Verbal & Tangible Assurances and Involvements

Introduction: The Series on Child Training and the Climate of the Home

0:06 How Not to Foul Up the Training of Your Children. This is cassette number 8 in a series given by Pastor Albert N. Martin in the adult Sunday school class of the Trinity Baptist Church on March 3, 1991.

0:21 Now for the benefit particularly of our visitors this morning, let me seek to explain what we are presently doing in this, our adult Bible class. In a series of sermons which Pastor Nichols was asked by his fellow elders to bring some months ago dealing with the aggravated vices of this present generation, he dealt with the very distasteful subject of child molestation. And it was thought that it would be helpful after dealing with that subject that we would give our attention to a broader concern of more generic child abuse. And what began as a couple of Sunday school lessons has flowered now in the early days of the Trinity Baptist Church. Now into this, our eighth study, and the emphasis has changed from that of mere child abuse to the subject that now is before us under the heading How Not to Foul Up the Training of Your Children. And if you ask how you got from one into the other, it was wrestling with the biblical witness to the kinds of child abuse that would be consistent with believers who are in a state of grace. And certainly a pattern of sexual molestation is not consistent with being in a state of grace for no fornicator.

1:45 That is, no one guilty of a pattern of sexual uncleanness of any kind, mentally or physically, will enter the kingdom of God. And furthermore, the brutality generally associated with child abuse is of the very essence of murder and the destruction of another, and no murderer shall enter the kingdom of heaven. So we came up with a definition. We came up with a definition of child abuse consistent with the actings of remaining sin and ignorance in the life of believers.

2:16 And that definition focused upon the duty of parents as outlined in Colossians 3 and in Ephesians 6. And we stated that the kind of child abuse which was, alas, consistent or possible for a believer, though not consistent with what he is, is that child abuse defined, as the pattern of provocation of a child to anger or exasperation, or the neglect of those means ordained for his nurture, that is, chastening and admonition, or an aggravated individual act of physical or verbal abuse of our children. And so as we have been wrestling with this whole matter of what we as believers can do, alas, do to foul up the training of our children, we have tried to put the whole subject into categories that will be relatively easy to retain in the memory and also to have as a reference point in evaluating our work and our responsibilities as parents. And so we have begun with what we have called the overall spiritual, emotional, and physical climate

3:37 of the home, which is absolutely crucial. We have not yet begun to address the matter of correction and admonition and the ways in which we can fail in the implementation of these two things, for unless the climate of the home is what it ought to be, then the rod of correction will lose much of its effectiveness and our admonition will have little bite in the consciences of our children. And we have likened the negative atmosphere of the home to the influence of invisible radon and invisible suspended particles of asbestos, which are noxious and deadly, and that we, as the Lord's people, must earnestly pray and labor to create a climate that is free of those spiritually noxious influences which would be deadly to our children. And the first one that we focused upon, was hypocrisy and sham, as opposed to sincerity and reality in the religious life and experience of the parents. If the climate of the home is not one of reality in the spiritual experience of the parents, then a horrible, a horrible dose of radon and asbestos is loose in that household. And then we have noted, secondly,

5:04 that when the climate in the home is one of coldness, distance, tension, and ill will, as opposed to warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill, then we have indeed a situation of deadly levels of radon and asbestos. And so we have been focusing upon what is involved in the maintenance of that climate of warmth and closeness, acceptance and goodwill among the various people who comprise the family. And so we dealt briefly with the necessity of the maintenance of harmony, warmth, closeness, acceptance, goodwill between the husband and wife, and then we have been focusing upon the maintenance, the cultivation of the same qualities in the relationship of these parents to the children. And in setting out the model for all of this, we have established from Scripture that it is God as our Heavenly Father who is the paradigm or the pattern or the model of our parenting in relationship to our human or earthly children. And we have demonstrated from the Scriptures that God manifests to His children a disposition and a relationship

6:28 marked by warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill. And therefore we, who are the heads of families and responsible for the climate of the home, must be committed to attain, maintain, and increase in our homes a climate marked not just by the absence of tension and distance, non-acceptance and ill-will, but by a climate characterized positively by warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill. And if this is to be true, it will make tremendous demands upon each parent in his or her relationship to God. And we consider what it means for us in our relationship to God as Christian parents to receive the needed grace to attain and maintain and increase such a climate. Now we're concerned with what we must do in the strength of God and by the rule of Scripture to maintain that climate in our relationship to our children. And last week we took up just the first of these practical guidelines for the creation of a climate of warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill with our children. And that was that we should

The First Practical Guideline: Consistent Physical Affection

7:54 engage in regular, consistent physical affection with our children. Now I qualified the statement by saying we must recognize the various temperaments, stages, circumstances, and gender of our children. So any book, any tape, any preacher, any so-called expert that's got it all categorized at age two you do this, at age three you do this, is full of nonsense. Don't listen to him.

