Appropriate Physical Affection

Introduction: The Series' Impact and Prayer for God's Continued Work

0:02 How Not to Foul Up the Training of Your Children. This is Cassette No. 7 in a series given by Pastor Albert N. Martin in the Adult Sunday School class of the Trinity Baptist Church on February 24, 1991.

0:18 As we return this morning to our studies, which originally began under the title of a Biblical Perspective on Child Abuse, but has now been changed to the subject How Not to Foul Up the Training of Your Children, I must confess that I have been something a little less than amazed and overwhelmed at how many of you have conveyed to me in person or by notes and letters how much God has been using this series in your lives. For some of you, it has been a time of despair, devastating surgery as God has reached in and helped you to see why you are what you are in terms of the failure of your own parents, and you've come to reckon with those things. For others, it's been a time of spiritual bombardment where God's been aiming some guided high-tech missiles that have found the mark right down your own chimney stack. And God has been blasting away, at patterns in your life. One man told me this past week, he said, my home has been basically like a heaven on earth compared to the way it was up until three weeks ago.

1:41 And others in counseling sessions have indicated that God has been pleased to use his word in a very marked way. And all I can say is, to God be praised, and quote the old Methodist who said, there's only one thing better than getting right, and that's staying right. And let us again plead with God that this morning the Lord will carry on that work of dealing with our sins, bringing the healing grace of his spirit where necessary, and that more and more as a result of our time together, we may have homes in which there will be no known cooperation with the devil in his effort to destroy our children, to damn them, and if he fails, in that, to send them out into life even as Christians, crippled in many areas, because we have failed to provide the climate that God has outlined in his word. Let us then seek again the aid of the spirit.

2:47 Our Father, as we have together pleaded in the language of the hymn, that you would come among us, so we now turn that very language into conscious petition and supplication, praying that we would have no confidence in past mercies and blessings received, but that we would come to you as dependent and as desperate in our sense of our own utter insufficiency, either to proclaim or to receive your word aright, as we would come had this series been as dry as dust and as fruitless as a barren rock. O Lord, will you not come, will you not come by the Holy Spirit and enable both speaker and listener to be conscious of the present aid of the Holy Spirit attending his own written word. Bless us then, we pray, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Recap: The Spiritual, Emotional, and Physical Climate of the Home

3:57 Now in the last several lessons in this series on how not to foul up the training of our children, we have been concentrating, our attention on what I have called the spiritual, emotional, and physical climate of our homes, that within the framework of our homes and our family life, there is an atmosphere, a climate, which is being produced by the relationship, so that we don't show any wrong kind of preference, we'll put the woman over here today, the relationship between the husband and the wife, between the parents and the children, and also the children and the parents and the children one to another. So we have these three basic groupings of relationships, and it is vital that we would not foul up the training of our children, that we seek to have a spiritual, emotional, and physical climate in the home, which is conducive to the great task of nurturing our children, and we have likened those negative influences to a kind of spiritual and emotional radon and suspended particles of asbestos, which

5:24 are very toxic and noxious and devastating in their effect upon our children. We identified the first of this spiritual radon in terms of hypocrisy and sham as opposed to sincerity and reality in the religious life and experience of the parents. And then secondly, when a home is characterized by coldness, distance, tension, and ill will, as opposed to warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill among all the members of the household, we identified then you have, to some degree, these noxious gases of radon and these devastating particles of suspended asbestos. And having dealt briefly with the necessity of the husband and wife maintaining a climate of warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill, we did not concentrate on that because our main burden is not the husband-wife relationship. But we did concentrate upon it long enough to establish that the greatest gift you can give to your children next to your prayers is an ongoing, healthy, dynamic relationship

6:44 marked by these spiritual and emotional qualities of warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill. But then we began to deal with that climate as it relates to the parent in his or her children, and the connection that this moral relationship had with the mother of the child. What is scientific? How can we identify the basic state ofbreak, the face of the child, and its and only perfect father. And it is God in his role as father that is to be our constant reference point as image bearers seeking to fulfill our role as parents. Now I was disturbed to know that we've got some tape circulating in our church by a teacher who has never been approved by this

7:56 eldership, by this congregation, who flatly denies and openly opposes that premise. I'd like to have him present to challenge him with the text that we studied together with our Bibles opened on our laps, which clearly did establish that God is the great paradigm and pattern for our parenting. And if this is so, then all of our guidelines for the maintenance of a client's life and the maintenance of a client's life are the same. And if this is so, then all of our guidelines for the maintenance of a client's life and the maintenance of a client's life are the same.

