad subject of general child abuse. And I want to introduce the subject for discussion by establishing two things. Number one, I want to clearly state the undergirding presuppositions of our discussion.

6:41 And secondly, I want to set forth a working definition of what would constitute child abuse among a congregation of God's true people. So we are not concerned with child abuse as it would be manifested among the ungodly, but as it would be manifested given the reality of remaining sin in God's people, and as it would be manifested in the lives of those who have sinned against God. And I want to give a working definition of what would constitute child abuse among the people of God. And having done those two things, then I want to open it up for discussion, and have you, the Lord's people, help us in seeking to pinpoint the most likely ways in terms of the definition given, and in the light of the fundamental principle, and in the light of the fundamental presuppositions, we could be guilty of the sin of child abuse. I am not referring to sexual molestation, but child abuse in its broader term. First of all, the undergirding presuppositions for our discussion, and those presuppositions are basically two. The first is that the fundamental duty of Christian parents is outlined and summarized in Colossians 3.21 and in Ephesians 6.4.

8:10 The fundamental presupposition or the undergirding presupposition for our discussion is that our fundamental duty as Christian parents is outlined, not exhaustively filled in, but outlined in its essential elements in Colossians 3.21 and Ephesians 6.4. Let's take them in that order.

8:34 And I have a purpose for today. We're doing that. Colossians 3.21, it's primarily a negative directive.

8:44 Fathers, obviously in conjunction with the input of a wife, who in submission to this husband, joins with him in the enterprise of the training of the children. Fathers, provoke not your children that they be not discouraged. We could perhaps paraphrase this and express more fully the sense of the Greek words, if we were to render it this way. Fathers, do not irritate or embitter your children, so that they become disheartened or dispirited. This is the exhortation laid before fathers and, by implication, parents, with respect to their children. Do not provoke them. That is, do not irritate or embitter them to the breaking of their spirits, to the making of them dispirited, disheartened children.

9:54 And then in Ephesians 6, we have a minor negative, and then we have a fuller positive statement of our duty in outlined form. Ephesians 6 and verse 4. Again, addressed to fathers as the administrative heads of the household, and therefore of the training of the children in that household. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.

10:26 Different Greek word, and this is a good rendering. Do not provoke or incite your children to wrath. But! In contrast to a framework and a combination of influence and activities that would be provoking our children to expressions of wrath and to a wrathful, angry, bitter spirit.

10:53 Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord. And the only other place this is, this word nurture is found in the New Testament, is just up a few verses in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 29. No man ever hated his own flesh, but, here's our word, nurtures and cherishes it, even as Christ also the church. And here you have words that are not exact synonyms, but they put us in the same ballpark of connotation.

11:35 To nourish and to, cherish, and the other usage of the word cherish, is found in 1 Thessalonians 2, even as a nurse cherishes her own children. So you get the connotation of these two words found in close proximity. A man nourishes, he tenderly cares for and provides for the building up and protection and well-being of his own flesh. Now we are told fathers nurture, nurture your children.

12:08 Be solicitous to provide a climate and to bring to bear upon them those influences that will build them up, that will strengthen them as they pass from infancy and childhood into pre-adolescence and adolescence and into adulthood. You are to nurture them. You are to seek to provide a climate and to exert influences that under the blessing of God will see them in the totality of their God-given capacity as image-bearers of God, come to their full potential as adult males and females. You are to nurture them, and the realm in which that nurturing is to be carried on, the primary means by which that nurture is implemented, is described in these words, in the chastening and admonition of the Lord. So our fundamental duty as Christian parents is outlined in these two texts. And it's an undergirding presupposition when we come to our discussion that this is indeed our duty as parents. But then the second presupposition, and it grows out of the wording of the last part of Ephesians 6-4, it is this.