8:25 Don't take his word for it. Though it'd be nice to have it all laid out for us that way, God doesn't deal with us that way. We're to be like God, and God doesn't deal with us in terms of wooden categories. He deals with us in terms of who and what we really are and where we are in our maturation.

8:45 We must be like God, then, even in this matter of demonstrating to our children consistent physical affection, always taking into consideration their various temperaments, stages, circumstances, and gender. And we demonstrated the validity of this assertion by seeing God revealed in Jesus Christ, who said, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. And our Lord demonstrated His warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill to children, to men, and to women by appropriate physical expressions of affection. Now we come this morning, hopefully, in the time that remains, to take up the second and third ways at the practical level that we as parents, under God, can seek to create, attain, and increase a climate of warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill. You see, you keep repeating those terms. That's right. I hope when this is all over, they'll burn in your memory, and you'll constantly, as you move about your home, the moment you sense anything of tension, say, this ought not to be.

The Second Practical Guideline: Verbal and Tangible Reassurance of Love and Acceptance

10:03 I can't think of anything. Don't forget it. Turning on the news and reading the paper won't make it go away. That you men will rear back on your high legs and say, this is wrong.

10:14 Go to God on your knees, cry for wisdom, and then go into the household and say, I'm going to find this radon and get it out of here. So I hope the words stick until you men under God will take your leadership, and you women learning from your husbands will implement the same principles when daddy is not at home. Well, what is then the second, or what are the second and third practical ways that we must seek to create this climate? Having considered the necessity of being consistently physically affectionate with our children, we come now to two and three.

10:55 Two, be verbally and tangibly reassuring of your love and acceptance of your children. Be verbally and tangibly reassuring of your love and acceptance. The key text is 1 John 3 and verse 18. And then from that text, we shall look at God as our model and then make application to us as parents.

11:26 And by the way, I must express great thanks to the deacons for the work they've done to adjust the fans and the rest. I'm glad to be able to speak without a roar in my ears. Maybe completely turned off, I don't know. It's so silent now, it's lovely.

11:43 They slowed the fan down and experimenting to see how it will work out. But I do appreciate their labors and they even have a clock now, so we can't claim ignorance. Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, but at least makes people a little more sympathetic. But we've got a nice little white face clock with black hands staring at us up here in the pulpit.

12:04 So unless we claim that it's not within range of the bifocals or the top, there's no excuse, alright? 1 John 3 and verse 18. My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue, but in deed and truth. Now, is this a flat prohibition of ever expressing love in word and with the tongue?

12:33 No. It's a figure of speech, an absolute for the relative. Let us not be content merely to express our love in word and with the tongue, but also express it and manifest it in deed and in truth. Now, the assumption of the verse is that the easiest way to express love is with words and with the tongue.

12:59 And the more difficult way to express love is by deeds and in reality. You see that in the text? What's it take to frame a word? A little air pushed up by the diaphragm over the larynx and a little exercise of the lips and the tongue and the other speech apparatus.

13:19 I love you. Daddy's pleased with you. Mummy loves you. What did that take?

13:25 A little breath. Probably couldn't even measure the caloric energy it took to say those few words. That's easy. That's easy.

13:32 So John says, I'm assuming you're doing the easier. But don't stop with the easier. Move on from and build upon the verbal to the deed and the truth. Even, even the deed of martyrdom for your brother or sister if necessary because that's the kind of love wherewith God has loved us.

13:56 And if we love our brethren, we should not only be prepared to lay down our lives for them, the ultimate sacrifice, we will then part with lesser things than our lives, even this world's goods, which is the context of this verse. So you see, based upon this text, God is concerned that in our relationships as brethren, our love be manifested not merely in word and in tongue, though he assumes we'll do the easier, but also in tangible manifest ways affirming our love. Now, looking to God as our Heavenly Father and model, is that what he has done for us? Yes. And let me state from the scriptures and demonstrate that God has manifested his love in verbal and tangible reassuring ways by his saving acts which demonstrate his heart, by his words which interpret his acts and his heart, and in his own relationship to his own beloved Son. And I hope that threefold cord will convince you that as a parent, if you're to be like God, you must not only be consistently physically affectionate with your children,

God's Model of Verbal and Tangible Assurance: Saving Acts and Words

15:20 but be verbally and tangibly reassuring of your love and your acceptance. All right? God's saving acts which demonstrate the disposition of his heart. And perhaps no text more powerfully demonstrates this, though there may be some that do it with equal force, than Romans 8 and verse 32.

