Enforce Good Manners/Social Decorum

Introduction: The Exhortation to Enforce Good Manners

0:01 How not to foul up the training of your children. This is cassette number 38 in a series given by Pastor Albert N. Martin in the adult Sunday school class of the Trinity Baptist Church on December 22, 1991. For the benefit of any who may be visiting with us today, whom we do sincerely welcome into our midst in the name of our Lord Jesus, perhaps it would be helpful to let you know that for 36 class sessions during the past year, we have been considering together the very crucial subject of how not to foul up the training of our children.

0:46 And as we are winding this series down to its conclusion, I am setting before the class what I have called some miscellaneous concerns and exhortations on this broad and very important subject. And thus far we have addressed three such miscellaneous concerns, matters that were not touched upon in our long and concentrated perusal of some of the major concerns in the book of Proverbs, and I have stated them in the following exhortations.

1:22 One, do not deprive your children of the manifold benefits of Scripture memorization and contentment. And this includes non-medical and catechetical instruction. Number two, do not fail to impart to your children a biblical view of the stewardship of bodily health. And number three, do not fail to impart to your children a biblical view of the stewardship of material things.

1:51 Now today, we take up the fourth of these miscellaneous counsels and exhortations, and we will do so under this exhortation. Amen. Do not fail to enforce good manners and appropriate social decorum in your children. Do not fail to enforce good manners and appropriate social decorum in your children.

2:21 And because the material, it's vast and it's critical material, and I want to complete the study in this hour, I'll be making much more visual contact with my notes and rein in the temptation to take off and exhort and preach and admonish and amplify. And I do that convinced that that will ultimately prove to be the best line for optimum edification. Now, first of all, as I seek to open up this subject of the exhortation, do not fail to enforce good manners and appropriate social decorum,

Defining Good Manners and Enforcement

3:02 I want to address the general sphere of concern in this exhortation. The general sphere of concern in this exhortation. What do I mean when I refer to good manners and acceptable social decorum or appropriate social decorum? What do I mean when I refer to good manners and acceptable social decorum or appropriate social decorum?

3:22 Well, I'm referring to polite, socially proper ways of external behavior, particularly in the presence of others, as opposed to rude, insensitive, discourteous, boorish, and inconsiderate patterns of social conduct. Now, with reference to the word enforce, let me say, I have chosen it to be the best way to enforce good manners and appropriate social decorum. I have chosen it deliberately and purposefully. The word enforce, if you'll look it up in the dictionary, means very simply, to bring about or impose by force, to compel observance of something.

4:08 And so, I am exhorting you not to fail to enforce, not suggest, nearly teach about, but enforce good manners. And so, I am exhorting you not to fail to enforce good manners and appropriate social decorum. To enforce these things by this threefold cord of legitimate, God-given, delegated power of enforcement, which God has put in every parent's hands. Enforced by authoritative instruction.

4:43 I'm encouraging you to enforce good manners and appropriate social decorum by means of authoritative instruction. Bible-based, parentally directed instruction. Secondly, by reasonable and appropriate discipline. Here is a case where the nurturing of good manners and appropriate social decorum needs not only admonition, which is of the Lord, but also chastening, which is of the Lord.

5:19 It's amazing how quickly your child can renew, remember to say please and thank you if they know that failure to do so will be met with something other than a sweet little semi-crown by the parents. And then thirdly, you enforce by consistent example of good manners and acceptable social decorum in your own life and in the life of your wife or husband. And consistent parental example. And consistent parental example has a tremendous power to enforce upon the children our patterns of thought and behavior.

6:01 So that's the general sphere of concern in this exhortation. I'm exhorting you not to fail to enforce by this threefold, divinely instituted medium of influencing your children, good manners and appropriate social decorum. All right? Now, let's go.

Biblical Grounding: Good Manners as Moral Duty

6:21 Let's go. Now, secondly, having set out the general sphere of concern, we now address the biblical grounds on which this concern rests. Now, it's at this point I'm going after your consciences, because I'm very conscious that sitting here there are perhaps not a few of you who have imbibed the mentality in our day that the matter of good manners and social decorum is really a matter of Christian liberty. It is not.

6:51 It is not a matter of ethics and morality. Well, I want to persuade you that it is indeed a matter of ethics and morality. To put it bluntly in a way that I hope will have a shock effect right down to the toes of some of you, it is immoral to have bad manners and to indulge in a pattern of indecorous, inappropriate social decorum. It is immoral.

7:21 It is sin. It is immoral. It is lack of conscience. It is lack of conformity of and transgression of the law of God.

Pillar 1: The Law of God (Love for Neighbor)

7:32 Now, on what basis do I make such sweeping, dogmatic, authoritative assertions? Well, again, I rest my case down on three solid biblical pillars. Number one, the law of God. In Matthew 22, our Lord was asked a very vital question by one of the experts in Jewish law, called a lawyer, who in the Bible, I remind you, most frequently refers not to a man who passed the bar and works in settling disputes and representing people in civil courts, but

8:10 they were experts in the outworking and application of Jewish law as embodied in many of the various rabbinical traditions. And we read in Matthew 22 this very interesting encounter between a lawyer. And our Lord Jesus, verse 35, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, trying him, putting him to the test, teacher, which is the great commandment in the law. And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.