8:26 The limit of closeness, warmth, acceptance, and goodwill must be drawn from the revelation of those qualities from the heart and the deeds and disposition of the living God towards his children. And having opened up those matters, we concluded in our last study by setting before you what it's going to take on the part of these Christian parents in their relationship to God if they are to maintain a climate with their children marked by closeness, marked by warmth, acceptance, and goodwill. And we asserted that in our relationship to God, we must embrace the standard for such a climate as right, reasonable, and attainable. Secondly, acknowledge our inability to attain and maintain such a climate in our relationship to God. And we asserted that our own strength. Thirdly, earnestly seek in prayer the needed grace stored up in Christ and

9:34 conveyed to us by the indwelling Spirit. And fourthly, determine not to grieve the Spirit by the toleration of ungodlike attitudes in our hearts towards our children. And one of my fellow elders said I ought to have added a fifth, and I believe he was right, that we ought continually to give thanks for any measure of this climate that we have attained. Because by giving thanks to God for the measure of warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill that we have towards our children, we are acknowledging that they are indeed the standard which God has set, and that it's God's grace that has enabled us to come to any degree of attainment in this area. Now the next set of guidelines pertain to your children themselves. If this climate is to be maintained in your relationship to children, to your children, your relationship to God is primary and fundamental. And with many of us, the first signs of declension and backsliding from God come in our relationship to our wives and to our children. In the most secure but

10:56 intimate relationships, backsliding has its first manifestations. Long before you would dare to show your backsliding by being careless at your place of work, or talking in a nasty way to your boss, you'll start being nasty to your wife and to your kids. Because you know they won't fire you. And that's why, many of you have asked me on different occasions, why is my mean, most aggravated to my wife and to my kids? Well, there are a number of reasons, but the fundamental one is, we take advantage of the security of that relationship to give vent to our sin. And even when we are in a state of partial backsliding with reference to our relationship to God, we still exercise a good deal of self-control in the workplace, because we know if we don't, we get our pink slip. But our kids aren't going to give us a pink slip, and our wives or husbands aren't going to give us a pink slip. So our relationship to God is absolutely fundamental. And only as that is healthy will we be able to

12:05 maintain this climate with our children. But now, having given you the guidelines for the maintenance of a healthy relationship to God as it pertains to the climate of the home and your relationship to your children, I want to give this morning some guidelines with reference to your relationship to your children. That under God and by His help, you may attain and maintain a climate of warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill. So our question this morning, to which the substance of the material will be the answer, is this.

Two Categories of Disciplines: Preventive and Corrective

12:45 What can I do to attain and maintain such a climate in my dealings with my children? And my answer to that question will be, what can I do to maintain and maintain such a climate in my dealings with my children? The answer will come in two basic categories. This morning we take up the first category, and then, God willing, next week, the second category. The first category is by engaging regularly in certain formative disciplines, or if you want to change the terminology, by administering preventive medicine. So formative disciplines or preventive medicine, and then next week by engaging regularly in certain formative disciplines, or if you want to change the terminology, by administering preventive medicine.

13:25 And then next week, by engaging consistently in certain corrective disciplines or, we might say, remedial medicine. All right? This morning, then, we want to deal with those things that, by God's grace, will keep the radon from entering the home, will keep the asbestos from entering the home. Those are preventive disciplines.

13:54 Those are formative disciplines. And I want to set before you three of them, and I believe we shall have time to do so.

The Need for Spiritual Discernment in Applying Guidelines

14:06 By engaging regularly in certain formative disciplines, a discipline being defined as a pattern of behavior, by the grace of God, we can attain and maintain a relationship of warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill with our children. Now will you listen very, very carefully as I put a qualifying statement up front before we take up the three things, A, B, and C, under this heading. In each of these things, there must be a due recognition of the various temperaments of our children, the various stages of their development, the various circumstances in which they may be. We must be found at any given time when these counsels may be appropriately applied, and we must take into consideration their gender, whether they are male or female. In other words, the application of these guidelines demands spiritual discernment and wisdom. And there's another thing that concerns us as your elders.