13:36 These duties, the duties of Colossians 3-21 and Ephesians 6-4, these duties require use of spanking and clear verbal correction. These require the right spanking and clear verbal direction. We are told in Ephesians 6-4 that we are to nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord. Now the word translated chastening has a broad category of usage in the New Testament. But when it is used in a connection like this, where it is found set alongside an exercise that is clearly verbal correction, pointing out the wrong and seeking to then direct someone verbally into the right path, properly translated, chastening. The word itself can mean discipline or training, but we know from its usage in such passages as Hebrews 12-6, it is unequivocally applying there to what we would call physical punishment

15:01 or some form of spanking. Add to this the clear revelation of such texts as Proverbs 22-15 and Proverbs 13-24 and we come to the conclusion that indeed spanking is not a form of child abuse. Righteous spanking is not a form of child abuse. And I must underscore that presupposition because in our day there are many so-called experts who say that no form of spanking, no matter how wisely, lovingly administered, in any circumstance, can be anything other than a form of child abuse.

15:45 Furthermore, they say that any authoritative correcting of the child that says this is a form of child abuse, stifling the child's development of his or her own psyche, his or her own innate sense of quote, right and wrong, etc. But as those who are committed to the absolute authority of the word of God, we must say, or we will be guilty of being ashamed of Christ and of his words in our sinful and adulterous generation, we believe that we cannot fulfill given parental duty without the use of righteous and authoritative These are my presuppositions. Not because I think I'm smarter than child psychologists, not because I think I'm wiser than the experts, but because God keeps silence before him. A liar in every man's opinion for what they are, the mere chaff opinion.

17:12 So, the undergirding presuppositions are that the fundamental duty of Christian parents is outlined in Colossians 3.21 and Ephesians 6.4 and that these duties require the righteous use of spanking and authoritative verbal correction. Now, the second thing I want to do before I open it up for discussion is to give a working definition.

Working Definition of Child Abuse Among God's People

17:35 You see, that little term, working definition, keeps me from being beat up on by any experts who may get hold of what I say and say, well, technically this, I'm not giving you a technical definition, I'm giving you a working definition, and I'm not at all ashamed to say that the sources for my working definition are having been born in a home where these presuppositions were believed and implemented and being shaped by that implementation, having become a Christian at age 18, it will soon be 40 years that I've been seeking to read daily in the Word of God for my own understanding of God's ways and works, for my own obedience, and then for almost as many years in order to instruct others in the truth of God. This working definition grows out of the climate in which I was reared where those presuppositions were firmly in place, and I assure you, freely and at times profusely implemented. And secondly, this working definition grows out of what I trust is a sensitivity to a number of Biblical precepts and principles. And here's the working definition of child abuse, which the people of God are liable to fall into and to be provoked unto.

19:02 This is it. And I claim no infallibility for this, but I think it'll be a good working definition as a touchstone of our discussion. A pattern of exasperation or exasperating a child, neglect, or permanent damage to the body or spirit is my working definition of child abuse to come to light among the people of God. I would add to that, if we're going to bring in Ephesians 6, 4, provoking a child to anger, a sustained pattern that makes a child dispirited or in anger in a pattern or admonition would constitute the kind of child abuse to which we as the people of God

20:31 could fall into or but an aggravated of inflicting permanent damage to the body or here a moment of anger a mother has thrown against the wall and done permanent damage to that or even killed the child. Why would anyone do that? Because as a very young man in a family of ten, second oldest of that, in the few times when I was left alone with a young, crying baby, very few times did my mother or father ever leave a child's life or leave the little ones alone with a sibling and it was only done if it was an absolute necessity. I can still remember going back over decades the frustration of those few times when the baby kept screaming and screaming and I checked for pins this is long before pampers were even a word let alone a commodity that you could buy in the supermarket and the only way to diaper a child was with pins and one of the things the older siblings learned as part of growing up was how to change a diaper and I won't go into all the other details of the things we learned in connection with some of those necessary bodily functions with babies but you checked for pins

22:00 and you burped the child and then you gave the child you did everything you knew to do and it not just whimpered but I mean cried with that piercing way five minutes ten minutes twenty minutes thirty minutes and I tell you the sense of frustration is such that I can imagine a distraught mother who had gone through that many times in a moment of angry passion thankfully I never did but I believe I can empathize with how such a passion could overtake someone in a moment of time even or how a straighted father at the end of a long and weary day after having all kinds of hassles at work comes home and the first thing he's greeted with is his wife tells him that the second child from the bottom or the third one from the top whatever one it is who has an unusually strong will had been pushing and pushing and pushing all day long so that the poor woman felt like she had been pitted against the 285 pound professional middle lineman all day long in dealing with the will of that child and so in ten minutes papa gets the whole concentrated story with all of mama's emotional heat and no sooner than that she dumped it all on him when the kid comes in