15:43 Romans 8 and verse 32. What is the disposition of God's heart? Paul argues from his crowning saving act. He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?

16:09 What is the disposition of God's heart? Paul says, well, look at Golgotha. And there when we behold God the Father, sparing not his Son, but delivering him up, and packed into those words, is the full spectrum of the Biblical doctrine of all the horrors of what our Lord bought us, and what he bore upon the cross, gave him up to the unvented fury of his own holy wrath, gave him up to the viciousness of men, and to the powers of darkness. This is your hour in the power of darkness, Jesus said.

16:47 He did not spare him, but he gave him up for all of those things on our behalf. Now, if he's shown his disposition of heart in giving the greatest for us, can we not reason that our heart is so full that it will give us everything necessary to bring us home safely at last to heaven, and everything we need from this point to that? If he's given the greatest in the giving of his Son, he has, as it were, in this one great saving act, laid bare his heart. And we must continually read the heart of God, not from his present providences, but from the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

17:30 You see, he has not only given his saving acts to reveal his heart, he has given us his verbal assurances of his love. And I just went down through, and I'll quote these texts as they flooded into my own mind. Jesus said, Are you not of much more value than many sparrows? I have loved you with an everlasting love.

17:54 The good shepherd loves the sheep. I no longer call you servant, but friends. Peter, you will deny me, but I have prayed for you. Amazing statement.

18:09 Peter, though I anticipate your horrible denial, I am not turning into a posture of non-acceptance. I'm praying for you, and my prayers have prevailed for you. Think of it. If ever the Lord could show non-acceptance, it would be when he knows someone's going to curse, and with oaths deny that he even knows the Lord Jesus.

God's Model of Verbal and Tangible Assurance: Relationship with His Son

18:35 But not so. God, revealed in Christ, shows his verbal, tangible assurance of the love and acceptance that is toward his children. And then it has refreshed my own heart to meditate upon this third line of evidence, God's relationship to his own unique Son. In Matthew 3 and verse 17, in the baptism of Jesus, you might get the impression that the Father was simply saying something about his Son in the presence of others.

19:12 Matthew 3, 16 and 17. Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway from the water, and the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and coming upon him, and, lo, a voice out of the heavens saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. You might get the impression that the Father said something about his Son and that others heard it, and that Jesus could infer from that, Well, if my Father is speaking of his good pleasure towards me to others, then surely it must be a reality, and I am therefore warranted to deduce that he's well pleased with me. But when we turn to Luke chapter 3, we see that the Father said something far more significant. In the parallel passage, we read verse 21 of Luke 3, It came to pass, when all the people were baptized, that Jesus also having been baptized, and praying, in a context of having that concentrated, conscious communion with his Father in specific prayer, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form, very significant, as a dove upon him, and a voice came out of heaven, not directed to others about him, but directed to him.

20:41 Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased. Oh, you say, Why would Jesus need the affirmation verbally and tangibly of his being well pleasing to the Father? He's the Son of God! He doesn't have insecurities and a problem with identity and acceptance rooted in the twisted psyche of souls that are affected by original sin.

21:14 Why should he have to have that? Because it is inherent in even the sinless Son of God that he has a need to hear the Father's voice of approbation, and to see the Spirit coming in a form that impinges upon his own senses. For others, yes, but I believe in the context even for himself. So what is the Father doing to the Son?

21:45 He is giving to the Son verbal and tangible assurance of his love, his acceptance, and his pleasure. You want to argue with that exegesis? I didn't write it! There it is!

Application to Parents: Overcoming Assumptions and Insecurities

22:02 Now you parents, can you see your model? You have a son, you have a daughter, you have sons, daughters, and they come into this world with all the horrible effects of sin upon their psyches. And part of that effect of sin, some of it legitimate, some of it not legitimate, is with a conscience that accuses them, and with mom and dad who in a sense mirror the authority of God, and the sense of a guilty conscience keeping them at distance from God. Our kids do want to know, does mommy love me?

22:43 Does daddy really love me? Does mommy accept me? Does daddy accept me? They're always pointing out my faults, and rightly so.