15:23 Not only that you'll be listening to tapes that denounce spiritual discernment, but also that you'll be listening to tapes that denounce spiritual discernment. And I, a fundamental exegetical and theological tenet established in this place, but that so many of you have the itch for the how-to tapes and books and instruction that will tell you five spanks for dropping a piece of food on the floor, two spanks for this, and have everything laid out in a legalistic framework. Dear people of God, that instruction may seem helpless. But it's devastating to the cultivation of spiritual discernment and biblical wisdom.

16:06 We warn you, we warn you, don't cripple yourself with apparently helpful legalistic directions. No, any counsel I give you this morning must take into consideration the various temperaments of your children, the stages through which they pass, the circumstances in which they may be found in any given time of expressing one of these guidelines, and their gender. What may be perfectly appropriate for a 13-year-old son would be scandalous to a 13-year-old daughter. And you don't need a manual that gives you all the how-tos. You need your...

16:58 You need your Bible, your heart furnished with the principles and prayer to God for the Holy Ghost to give you spiritual discernment and divine wisdom. And much of the itch for the how-to tapes and books is because we want to shortcut what it takes to be a man or woman of discretion and Holy Ghost wisdom.

Formative Discipline #1: Be Regularly, Physically Affectionate with Your Children

17:23 Now I got that out of my gut. Now we'll come to the formative disciplines. Number one. Be regularly, physically affectionate with your children.

17:38 Be regularly, physically affectionate with your children. You say, now on what basis can you give us such counsel? And be so spinkingly dogmatic. Well, I come back to our fundamental theological premise.

17:56 Jesus said, He that hath seen me hath seen whom? Hath seen...

18:03 The Father. The Father after whom we pattern our lives is the Father revealed in Jesus Christ. And in our Lord Jesus Christ there are abundant indications that in varying relationships He who was the embodiment of the love of God did not experience or express that love only as an inward disposition that filled His soul. And that was found expressed upon His lips, but found expression in His hands, His chest, and even His feet.

Biblical Basis for Physical Affection: Jesus' Example

18:46 You say, Pastor, you've gone plum loco. No, I haven't. Open your Bibles.

18:52 What did the Lord Jesus do with little ones? Well, in Mark chapters 9 and 10, we have explicit answer to that question. In Mark chapter 9, in verse 25, we read,

19:10 Mark chapter 9, verse 35, I'm sorry, 35 and 36. And He sat down and called the twelve and said unto them, If any man would be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all. Now notice what He did. And He took a little child and set him in the midst of them, and taking him in His arm, He said unto them, Whosoever shall receive.

19:42 Now, the great purpose of this little child was to make the child an illustration of the disposition essential to entering the kingdom. To use the child, the Lord could have simply pointed to him.

20:00 But He didn't do that. For a child to be pointed at by an adult in the midst of a group of adults is to be a, a traumatically emotional experience. So when the Lord Jesus would use the child as an illustration, by the very physical contact with the child, He neutralizes what would otherwise been intimidating, may have sent out false signals to the child. May I say it reverently?

20:31 It would have been using the child for the benefit of the people at the expense of the well-being of the child. So what did He do? He took the little child, set him in the midst of them, perhaps pointing to him while the little kid is wondering with all his eyes looking at him, and I can just picture our blessed Lord walking over, stroking his head if he were a little boy, saying, Now, Sonny, you don't need to be afraid. Pop up in my arms.

21:02 While the Lord Jesus, in arms made strong in Joseph's carpenter shop, takes what wasn't a baby, a child old enough at least to be a toddler, a young kid, and He holds him, securely protecting him from any fear that he's going to be harmed, assuring him by his physical embrace that he was loved and he was safe in the presence of Jesus. You see how the Lord Jesus showed His heart and His sensitivity by His physical actions. Same thing in chapter 10, verses 13 to 16. And they were bringing unto Him little children, that He should touch them. You see, bound up in the whole Hebrew concept, which is so close to the biblical reality that man is a body, soul, entity, and this is why it emerged in the Hebrew context, not because of some temperamental inclination, but that temperamental inclination was shaped by the theology of God. It was shaped by the theology of creation. They didn't have this great dichotomy of soul and body, of the psyche and the body.