23:27 and starts leaning on dad and in a moment of panic he tipped the back of his head I thank God I can testify with my own children sitting here I never did that but it's only the grace of God that I can conceive that a Christian could do that now why am I underscoring that well that you might understand my working definition you see I'm talking now in this definition about a sustained pattern of a combination of little things that provoke that child to anger until his spirit becomes a cause of anger and the Christian may not be aware of it if he of the implementation of these principles in his own nurture

24:39 has not been good models he or she could evaluate what he or she is or is not it is possible if it were not possible we would not cope into anger why are we exhorted not to do it so there can be a form of presently imperfect state given all she is could be guilty of child abuse that were not possible why the book of Proverbs

26:02 to hedge him up with the duty of the discipline discipline of authoritative verbal for Christians can be guilty of child abuse according to our by this of withholding appointed means for their nurture let me illustrate it this way would you say who had a sustain of withholding available full spectrum vitamins minerals etc diet from a child and kept the child on a diet of bland unenriched white bread and water was guilty of child abuse would you say that they were guilty whether the court would define it that way would you say they were guilty of child abuse you say yes why even the mind of that child they are deprived of necessary nutrients essential to its development into a healthy strong adult physiology

27:32 in the same way in the development of the soul of the mind psyche and the entirety of that child it is essential that there be the constant input of the full spectrum of the vitamins and minerals and nutrients of faithful prayer and admonition and to withhold things as a pattern which we the people of God are most liable also another form and here we come back to why I gave those illustrations it is possible for a Christian in a moment of weakness manifest an aggravating of carnality and to sow child abuse could even bring a Christian into the courts of the land by of not the rod of the venting of the frustration of a father or mother that's child abuse or

28:58 venting of permanent in which the parent in his frustration might say what can I and then bring out all kinds of garbage from the past you are the grandson of your grandfather he was and then they disclose dark horrible chapters from the past that sink down into the soul of that child and he can never escape it that child can fall into the back and let me just review that little working definition what do I mean in our discussion the same work that I want us to discuss with our presuppositions under our feet as our platform we want to work with this definition a sustained pattern of exasperation provoking the child to anger or a sustained those means ordained for its nurture or an aggravated act of

Discussion: Ways Christians Can Be Guilty of Child Abuse

30:24 inflicting permanent damage to the body or spirit of the child now then we come to our discussion of child abuse what are some of the ways and here I'm not asking you to confess sins and say well I know I have been guilty of this you can speak in very general terms what are ways in which we as the people of God in Trinity Baptist Church and may presently be guilty of some form of child abuse according to this working definition anyone bold enough to acknowledge that there may be such a way Tony the mother should never call and look like the bad man all the time she should have been in control all the time and I say so when you get to the door your son did so your daughter did our son first not your son did this she should have been in control at all times before in other words if she had had anything to say

31:53 about the children she should speak to him alone I complain never so often she said she should have she should obey her not waiting for her father to tell her to do this or that well that's a good point Tony and what Tony is giving to us is what I would call an answer to the question how can a godly wife and mother help her husband mortify the possibility of child abuse with his children that's the question you've answered and you've answered it well Tony she herself should be in control I was describing a situation where she has been implementing biblical principles but she was unwise to meet her hubby at the door though you can sympathize with her I mean she's been living with that kid that's just been pushing pushing all day long and I know because we had one like that I'm not saying which one but I can say this it wasn't the oldest in the period of his formation it was one of the girls believe it or not and there were certain days when she awoke you sense here's one of those days the battle lines are drawn at every point at every turn she would push at her own way and I could understand how at the end of the day like that when I came to the door my wife my just there when I came out of the study

33:22 my wife might but a wife needs to exercise restraint on her own spirit and say this is not the time I may provoke my husband to the sin of child abuse and he may say words for which they may be if you have and then you may isolate and focus upon what might be some of the ways we had a hand here and then we'll go back to you Julie yes Barb one of the ways in which we would follow the pattern generally apply to all our children because the application is as much as diversity and that is that there's diversity in our children's nature some children are extremely sensitive and just a sharp word And there was the manking and the crying, and I'm sorry, mommy, and it seems to me to be very abusive if you apply this generally and if you say to other people, this is how I do it, you should be doing it that way too, this is the way it should be done. Right, and how could we express that in a succinct way?