22:51 They're even warming my behind when I deserve it, rightly so. But when they point out my faults and warm my behind, do they really still love me in spite of my behind-warming deeds? My behind-warming deserving deeds? Do they really love me?

23:09 And you say, well, my kids know I love them. I go out and bust my hide for them. Well, thank God in your acts you are demonstrating your love, even as God in His acts demonstrates His love. But He didn't stop with His acts.

23:26 He gives us His words. He gives us His words. He gives us His words! And we are to be like our Heavenly Father.

23:35 You say, surely my kids know I love them. I sweat over the stove. I throw their dirty clothes in the washer, and I dry them, and I iron them. And I feel like a worn-out wench at the end of the day for my kids.

23:47 Surely they know I love them. Don't assume, Mom, that your kids reason from all that work to your love to them. What will it cost you, in the middle of all that, to just stop and call your son over, call your daughter over, your hair all scrubbly, and you look a mess, you got no makeup on, you wouldn't win a beauty contest with a bunch of blind judges. And you call your son or daughter over, and you pop them up on your knee, and they say, what do you want, Mom?

24:22 And you say, well, Mommy just wants you to know. You see her running around here doing all this? Yes. You know why she does all this?

24:29 Why? First of all, because she loves God. That's because Mommy loves you. And when you find your socks all rolled up and nice and clean, and your drawer and your underwear, each time you reach out, I want you to know that when you do, it's not written on them, but I want you to think of it.

24:46 Mommy loves you. Mommy loves you. Mommy loves you. Mommy loves you.

24:51 What else did you want to say, Mom? What's this? Nothing else. Just wanted to tell you.

24:55 Now, how long did that take you? What did that cost you? How did that greatly disrupt your daily schedule? You dads, you dads, when you come home, and you're faced with the pressures and the responsibilities and things that have to be done, and I know something about them.

25:13 I'm not a eunuch who was never married, someone who didn't have children. I don't talk to you like a priest. But how much does it take to sit down and just call the kid that you may have to whomp his behind an hour from now for something culpable, to call him to you and put your arms around him and say, Son, Daddy just wants you to know when he was a boy and grew up and thought of becoming a daddy and everything he thought about being a daddy would be, I want you to know you filled up my heart with everything I ever thought being a daddy could be. And you tell the kid you love him.

25:52 You accept him, fully knowing the faults and the areas of character that need to be worked upon. You take the time to make conscience, to be like God, not only physically affectionate with your children, but verbally and tangibly assuring them of your love and your acceptance. Well, you say, well, Pastor, give me some rules. How many times am I not going to give you anything?

Critique of Legalistic Parenting Advice and the Consequences of Neglect

26:24 How many rules? But I'll tell you one rule I'm going to hope to blast, not with an M16, not with a .50 caliber machine gun, and not even with a Patriot missile, but with a nuclear warhead. And that's that stupid, unbiblical notion floating around this church in a series of tapes that when Dad comes home, Mom shoves all the kids off in the room and she meets Daddy at the door, trimmed up and prissy, and that way you show the kids that your relationship to your husband is superior, previous to, and of more importance than the relationship to the children.

27:07 That's nothing but a bunch of legalistic nonsense. And if any of you have listened to that stuff and have bought it, I hope you'll unbuy it. And I resent the fact that anyone teaching that comes into this church unproven, untested, and freely pronounces his legalistic garbage among the ears of insecure parents who are just ready to latch on to that kind of specific legalistic guidance. You have many ways to prove to your kids that this relationship between you and your wife is warm and loving and dynamic and growing and precious, but one of them is not to shove them off in a room when Daddy's coming home.

27:51 What a way to prove your full acceptance and love. What greater delight does a true mother have than to see the look in the kiddies' eyes when they hear the gravel crunching and Daddy's car is coming up the driveway and they see the kids running to the window. And then when Daddy gets out of the car and they go running to the door and they jump up into his arms. And what gives a mother a greater sense of fulfillment than I've had a part in giving that delight to my husband and the father of those children.

28:20 And Daddy affirms it's so good to see you. I thought about you at work today, couldn't wait to get home. And he loves them up a little bit and he may just have to give Mom a peck on the cheek because she's bending over the stove fixing supper. She'll have time for a fuller course later on.

28:37 But you show in tangible ways your love, your acceptance of your kids. You see, if the only time you become explicitly verbal with your kids is when you correct them, admonish them. And if the only time you tangibly express anything is when your hand is on their behind or it's holding them holding the spanking stick or whatever thing you use for corporal punishment, do you see why we have messed up adults who wonder if someone preaches with some authority and bite? Does Pastor really love us?