22:19 And if a man's heart was full of blessing toward little ones, and if a rabbi was to pronounce blessing upon him, it was not merely the verbal, it was the physical. So they were bringing unto Him little children, not that He should sprinkle them. Nothing about infant baptism here. If anything, it's a powerful argument against it.

22:37 Because in other settings, Jesus directed His disciples to baptize others who were coming into discipleship. That they were coming. That He should touch them. And the disciples rebuked them.

22:50 But when Jesus saw it, He was moved with indignation. Jesus got mad. Christians don't get mad. My friends, it says He was moved with indignation.

23:06 He got angry. And being angry, He then cut a channel for His anger. He just didn't make a hot tub and stew in His anger. He said unto them, Permit the little children to come unto Me.

23:19 Do not forbid them. For to such belongs the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein. And if this child were old enough to see the look in our Lord's eyes and know something of the tone of His voice, he might have been a little fearful by the time the Lord vented his anger.

23:42 So what did Jesus do? And He took them in His hand. He took them in His arms and blessed them, laying His hands upon them. It's a beautiful picture.

23:55 The Lord didn't tell the mothers and fathers, You hold them and I'll reach out and bless them. He took them in His arms and He laid His hand upon them and pronounced a blessing over them or perhaps prayed and authoritatively blessed them as God's great and final priest. But whatever the particulars are, the point for our study is the physical nature of our Lord's affection demonstrated to these children. Likewise, when He would show to His disciples His disposition to take the place of a servant in the pursuit of their redemption, He did not merely say, The Son of Man has not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom. There's that moving scene in John 13 and we'll not take time to read it through, you're familiar to it, where He girded Himself with a towel and took a basin and He kneeled and He washed the disciples' feet in this very ordinary, mundane, house-servant's task that involved His physical touching of the dusty, dirty feet of the disciples. Our Lord is, as it were, sacramentally demonstrating His affection and His humility. And then He goes on to say that if I, your Lord and Master,

25:22 have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another's feet, not as a literal institution or ordinance, but you are to do not what I've done unto you, but as I have done unto you. And Jesus received physical affection. It was scandalous to some, but in Luke 7.38 there was a woman whose sins had been forgiven, many sins forgiven.

25:50 And what did she do? Verse 37 of Luke 7, Behold, a woman who was in the city, a sinner, and when she knew that He was sitting at meat in the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster cruz of ointment, and standing behind at His feet weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head, and, marginal reading, kissed much, profusely kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisees that had bidden Him saw Him, He spake within Himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have perceived who and what manner of woman this is, that she is a sinner. See what Jesus did? He received what on the surface of His face, what on the surface of it, was a very enthusiastic, not sensuous, but enthusiastic, profuse expression of love and gratitude. She wets His feet with her tears, and with the first few falls, Jesus does not panic.

27:04 Now, woman, we might get the wrong impression here. People might think there's something going between us. I accept the willingness for the deed, but some other time, some other place, He didn't do it. And when she began to take her long, and for a woman to let down her hair in public was already to mark herself.

27:22 She's a sinner! Maybe her hair was already down. She may have been plying her trade just a short time before. But Jesus knew she was a penitent sinner.

27:35 And as she sought to express her love in a way that meant touching the feet of the Son of God, not just obliquely going by and touching, but kissing them much, Jesus did not push her away. He accepted that expression of her affection at the physical level. And then He gave physical contact with fellow adult males. We could look at it in Matthew 9, 25, verses 40, 41.

28:14 But I want us to look at a more crucial passage. The head-to-chest contact with the disciple whom He loved. John 13, 23, and 25. John chapter 13, 24, and 25.

28:31 He, leaning back as He was, on Jesus' breast, said unto Him, Lord, who is it? Verse 23, There was at the table reclining in Jesus' bosom. And the reason the 1901 translates bosom in 23 and breast in 25 is that two different Greek words are used. They are basically synonyms, as best I was able to do my word studies in them.

29:01 But it's clear, you see, that the head of John was reclining upon the chest, upon the breast, somewhere in the area of the neck and the shoulder and the sternum of the Lord Jesus. And Jesus was not ashamed that it should be so. In fact, it became a mark of identification for later on, in a post-resurrection experience. He's described as that disciple who leaned on Jesus' breast.