34:43 Could we not say, Barb, that the injudicious, wooden, rigid, unbending application of the same outworking of biblical principle, I mean, it's a lack of the judicious application of the rod or of admonition. As you say, one child snapping the fingers and looking and pointing the finger, and their little lips will quiver and their eyes will fill with tears. Another one, you do that, they'll have to look right back at you, snap the finger, point the finger at you and go, you're all laughing, I think you recognize that. So, when it says, fathers, do not provoke your children.

35:27 That they be to anger, fathers, don't exasperate or irritate them to the point of being dispirited. What dispirits one will not even get the attention of the other one. Because each of them is different in personality and sin insinuates itself into the psyche, into the will, into the responsiveness of each child in a different way. And we can be guilty of abuse by thinking, well, I've worked this all out.

35:57 I've worked with the first one, and now I'm just not going to have to pray anymore, and think anymore, and wrestle anymore. I'm just going to apply the rule, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And in so doing, we can be guilty of a form of child abuse, according to our definition. Yes, very helpful.

36:12 All right, Julie? All right, what would happen if we don't forgive? When someone has sinned against us, and there has come an alienation, and there has been the seeking of forgiveness, then the proper implementation of this, what happens when there is no, forgiveness conferred? What is the state that still exists?

36:48 One of what? All right, exasperation, alienation, alienation, the person still may be carrying guilt, and what's in your heart toward that child? Irritation, right? And prejudice concerning future activities.

37:06 You're all ready to slip that particular thing into the category that you had to deal with 20 minutes ago, and that is a form of violating Colossians 3.21. Do not. Do not exasperate.

37:17 Here's a child that begins to be conscious long before he or she can articulate it, that they have a problem with just responding immediately to something in anger or irritation or striking back. And they're seeking to respond to discipline, etc., and yet they get dispirited when they are prejudged and are not truly forgiven, even though the situation may have happened three or four times in the day. If Jesus assumes, if I understand my Bible correctly, that even among adults, someone may have to come seven times in the day and ask forgiveness.

37:56 Where to forgive?

37:59 Not just seven, but 70 times seven. All right, someone else had his hand raised back here, or her.

38:07 Yes, Danielle. The kind of climate that under God's blessing will make the instruction of the central issues of the gospel much more palatable and believable because they've seen them, mirrored to some degree in the climate that we've created in the home. All right, let's see. Someone else had a hand raised here, and then we'll go over to this side.

38:50 All right, yes. Linda? Very vital point. We can violate 321 very, very clearly, exasperating our children and making them dispirited when they are really trying to please us, and they think they're doing things that surely we can see, and we may see them, and even inwardly, feel, thank you, Lord, it's good, but we don't take the child aside and say to that child, honey, son, sweetheart, however we address our children, daddy's noticed, mommy's noticed, you really have been trying. Five days this week, your slippers were right where they belonged when you left the room, your pajamas were folded up. We won't talk about the other two days, but you've got five days this week. Now, compared to a month ago, that's real improvement.

39:55 And mommy's really pleased that you're trying to do what mommy is telling you, because someday you're going to be a wife and a housekeeper, you're going to be a daddy. And these are words that I used in my household. Do you want your wife to think by your actions that she is nothing but your housemaid to pick up your dirty socks and your dirty underwear? There's the hamper.

40:19 You put him in there.

40:22 Or you're sending a message to your wife,

40:27 housemaid, pick up my baby, pick up my baby, pick up my dirty socks, pick up my dirty socks. Now, where did I get that? That's the way I was dealt with as a child growing up. But when there was progress, then there was encouragement.

40:37 When the room had its daily inspection, a star was put on the chart where it says, room picked up in meat. And boy, it was great to come in at the end of the week and find yourself more than a five-star general. I mean, stars all over the place. And it reinforced those patterns.