29:16 Does he hate us? We've got people who can't relate to authoritative preaching because they didn't have verbal affirmation and tangible expressions of love when they were kids. It doesn't matter to these people that I give them a hug at the door that they see me picking up their kids and loving them, that I ask them how they're doing. It all gets lost the moment there's a verbal barrage of intense applicatory thundering.

29:45 They can't take it. Why? Well, with some it's because they're fighting God and they have a bad conscience. I know that.

29:51 But with others it's because they were brought up wrong. They had dumb mothers and fathers. And I don't mean stupid in the head. I mean dumb.

30:00 They didn't speak their love. And to them, intense, give language always meant one thing. A sense of rejection. I blew it again.

30:12 I didn't please mommy and daddy. I blew it again. Blew it again. And they project all of that onto me and my fellow elders.

30:20 And we've got to live with it. But you take the kids who come up into manhood from a home where, yes, there was stern reproof and spankings where necessary. But verbal and physical affirmations of love and acceptance, they have no problem sorting them out. These matters in preaching.

30:39 No problem. Why? Because that part of their souls was properly nurtured and developed in a home where love was not only there in the heart and manifested in deeds, but was frequently framed by words. Now, if it's something you say, it's so hard for me to say the words I love you.

31:05 And I almost thought, it turns out I almost thought I thought of almost doing a little experiment in class dynamics. But I said, no, some might think that was too condescending and insulting. But I want to assure you, you will not have a heart attack, your hair will not suddenly turn gray, nor will you turn into a block of stone if you say the words I love you. Some of you find it hard to say it even to your wives.

31:35 Some of you find it almost impossible to say it to your kids. But may I say, try it. They'll like it. Sit them on your knee and say, I hope your kids know that Daddy loves you and proves it by his deeds.

31:51 But Daddy wasn't brought up in a home where anybody said they loved him. And it's not part of me. But Daddy sees from the word of God that he's going to be like God. He's got to tell you he loves you.

32:02 Now, bear with me. I may kind of stutter a little bit when I try to tell you I love you. I may kind of mumble it into my whiskers. What did you say, Dad?

32:11 Oh, didn't you hear me? What? What was that? What are you, kids?

32:18 God's given me light. I've not given you what you deserve of the verbalization of my love. And Daddy's going to change by the grace of God. Mommy's going to change.

32:28 Some of you mothers, your love is proven in your deeds. You were willing to carry that child, end up looking like a pear, go through the throes of labor, bring that little one into the world. You nursed it at your breast. You spent sleepless nights.

32:44 You spent and spent and spent and spent for that child in the expenditure of energy and the way you care for the household. Yes, but Mom, Mom, you've got to get it here on your lips. Your deeds are not self-interpreting to your children any more than God's deeds are self-interpreting. He tells us what His deeds mean.

33:09 He affirms His love by the act of the cross and by the word, I've loved Thee with an everlasting love. love. Oh, you say, but won't that make a home all gushy-mushy? Now, God give us such gushy-mushy homes. If that's what it is, gushy-mushy to be like God, then you call it what you want.

33:31 But just do it. Just do it so that your children will not grow up wondering, am I accepting the problem many husbands have right now with their wives is because correction and rebuke and spankings were the only verbal and physical bridge between them and their parents. They can't conceive that correction can be an expression. They didn't get it in their homes, and now when their husbands who tell them that they love them, who prove it by their deeds, the moment they correct them, the poor wife goes in a heap. Not because she's a perverse witch.

34:14 It's because emotionally and psychologically she can't take it. Correction equals rejection.

34:21 Where did she learn that? She learned it. A rotten radon, asbestos-infected home in which she was raised. And God have mercy on any kids who go out of Trinity and have to be those kind of wives. Now, a husband's got to take a woman if she's there and not write her off. He's got to teach her. He's got to teach her that correcting her is not rejecting her. He's got to build up a constant wad of verbal and physical expressions of his acceptance in order to lay a feather of rebuke upon it.

34:56 And then he finds, ooh, she fit that all right. So he keeps thickening the wad. And after a few years, he's able to say, honey, you're out of line, and say it just like that. And she's not shaken at all that her husband loves her and accepts her. He's nurtured her and made up what was lacking in the home. But, oh, far better for us to send out into life women prepared for an assertive, godly husband who can lovingly reprove and rebuke without having his wife end up into a pile of emotional distress. I never realized that, oh, where in the world do you think wives come from but from the homes that nurture them? What makes up their psyche? What gives them the ability to know that correction

35:48 does not mean rejection? That reproof does not mean rejection? The privilege of teaching that is ours as parents. And we do it by physically.