Addressing Objections to Physical Affection: Homosexuality and Exploitation

29:33 Now then, there are other passages, but surely these should suffice to say if the God revealed in Jesus Christ is the God who in demonstrating goodwill and warmth and closeness and acceptance to His people is the God who touches, and who gives and receives physical affection, then surely we cannot begin to be patterned after our blessed Lord and the Father whom He revealed unless we make conscience of being regularly, physically affectionate with our children. Now I want to attack some stupid and ungrounded notion. Someone says, Oh, but Pastor Martin, if I as a man could hug my son and make a hugger out of him, that may make him a queer. That may predispose him to be gay. That's nonsense.

30:34 It is one of the best preventives to anyone being vulnerable to erotic attraction to another man is to establish non-erotic physical closeness with his own Father. And you look into the matter of people who've willfully chosen the life of a homosexual. I'm using my words carefully, for no man was ever driven against his will to be a homosexual. No man.

31:08 No woman. But you deal with those who've chosen that path, and when you try to find out what factors were used of the devil to put them closer to the path and to make the choice easy, often it's a situation where the mother was the dominant emotional bond and where physical affection was directed toward the mother as a child. And rarely, in my experience and in the things I've read, is it a framework where a son had a man as a father who was the dominant leader in the home and there was verbal communication and wholesome, normal father-son physical affection. The thought of a son whose only physical intimacy with other men has been taking its clue from the noble, strong arms of his father, the tender stroke of his father's head through his hair in a time of grief, the thought of tucking another man erotically makes the average man who's known that one to vomit.

32:37 And some of you who refuse to be physical in your affection with your boys may be nudging them to the line where they may choose a homosexual lifestyle you're helping. Don't rob your sons of the memory of a dad who embraced them, a dad who was physical with them. Someone says, well, if a father's physical with his daughter, that will lead to sexual exploitation. Nonsense.

33:10 If wholesome, normal, healthy physical contact is established with your daughters and then the nature of that contact is altered by their gender, by their temperament, by the stage at which they are in, rather than an erotic relationship. And I speak as a father who has that kind of physical intimacy with my two married daughters. The thought of anything erotic is abhorrent. One week before one of my daughters was married, I came down fully clothed from my study at 10 o'clock at night after a counseling session and lay on the top of my bed, fully made, just to relax for a few minutes before I even got into my night clothes. And my daughter, fully clothed, came in and lay down next to me and put her head in the crook of my arm and snuggled over. And I said, Honey, what's on your mind? She said, Well, I know in a week from now I'll no longer be doing this with my dad.

34:18 I'll be snuggling up to my husband. And we lay there and talked as father and daughter. And there wasn't a twitch of eroticism to my own daughter. It was abhorrent.

34:32 Why? Because years of natural physical contact had gone before to set a framework of the wholesome physical intimacy between a father and his daughter. And without that, it's the father who begins to look at his daughter when she's sprouted and notices she has hips and breasts and then begins to touch what he shouldn't. It falls into an eroticism that is condemned by the word of God and tragic in its scars upon that daughter.

Applying Affection with Discernment: Temperament, Stage, Circumstance, Gender

35:11 And the other objections, a mother with her own daughter, a mother with her son, it's sheer nonsense, folks, and it's a cop-out. Remember my qualifying words, temperament? Love never forces itself on its object. You've got one kid that a seven-second hug is about all it can take.

35:35 You've got another one that if you don't give him a five-minute, let him drape all over you, spread-eagled, arms around your neck, legs either side of you, and just sink into your chest. They feel cheated. And that's very rewarding as a parent when you've got one of those drapers, one of those clingers. And you say, Oh, that's so nice.

35:58 I love it when my draper and my clinger comes. But when your one who ain't a draper and a clinger comes and after seven sections she's ready to run, don't hang on and try to make her a draper or a clinger. You'll create a resentment that will make her have an aversion to your physical affection. Now, you see, true love does not force itself.

36:18 It's sensitive to its object. Love seeks not its own. Seeking my own, I want all my kids to be drapers, just like I like all your kids to be drapers. I love the ones that, three feet away, Sunday morning, they start running.

36:32 They go, boom, right here, grab on. I love it. Some of them never come to that. I work for years and the best I can get out of them is, Hi, Pastor, and a little peck on the cheek.

36:45 Well, that's their temperament. I don't force them into a mold. That'd be cruel. Terribly cruel.