40:52 God does this, and you find it all throughout the Proverbs. The motivation, my son, do this, and make the heart of your father glad. The indication is, when he did it, the glad-hearted father would commend the son to reinforce that good action. If authoritative verbal correction is a means of nurture, surely implied in that, though not explicit, but beautifully illustrated in the Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, commendation for good action to the child is a way of reinforcing that pattern.

41:27 And we can, we can violate Colossians 3 and also Ephesians 6-4. We can provoke a child to anger. They feel, nothing I do pleases mommy or daddy. Well, the only reason the child feels that is because the parents either do not praise or even when the child makes an effort, because it isn't done to perfection, they point out the area of imperfection and don't commend the area that is what it ought to be.

41:53 I've illustrated it this way with people. I've taken a sheet of paper like the one I hold before me, and I've held it up in front of them, and I said, now what do you see? They said, I see a black dot. I said, isn't that strange?

42:06 That black dot is not the 100th part of what's in front of you. Couldn't you say, I see a totally clean white sheet of paper, which by the way happens to have a black dot. Now there's all the difference in the world, and if you look at your children and all you see is the dots, and that's all you talk about, you dispirit them, and you may provide them, you evoke them to anger, and they say, what's the use? Why even try?

42:33 And it breaks their spirit. Very, very helpful point. And the last,

42:40 well, I won't say anything more. Over here. Yes, Henry. Very good.

43:38 And if we do that, what will that produce in the church? You see how relevant that Colossians 3.21 text is? Henry has rightly observed that if our expectations are not reasonable, based upon the reality of what that child's present development and capacities are, and we set a standard that goes beyond reality, and then discipline physically or admonish in the light of it, we will violate Colossians 3.21, and in so doing, we're unlike our own Heavenly Father. Here's a pivotal text for every parent. Psalm 103, verses 13 and 14. Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him, for He knoweth our frame.

44:33 He remembers that we are dust. He never forgets what we are. Now, God knows us perfectly, and that's part of the frustration. Our kids are born con artists.

44:47 That's what the Bible teaches, and every parent knows it if he's half awake. Psalm 58 says they go astray from the womb, speaking lies. In modern parlance, they're born from the delivery room. And they like to con you into thinking that they can't do things simply because they don't want to do them.

45:14 But it is also true that there are certain things they cannot do. That's why, if that's not so, then the whole analogy Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 13 is senseless. It's an analogy without a reality to be analogous to something else. He said, When I was a child, I what?

45:32 I thought like a child. I lived like a child. I was a man, and I was died like a child. Well, if you're trying to get out of the child what is there only in half the man or half the woman, you will disparage that, and you will be implementing unjust punishment, unrighteous admonition, and rebukes.

45:57 And as Henry has rightly underscored, this will disparage the child, this will discourage the child, and it will be a form of the kind of child abuse of which the people of God can be guilty. I want to keep emphasizing, that so that we don't slip over into unbiblical categories or categories that really don't apply to God's people. All right. Other ways. Now, we'll take one or two things from over on this side. Yes, Mr. Van Dalen. All right. So here, the people of God could, in certain circumstances, feel well.

Further Ways Christians Can Be Guilty of Child Abuse

46:48 They're getting preaching at church. They're going to Sunday school. Therefore, I'm rearing them in the nurture of the Lord. I'm giving them the training in the things of God. I'm doing it by proxy, but I'm doing it. I'm making sure they get up and go off to church, when in reality, such passages as Deuteronomy chapter 6 and a host of others make it plain that the very climate in which they ought to live and move and have their being morning to night, seven days a week, is a climate in which they ought to live and move and have their being. In which, through the parents, all of life is being interpreted by the word of God. Thou shalt talk of them when thou liest down, when thou risest up, when thou walkest by the way. The whole climate is one in which they are surrounded with parents who are attempting, if I may use the analogy of glasses, and it's not original with me. Someone may have used it before Calvin, but Calvin became famous for it. We are trying, everywhere we see our children turn, to put on the glasses of Scripture so that what they look at, they see through the glasses of Scripture. When I have these glasses on, there's nothing I perceive with my eyes that has not passed through the particular prescription that corrects an uneven surface over the lens of my eye called astigmatism. That makes, I won't look in certain

48:10 direction, but if a man sits here with a relatively bald head, he not only has a bald head, he's got a bulge on it if I don't have my glasses on. Because my astigmatism, because of that wavy lens, puts an image on the retina that is not sharp. And when I look at the moon, the moon's got a bulge on it. But when I put my glasses on, and the passage, I see things as they really are. Well, that's what we must be doing with our children. Everywhere they turn, every question they ask, every relationship they sustain, every abnormality, we must seek under God, albeit imperfectly.