The Third Practical Guideline: Cultivating Genuine Interest in a Child's World

36:03 Expressing our love, but by verbally and tangibly expressing our love and our acceptance of our children. But then number three, cultivate and nurture a genuine interest in your child's world of thinking, interests, and activity. You want to have a climate with your children marked by warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill? Then you've got to make it evident that you're willing to cultivate and nurture a genuine interest in your child's world of thinking, interests, and activity.

36:37 And I say, surely, pastor, you're pressing things to say God's like that with us. No, I'm not. I want you to look at four texts of scripture with me. Matthew 6 and verse 8. And Jesus is teaching us to pray. What does he say? Do not be like the Pharisees and the Gentiles. I'm sorry, the Gentiles. The Pharisees and the Gentiles. who have a prayer wheel concept.

37:13 More prayers said, more likelihood of being answered. Don't be like them. They think they should be heard for their much speaking. Be not like unto them, for your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him.

37:26 Now, how does my Father know what I have need of? If He am interested in my world. He knows what I have need of, because my world's things and concerns is of importance to Him. You mean the God who's sitting as king over the scud missiles and Saddam Hussein and General Schwarzkopf is interested in my little world?

37:51 That's what my Bible says. In fact, so interested that the mundane things of my daily bread, He knows that I have need of it. Chapter 6 and verse 32.

38:07 For after all these things, food, clothing, raiment, shelter, the basic necessities of life do the Gentiles seek. That's all their life consists in, a preoccupation with things. He said, don't be like them, for your Heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Notice He doesn't say God generically, but your Heavenly Father knows you have need of these things.

38:33 Then Psalm 139. In my recent reading through the book of Psalms, this very familiar psalm took on, fresh preciousness to my own heart as we were into this study. So often we think of the 139th Psalm as though God were the epitome of the most clever Scotland Yard sleuth. He's searched us, He's known us, never gets us out of sight.

39:01 That's not the concept of Psalm 139. Whatever David was meditating upon, it blew his mind to the point where he was lost in the wonder of it and filled with the glory of it. He was, stunned with holy awe, and he was provoked to holy shouting and dancing. For after he talks about God being acquainted with all His ways right down to his thoughts, knowing the thoughts before he even frames them in his own mind, what does he say in verse 6?

39:34 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain unto it. Then he goes into another cycle.

39:41 There's nowhere where I can escape from the presence and knowledge of God, and what does this bring forth from his heart? Verse 14, I will give thanks unto thee. I'm fearfully, wonderfully made, wonderful of thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. Verse 17, How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God.

40:02 How great is the sum of them. This is precious stuff to the psalmist. He says, Everything about me is known by my God and my Father. Well, how does God know when I sit down and rise up if He isn't interested in my world?

40:19 I sat down there, and then I rose up and came up here. What's the big deal about that? Well, the big deal is my heavenly Father is watching over all that pertains to me because my world is of concern and interest to Him.

40:34 Then Psalm 37, 4, Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thy heart. Isn't that amazing? God watches over even the sanctified desires of my heart, and when He can give me what my heart desires, nothing pleases Him more than when my heart is so under the impress of the sanctifying influence of the Spirit that my desires coalesce with the will of God. Nothing pleases God more than to say, Oh, that's just what my child desires, and that's just what I can give Him, consistent with my highest goals to make Him like my Son, consistent with His ultimate and highest good. And may I say it reverently, nothing makes God more happy than when He can give us what our hearts desire.

41:31 Now, that's our heavenly Father. Now, how can He do all of that if He's not interested in our little world?

41:39 I don't know how you can interpret these passages apart from the fundamental premise that God is our Father, interested in our world of thinking. He knows my thoughts afar off. My world of interests. Delight thyself in the Lord and He'll give thee the desires of my heart, my activity, my needs.

Application to Parents: Self-Denial and Avoiding Self-Centeredness

42:02 Your heavenly Father knows the things you have need of. And so you and I as parents, if we're to develop and increase in a relationship of closeness and warmth and acceptance and goodwill, we must, by the grace of God, cultivate and nurture a genuine interest in our children, a child's world of thinking, interest, and activity. Now, let me say by way of application, there's no way you're going to do this if you're full of yourself.