36:51 You take cognizance of the differing temperament. You take cognizance of the stage of development. What would be perfectly proper with a little girl who's not yet come to puberty, sitting on your knee, steadying her with your hand on her buttocks, perhaps, would be absolutely improprietous when she's come to puberty and begun to be sexually awakened. You've got to use discretion.

37:06 Let not your own be the one who's going to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be the one to be And he's got a whisker or two showing, he's got his first set of zits, and he's going through the whole thing of coming out of the cocoon of a boy into a young man. I think we've loaded things, stacked it in favor of the trauma that girls go through because the signs are more physical and visible. But it's rough for a boy becoming a young man, becoming the dependent follower into an emerging leader. Well, at that stage of development, for his dad to hug him around other people may make him feel about this big.

38:27 Well, dad doesn't do it just to prove something. He says, son, I understand. And in public situations, you and I will just maybe be found with an arm draped around one another occasionally. But I want you to know when I get you alone at home, I'm going to give you a big one.

38:44 And he says, I appreciate that, dad.

38:47 You take into consideration the stage of development in your children. That's why the wooden lawmakers are tyranny to any sensitive parenting. You take into consideration stage of development. You take into consideration the circumstances in which you find yourself.

39:10 You don't display the affection to your children in circumstances that could unnecessarily jeopardize their sense of well-being or your testimony and your children's well-being. And I've already hinted, you take into consideration their gender. But then before we leave this heading, I want to take up what I would call the crowning major objection of some of you men in particular, and alas, some of you women, because some of you women have spoken to me, and I know I'm not shooting in the air. You say, I'm just not put together that way.

Overcoming Personal Hang-ups Through Christ's Grace

39:44 I wasn't brought up in a honey home. That's just not right for me. Well, so what?

39:52 Were you brought up in a home where you read your Bible? Oh, no, mine was a godless home. Do you read your Bible now? Yes.

39:59 Oh, you mean you've learned to do something now that you didn't do growing up?

40:04 Why? You say, because I'm saved. Well, good. Now, you need to get saved in terms of your ability to be what you would have been had sin never entered.

40:14 Had sin never entered, no one would have ever had to give to any of Adam's posterity a lecture on being discreetly, repeatedly, appropriately, physically affectionate as a parent. We would have all taken our model from Adam and Adam's children, and with the integrity and uprightness of unfallen human nature, it would have been natural. But you've got hang-ups because of sin. Sinful patterns in your own parents.

40:46 Sinful kinks and twists in your psyche. I thought Jesus came to save us from our sins and to make us like himself. A lot of you think, oh, well, Pastor Martin, you're just giving a polemic because you're a hugger. I wasn't brought up in a huggy home.

41:06 Thank God when we were little, there was.

41:10 But I didn't get hugs from the time I was probably 12 years old onward. I longed for it. But my father's father died when he was just in his early teens. And my mother came out of a home where the father was an alcoholic and cruel.

41:29 Neither one of them knew how, by example. And while I've blessed God for their knowledge, I've learned to be a noble Christian character and draw fruits from it almost every day of my life consciously. That was an area I said, Lord, I don't fault my parents. I'm not bitter to them.

41:46 Do I sound like a bitter man to my parents? But I said, I want to learn from what was not there as well as what was there. I want to stand on the shoulders of their graces. And by the grace of God, fill up the things that we're lacking.

42:00 And I've told our children all during their development, as you get old enough to look back in with some degree of accuracy, of accurate perception in areas where we didn't do all we could have or did things we shouldn't. You stand on the generation of your grandparents and on your parents, and you'll be better than we ever were. Don't cop out by saying, I'm not put together that way. The reason you aren't is because of sin, ultimately.

42:26 And Jesus came to save us from the sin of our emotional hang-ups. Came to save us from the sin of failing to give our children what they so desperately need, of the affirmation of our love in appropriate physical ways. At the time you didn't read your Bible, now you do. A lot of other things you didn't do, you now do.

42:50 Because of the grace of God. Well, God can make you into an appropriate hugging parent. Yes, he can. You say, but I feel so funny.

43:00 So what? Felt funny the first time you opened up a hymn book, sang a hymn. Felt funny the first time you bowed your head and prayed in a public place. I don't know.

43:09 I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

43:11 I don't know. But you do it. Now that's a cop-out. And some of you have been copping out too long and what you are doing is denigrating the grace of Christ.