48:48 Hopefully, albeit better. Ten years into parenting, then five years into parenting, but we must nonetheless be committed to seeking to bring the whole of life through the glasses of the Word of God as we both nurture and discipline our children. Very good point, Elmer. All right, someone else. All right, Joel?

49:33 Absolutely necessary. This would not so much provoke them to anger as crush their spirits. If we give the impression that in all the areas that we have to deal with them, we, we have no struggles. Never had any, don't know what they are, it can utterly dispirit the children. But when you're able to say to the child, honey, sweetheart, son, dear, whatever you call, and I hope you have pet names for your kids. I hope you have pet names for one another's husbands and wives, too. I can't prove it from the Bible, but I can prove it from pastoral experience that in nine cases out of ten, when I'm dealing with a messed up marriage, I can prove it from the Bible.

50:19 One of the questions I ask, oh, by the way, you could have dealt with this situation this way. What are your pet names for your wife? Let's try to reconstruct the situation. I've had men sit there and say, I don't have any.

50:31 That tells me worlds about the relationship. Nine times out of ten. So I don't want to make a rule that I can't find in the Bible or artificially find in the Bible, but that's just a little freebie, okay? All right, coming back to the child.

50:46 But if in dealing, say the child has lied, and you've caught them in a bald-faced lie, you say to that child, sweetheart, you lied. And this is what is wrong with lying. And you take them to the Word of God, and you show, first of all, how it's a sin against the God of truth, and what it does in disrupting a meaningful relationship between a mom and her daughter, or a mom or dad and a son and daughter. And we seek to bring the Word of God to bear upon it.

51:16 Am I saying? Now, you must be punished for this. But Daddy wants you to know, Mommy wants you to know, that I'm not doing this as someone who doesn't have to struggle with being honest. And sooner or later, there'll be situations where you will shade the truth, perhaps unwittingly, perhaps even deliberately, and have to confess the sin of lying to your children.

51:36 That's one of the most humbling things. And often it'll come in the air of exaggeration. An exaggeration in which you deliberately state something to put yourself in a better light is, And there aren't many people who can go through life rearing kids without exaggerating at one time or another, because just as they want our acceptance, we want theirs. And sometimes the way we gain it is by our own wicked hearts pumping out exaggerations about ourselves.

52:05 And the point that Joel has made is that we must be prepared to let our children know that we struggle with sin, or they will become disheartened, feeling we live in a realm that is so far beyond and above, how can we relate to them? And how can they ever relate to us with their struggles? All right? Someone else.

52:24 Bill, you had your hand raised for a while. Bill Deutch. And he doesn't want to be put in the room. And he's telling you that.

52:56 Or, it may be that for some reason he's just petrified in the dark. And he wants to make a distinction. Try to understand why he's doing it. Yes, in other words, the answer to his problem may not be spanking the daylights out of him every night, but investing in a nightlight.

53:15 I'm serious. That's the point. Boys of experience, that may be the answer. Investing in the little nightlight that takes, what, half a watt?

53:24 I mean, surely nobody's in such dire straits that that's going to throw their electric bill out of the budget. That may be the answer. For a while. And then you may have to, as the child gets older, if he has a chronic fear of the dark, take other means to start overcoming that fear of the dark.

53:40 You leave the door open that much for one week, and then you tell him. Dear, sweetie, honey, son, whatever it is, guys, go shut the door. A little bit more. Daddy's going to stay in here with you now.

53:50 Now watch. Daddy's going to shut the door. We're in the dark together, aren't we? Daddy's going to be quiet for half a minute.

53:56 Anything happen to you bad? No, Daddy. Good. See, so the dark can't hurt you.