42:37 There are few things that make more demands upon us in the area of self-denial than being a godly parent, and this is one of them. Because the world of your child in those early ages of development is a world so far removed from you that many times, unless God's given you the kind of, temperament and has molded you by other influences that you just really never grew out of the kid in your own heart and you delight to come down to where your kids are because it gives you a legitimate excuse to play the fool without being culpable. Of course, I'm not talking about anyone in particular that way. When I find myself instinctively, without even realizing what I'm doing, crawling on all fours in the foyer and then I look up and see 20 people looking at me like I've gone crazy, then I realize, I can take no credit for the fact that God put me together in such a way and surrounded me with influences that I never really grew out of my childhood. I don't have to force myself to be interested in the kid's world of crawling around and playing horse and all the rest. But some of us aren't put together that way. And I'm not projecting my own peculiar temperament upon any of you.

43:47 I'm locking this in to God as our pattern. And therefore, you and I, if we are not natively inclined that way and we're not molded in shape that way, we must consciously deny ourselves. What you want to do when you come home is grab the paper and read the business column. You want to know what's happening with your stocks and your bonds.

44:11 That's your world of interest. Or maybe you want to read the sports page.

44:15 But that's not where your kids are at. Their world has been taken up with the fact that that day at school, your son or your daughter was humiliated. They got the lowest grade in the class. And they felt peer shame and peer rejection and their spirit is wounded.

44:32 And if you would only open your eyes and put your stupid paper aside until the kids go to bed,

44:38 you'd see it in the eyes of your child. And you need to take the little one aside and say, Daddy notices your eyes look a little sad. Something happened at school today? Oh, nothing.

44:50 Well, nothing was pretty important because I can sure see it in your eyes. Oh, wasn't there anything? Not a kid's trying to prove it and wasn't any big deal. But you tell him, yes, it is.

44:59 Well, Dad, it's really silly. Well, no, it's not silly. If it makes you look sad, son, it's important to Daddy. You tell Daddy.

45:08 You see, you can't be full of self, full of self-interest, full of that sandedness that is the... of so many of our homes and be that kind of a dad, that kind of a mother.

45:23 No way. If the TV is your master in your home, the minute you come through the door, flick on the tube,

45:31 kids can be sending out all kinds of signals. You don't hear them. Your eyes are glued on the...

45:35 And there's no way if you don't make efforts to find and nurture various spheres of interest. Not force your own upon your children, but find out how God's put them together and incline them in their interest. He always dreamed, if I have a daughter, she's just going to love to learn to sew and to knit and all the rest. Lo and behold, she's more interested in going out and digging in the dirt and being a little farmeress.

46:09 And she just loved to have a little place, just one meter, three feet square in the backyard where she could plant her own seeds and watch them grow and weed them. And you hate to get dirt under your fingernails. Yeah.

46:22 So, mom, you've got to deny yourself. Develop an interest. Now, not eventually, but you won't teach your daughter a modicum of those domestic skills against her natural inclination. We'll come to that later under admonition.

46:34 Okay? But in those early years, finding where their interests are. You're a dad. And you're almost obsessed to the point of idolatry.

46:43 The sports. And you always dream, man, I get a kid, before he can coddle, I have a baseball glove on his hand. And by the time he can crawl, I'll have him with a football helmet on his head. And lo and behold, the minute he crawls, he goes over and reaches up and starts plunking the piano with his fingers.

46:57 And he's fascinated with the piano. And as he begins to develop his whole physiology, it's that of a pianist and not a halfback. What are you going to do? Are you going to force your own fantasies on that kid?

47:12 God have mercy on you. God, have mercy on you and God have mercy on your kid. Because you'll always feel rejected because he wasn't a doc.

47:23 And they feel he's a fruitcake because he's fascinated with the beauty of music. And you may you feel that way.

47:32 God have mercy on you, father.

47:35 So full of yourself that you want to project your own frustrated athletic ambitions through your own kids.

47:44 And I've seen it at the Little League games and at the Pop Warner things. Kids that have no aptitude for baseball and football. And their dad's driving them, driving them, driving them, driving them. And the kids knowing they're as klutzy as they can be and making asses of themselves in front of their peers and others.

48:01 And their psyche's being bruised and pummeled.

48:06 You can understand it in the world. But when you see that among professing Christians, you say, do they have any sense of their heavenly father?

48:15 He knows me. He's made me. He understands me. He gives me the desires of my heart, which may be utterly different from the desires of an equally sanctified heart in my heart.

48:27 My brother, who lives on the other side of the duplex with me, he gives him the desires of his heart. And it would be torture if he reversed the two.

48:38 You've got to be like God.