43:21 You're saying Christ's grace is enough to pardon all my sins, to give me acceptance in the court of Heaven that will stand the burning eye of God in the day of judgment and give me a righteous admission to Heaven as a disinherited son, now inherited and constituted a son by adoption. But that grace. can't overcome all the kinks and the broken circuits and the bad patterns and make me a parent who gives to my children an appropriate amount of regular physical affection. I don't like my Savior being insulted. That's a denigration of my Lord. He is able. He is able. Go to him.

44:10 Tell him, Lord Jesus, make me like yourself. You didn't just point to the kid and leave him there to read your love in the heart. When the little kid felt lost and alone and intimidated and scared in the crowd, you picked him up, and by your physical embrace, you made him know all was well. God have mercy. If we raise a generation that says, well, if you're Latino and black and Jewish, you can be a hugger. But if you're European or Dutch or Scottish and Anglo-Saxon, you'll just have to be a cold fish. I know no such distinctions in the word of God. Don't limit the grace of God by your ethnic background. Don't do it. I was thinking as I

The Prodigal Son and the Holy Kiss: Further Biblical Support and Application

45:07 allowed my mind to ruminate a bit how some of you would rewrite the story of the returning prodigal. While he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and ran to him and struck out his right hand and said, Son, good to see you. That's the way some of you'd rewrite it. That isn't the way God took this sinner back. He didn't stick his hand out. He threw his arms around me. He lavished his love upon me. Be like God. Be like God. And of course, some of you are already saying, hey, how come you haven't used the big guns, the five imperatives? Greet one another with a holy kiss. I thought I'd

45:59 save the 16-inch guns till last. Four times in the epistles, greet one another with a holy kiss. Greet one another with a kiss of love. It's not optional. And if we don't learn it in our families, we'll not have appropriate physical affection shown in our assembly. The place our children should learn the difference between the embrace of a wholesome relationship, non-erotic, is in our homes. Then they can transfer it naturally to the church. The only place a young man feels the softer flesh of a woman is in the church.

46:39 He might get erotically awakened if he hasn't hugged his sisters and hugged his mother. So what's the big deal? Women feel different than men. But I hug my dad and I hug my buddies. You see, rather than awaken eroticism, it's a divinely ordained means, I believe, is one of the side effects to avoid the awakening of sinful eroticism. So, parents, if you would, by God's grace, attain and maintain a climate characterized by warmth, closeness, captance, and goodwill, then be regularly, physically affectionate with your children. There are many times when a kid wonders if what he did has alienated you, then louder than a thousand words, you just say to the

47:37 kid, come here, come to daddy. And they come, wondering what they're going to get. Tongue-lashing, spanking, and you throw your arms around them and hold them. You know how you teach grace to your kids? You've got to teach them both grace and law. You teach them law, when they break the rules, they get punished. But there are some times when they break the rules and when they're expecting to get punished, you give them a gift. I saw it with my own kids and I looked at them and said, Dad, there's something wrong. What are you doing this? I said, I want you to understand what grace is. Grace is God's favor to the ill-deserving. You deserve to get the tar whipped out of you. Grace is God's favor to the ill-deserving.

48:18 But I want you to know what grace is. You'd be like God. What's he do with wicked men who deserve to have the tar whipped out of them? He sends his rain upon them. Do you not know that the goodness of God leads me to repentance? Romans 2, verse 4. You see, dear people, once you get hold of that theological principle, you find it pops out in a thousand practical ways as we seek to live under the discipline and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Well, I only have three minutes left.

Questions and Clarifications: Teaching Grace and Wise Reproof

48:52 Now they've got a clock that stares at me. I've got no excuse. But I'm determined not to run through this stuff, dear people. It's too crucial. So I will take, though, my remaining three minutes for questions, objections, supplemental material, any of my brethren on the eldership or the congregation at large. Unfair game for questions. Other passages that have come to mind? Yes, Cliff?

49:22 I'm not far with that. You mentioned the situation where you give them grace. Again, I wouldn't want to legislate. I'd say just periodically along the way, inject it into the overall structure. They ought to know the basic concept and we'll establish that when we come to deal with the proper use and abuse of the rod and the proper use and abuse of admonition. That one of the purposes of the rod is to teach that the doctrine of retribution. That when you violate the rules, you suffer for it. Philippians 7, verses 1 through 6. The doctrine of retribution. And the doctrine of truth.