54:00 You may have to go through a process of training the child to overcome this irrational fear of the dark. And the answer may not be to beat the daylights out of him. That will only increase his fear of the dark, because consciously or unconsciously he's going to associate dark with having my bottom lumped. And he'll have an aversion.

Summary of Child Abuse Forms and Final Exhortation

54:19 And you're hardening him in that diversion, in that aversion. So it's a very vital point that Bill has made. Well, folks, believe it or not, it's 10, 29, and 40 seconds.

54:31 And let me just list. That's all I can do. Just list. You've brought out far more than, and different ones, and some that I have listed.

54:41 Excessive, unjust, or unreasonable use of spanking. That was one of the first ones brought out. Violates. Ephesians 6, 4, and Colossians 3, 21.

54:53 The opposite of that is inadequate, inconsistent withholding of spanking. Proverbs 23, 13, and 14, and Proverbs 13, 24. Proverbs 23, 13, and 14. Proverbs 13, 24.

55:11 And the incident of Eli with his sons. Never forget it. He failed to nurture them by the withholding of appropriate, spanking.

55:21 And I fear I see little ones around here whom some of you are indulging far too long on such elementary things as common courtesy. Well, they're just babies. Babies, they've been talking for two years. They still don't know how to stand before an adult and say, Hello, Mr. Smith.

55:41 Hello, Mr. Jones. And when you say, say hi, and they go, and you giggle kind of awkwardly. My friend, you have a problem.

55:50 You have a problem with child abuse. You're letting that child's will determine the absence of fundamental, reasonable social grace.

56:02 I'm serving notice to some of you publicly because I cannot restrain myself any longer. When I see it, I'm going to be constrained to come to you, not as a judge, but as one of your pastors and say, Look, I believe you need to face honestly your problem. I've watched your little kid run around the foyer, say hi to his peers, say hi to this and that. It's only when you say, Oh, they're shy.

56:25 Well, then, if it's that kind of shyness, and I know I had a child that was painfully shy, that had to be disciplined to learn fundamental social graces. I don't know where she'd be as a pastor's wife if we hadn't worked on that, if we'd excused her shyness.

56:47 Some of you need to take heed here. Excessive, unjust, or unreasonable spanking is a form of child abuse. It's inadequate, inconsistent withholding of spanking, according to the scriptures, is an expression not of love, but of hate. Read those texts.

57:03 Excessive, unreasonable demeaning and verbal assaults. Read Proverbs 12.18, where it speaks of a kind of speaking that is like the piercings of a sword. What a horrible thing to pierce the soul of a child with angry words.

57:21 It simply is not true that sticks and stones may break my bones, but names may never hurt me. Dummy. Stupid. Egghead.

57:30 Those names hurt and wound. Inadequate, inconsistent use of verbal admonition. Letting things slide where there ought to be admonition. And then the lack of verbal and physical affirmations of love and approval.

57:46 1 John 3.16. Well, these were five of the major ones that I thought we might get to. I'm sure there are many more.

57:54 May the Lord help each one of us as parents with our consciences, freshly awakened, concerning these matters, to pray that God will keep us from those forms of child abuse to which we as the people of God are liable and bound upon. Let's pray.

Closing Prayer and Benediction

58:13 Father, we do thank you for our time together today, and we feel afresh how little we know of what it is to fulfill our task in the nurture of our children. But, O Lord, they are a precious deposit. And for those of us who have passed from the role of primarily being parents into that of grandparents, help us as well that we would not undo in this role what our children and others are seeking to do in the nurture of their children. But may every child in Trinity Church have the unspeakable privilege of being surrounded by a climate in the home, and in all of the associations of the homes, of the members and friends of the church, and in our interaction here in this building with a consistent climate of loving, biblical nurture. O God, for your glory and for the good of our children, will you not answer us and help us and enable us to create such a climate by the grace and power of the Spirit? Forgive our many failures as parents. O Lord, help us.

59:30 In the area... Help us in the areas of our ignorance.

59:32 Help us in the areas of our blindness. Lead us in a plain path for your glory and for the good of our children, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.

59:47 You have been listening to How Not to Foul Up the Training of Your Children by Pastor Albert N. Martin. These cassettes are distributed by the Trinity Book Service. If you would like a free listing of other audio cassettes...