Summary of Guidelines and Call to Action

48:41 You've got to stop this business of determining what the specific interest and world and spheres of natural inclination will be. And I urge upon you mums and dads not to let your homes go to pot. We haven't touched upon the physical climate of the home yet. I didn't have a lapse of memory.

49:03 I'm focusing on the spiritual and emotional climate first. It's most crucial, most crucial that you and I must be prepared sometimes maybe to give up a little measure of neatness at four o'clock. You may have to wait till seven in order to take time verbally to affirm our love and acceptance of our children, to cultivate and nurture a genuine interest in our child's world of thinking, of interest and activity. So I lay before you, my brothers and sisters, these three very simple but basic ways which under God's blessing can help create, maintain and increase a climate in our home of closeness, of warmth, of acceptance and goodwill. Be consistently and regularly physically affectionate with your children. Constantly maintain measuring how you do this in terms of their temperament, their stages, their circumstances and their gender. Be verbally and tangibly reassuring of your love and acceptance and then cultivate and nurture a genuine interest in your child's world of thinking, interest and activity.

50:24 Now remember, this is not the whole of your duty. We're only talking about the climate of the home. We're not talking about reproof and admonition. We're focusing on simply the matter of the maintenance of this climate.

Concluding Exhortation: Repentance and Humility

50:36 Well, we've got three minutes left. We've probably got enough questions to take 30 minutes but we can at least entertain one or two. Questions or comments? Any questions?

50:54 Any of my fellow elders wish to make any comments to add to what I've said or to confirm in your own counseling experience the critical nature of these things? Feel free to buttress this with a word of admonition. Well, if no questions, well, I trust that the lack of questions means your consciences have been convinced and hopefully for some of you that you're smarting with conviction. But don't stop there.

51:22 God doesn't convict us just to make us smart. Go to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. Ask the Lord to forgive you for sins of ignorance as well as sins of willful self-centeredness. Believe the promise if we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us.

51:41 The God who's reproved us has not rejected us. Whom I love, Jesus said, I reprove and I chase him. The Lord Jesus has shown his love. If his arrows have found their mark in your heart, don't run from him.

51:55 Go to him. He woos us to draw us to him. And draw unto him. Then say, Lord, give me grace.

52:02 And this afternoon, have another little judgment day with your kids. Say, kids, it ain't over yet. Mom and Daddy met with you two, three weeks ago and several of you have told me you've had such times with your families. Say, we need to talk again today.

52:14 Mommy and Daddy have passed on what we picked up of the baggage in our own homes. Nobody said, I love you. Nobody hugged. Nobody was interested in anybody else's world.

52:24 And Mommy and Daddy see we've been projecting the things that we picked up and that's not right and God's dealt with us and we've asked his forgiveness and we ask you kids to forgive us. It's amazing how forgiving and forgetting kids are, isn't it? If we adults could only emulate. It's like kids, I know they're capable of it, but there's something about the kids, they hardly know how to hold a grudge.

52:46 It's a wonderful thing how quickly they forgive. So parents, don't hold back. Sit with your kids. Humble yourself before them.

52:54 Say, I've blown it in this area. And when you feel Daddy's not giving you the affirmation, help Daddy. Daddy's gonna try to learn. Help Daddy.

53:01 Oh, you say, that'll demean me in front of your kids. No, it isn't. It means you're strong enough in your identity as a man to seek the help of your own kids. That's a strong man, not a weak man.

53:11 It's a weak man, so insecure, he's gotta keep up his image of having everything in hand, everything in shape. That's a weak man. It's the strong man who can say, I've blown it. But by God's grace, I'm gonna change.

Prayer and Benediction

53:27 Help Daddy. Oh, may God grant that we'll follow that course. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, how we delight at the very name you have given to yourself.

53:44 We worship you as our Father, who, having accepted us in the Beloved, does not turn us aside, even when we've sinned willfully or ignorantly. We thank you that you reprove us without rejecting us. And we pray that you would have dealings with each of our hearts, that by your grace, we may create, maintain, and increase in our homes a climate of warmth, of acceptance, of closeness, of goodwill. Oh, God, help us.

54:22 Help us that we would bequeath to another generation men and women prepared for the noble roles of husband and wife and father and mother. May we not perpetuate the crippling influences that have impinged upon us. Oh, God, help us and give us grace for Jesus' sake. Amen.

Cassette Information

54:52 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 and books, please call us at 1-800-722-3584.

55:08 Or if you prefer, you can write us at the Trinity Book Service, Post Office Box 569, Montville, New Jersey, 010-722-3584.