50:12 a marvelous opportunity to teach the doctrine of grace, and that's favored to the ill-deserving. But when and where, at what point, I wouldn't dare legislate. I would just periodically sit down with my wife and say, honey, have we in any of our dealings with the kids injected a vivid illustration of grace in the dealings we have with our children? And I would say as a rule of thumb, if it is an area where there's a present ongoing controversy of wills, don't do it there.

50:44 But if there's an area where the child is basically pliant and obedient and submissive and has a good pattern, a good track record of obedience, but they blow it, that's the area I would say it's safe to demonstrate grace. Though they blew it and they deserve punishment, it's not an area that needs to be constantly punished. It's not an area that needs to be constantly punished. It's not an area that needs to be pressured and reinforced with unrelenting consistency because it's basically locked in place. I would say, I would go so far as to say, put it in an area that is not one of the present theaters of battle and clashes of will. Don't do it on the Kuwaiti border, all right? Do it somewhere else, all right? Another question. Yes, Mike?

51:40 No, it's not inconsistent. In fact, it's demonstrating to our kids that everything we do is not arbitrary. We're doing things wisely. It speaks of the benefit of a wise reprover upon an obedient ear.

52:10 So that the manner in which we would, for example, a two-year-old that in the presence of six couples sitting in a living room trying to have fellowship that reached over and touched something on the coffee table that he shouldn't, I would have no scruples whatsoever in front of the six couples taking the two-year-old and saying, now you do touch something you shouldn't, that's naughty, don't touch. But if it were a seven or eight-year-old who came into the room and ignored the people, forgot to say hello, how are you, social grace, you would not want to reprove the child in front of everyone and add unnecessary embarrassment. You might want to then in there say, folks, excuse me for a minute, honey, you want to come? Daddy wants to see you. And you have a pleasing look and you say, look, you walked in the room and you were rude. You acted like no one was there. Now I want you to

53:04 go back and do it all over again. And you come back in the room and you say hello to everyone. You don't embarrass the child. The two-year-old, even an open spanking in front of the six couples would be inappropriate even for a verbal admonition before a seven-year-old. And what that is, is being consistently wise rather than woodenly, legalistically, what's the word I want? The same in all of the administration of our discipline. And that way we're imparting to our children as well, the principles, which hopefully they will, as they get older, realize have been woven into the texture of their own psyches and their understanding so that they will not be arbitrary disciplinarians or arbitrary affectionarians with their kids. And it just means sensitivity.

54:00 It's what I try to practice with your own kids at the door. Some of your kids, it takes me two to three years to win a hug out of them. But I never force a hug on them. They'd hate my guts.

54:11 And that would not be loving. Love does not force itself, doesn't behave itself unseemly. And so you steam them with a little bit of love and squat down and make a funny face at them and pull their lip up and say, oh, you lost a tooth. And many times the bridge is crossed when the tooth comes through and they come running up and they want to show their tooth.

Conclusion and Prayer

54:34 Well, those are the little ways that with your own children you show a sensitivity to these various stages of development. And while our time is gone and the clock is staring at me and I have no excuse, so let's pray and then God willing we'll take up next week the necessity of being verbally and tangibly reassuring of your love and acceptance to your children. Let's pray together. Our Father, we are so thankful that we have the Scriptures as a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway.

55:07 We thank you that we have the blessed example of our Lord Jesus Christ. Perfect humanity set before us in the pages of Scripture. We thank you for his words, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. And oh Lord, we ask you to wash us in his blood for all of our failures as parents.

55:29 Fill us with your Spirit for those, our Father, who were brought up in a climate of coldness and distance, who find it easier to go to the dentist to have their wisdom teeth extracted than to go to the doctor. Lord, help them. Oh, help them not to turn away and denigrate and undervalue the grace of Christ. But may they cry to you for grace and take the steps necessary to cultivate the grace of being consistently and appropriately affectionate at the physical level with their own precious children.

56:07 Thank you for the many among us who are models of this principle that we can look to and from them learn. Oh, Father, we give you praise for all that you have done that we ask you to do yet more. Hear our cry and thank you for your help. In Jesus' name.

56:26 Amen. 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.

56:39 If you would like a free listing of other audio cassettes and books, please call us at 1-800-722-7222. Or if you prefer, you can write us at the Trinity Book Service, Post Office Box 569.