8:46 This is the great and first commandment. And the second, like unto it, is this. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth and the prophets.

9:08 And whatever else that final statement means, it does mean this, that all of the ethical, moral demands embodied in both the law and the prophets, which is terminology to cover the whole Old Testament revelation. Every single ethical norm. Every single ethical norm can be hung on either the hook of loving God with all our being or loving our neighbor as ourself. There is no divinely revealed precept that cannot be hung on one of these two commands.

9:40 Loving God with all our being, loving our neighbor as ourselves. Now if the whole sum of our horizontal duties is to love one's neighbor as oneself, then is it the same? Is it moral or a matter of liberty whether I love my neighbor or not? You say, if the whole essence of the law with regard to horizontal relationship is summed up in loving your neighbor as yourself, surely then loving one's neighbor is a matter of morality and ethics.

10:13 It is immoral. It is unethical. It is sin not to love one's neighbor. I hope I've carried your conscience.

10:20 Then the question is, well, in practical terms. How does love express itself in interpersonal relationships? And we could look in many places for the answer, but in the interest of time, I want to take you to a passage, the expressed purpose of which is to give us the most comprehensive, dense, practical description of how love manifests itself. In all of the Bible, you will not find this kind of dense, concentrated description of love's properties and attributes.

10:54 It is the most comprehensive, dense, practical description of how love manifests itself. And you're already thinking of the chapter. Some of you are turning to it. I hope 1 Corinthians 13.

11:02 And here in this love chapter, I want you to notice particularly two things that are said about the properties and actings of love in verse 5 because they have a direct and inescapable relationship to the matter of good manners and acceptable social decorum. 1 Corinthians 13 and verse 5. Love, which is the subject, going back to verse 4, love suffers long and is kind, love envies not, love vaunts not itself, is not popped up, doth not, love's still the subject,

11:38 doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own. Love does not behave unseemly. And if you'll look up this word. In your Strong's Concordance and then use some of your lexicons where words are defined by their usage in both the Scripture and in literature prior to the writing of the Scripture and in literature from the secular realm, you would come to the conviction that this word unseemly is a word that means shameful or harmful to another.

12:21 Love does not behave itself in a shameful manner. In a manner that is harmful to others. Love does not do that. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

12:39 Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Thou shalt not do those things that are unseemly to thy neighbor. In other words, love will not conduct itself shamelessly. Love does not behave itself unseemly.

12:54 Love does not behave itself unseemly. Love does not behave itself unseemly or unseemly with respect to others. Furthermore, we are told in this verse, love does not seek its own. That is, it is sensitive and considerate of the feelings, the sensibilities, the desires, and all of the whole spectrum of matters that come into manners and appropriate social decorum as we act with one another.

13:23 And love is not concerned about doing one's duty. That is, it is not sensitive and considerate of one another. my own thing and doing what I feel comfortable with and what I think is appropriate to me, but in knowing what is indeed appropriate in any given set of circumstances and is least likely to cause the pain and provocation in another by being inconsiderate, boorish, insensitive to accepted social mores, accepted canons of good manners, etc., etc.

14:01 Listen to Lenski's commentary on these two aspects of 1 Corinthians 13. He writes, When pride puffs up, unseemly bearing and conduct naturally follow. Tactlessness forgets its own place and fails to accord to others their proper due. Of respect, honor, or consideration.

14:25 Love is forgetful of self and thoughtful toward others. Paul himself is a good example. No matter where he might find himself, among friends or foes, before the common people or before rulers and kings, he always knew how to act as became his station and the position into which he was placed. He was sensitive to and expressed.

14:52 That's appropriate social decorum. Who taught this tentmaker such noble and beautiful manners, such perfect tact in all his bearing, that even the great in the world were compelled to respect him? Besser, that's the author who gave that last sentence, Besser thus points to the positive features suggested by Paul's negative statement, the propriety of bearing and conduct, and then he refers to the positive features suggested by Paul's negative statement. He refers us to Trench's treatment of the word schema.

15:27 And this is the word schema or its verb form with an alpha-privitive, a negative, in front of it. Not unseemly. And he says, see Trench on the word seemly, schema. And this is the opposite of it.

15:40 And Lenski has captured the essence of what love does and does not do in interpersonal relationship. So the first pillar on which I rest. The biblical case of my exhortation is the law of God which says that the essence of our duty at the horizontal level is to love our neighbors as ourselves with a love that does not behave itself unseemly, that does not seek it. And I commend to you a careful reading of and use of Romans 13, 8 to 10 in teaching the ground of good manners and appropriateness.

16:21 But first, what are we to久 to read Romans 13 whose book I wouldn't even know it happened to be. But first Thomas Penguins and his pastor who Gefühl erie to read. So we're going to read those chapters. And then I want to record read all those chapters and be на約 в paper, I know there'll be lots of time at the end of each chapter.

Pillar 2: The Example of Our Lord Jesus Christ

16:51 what manners and social decorum will make him feel comfortable, and regardless of what I may feel like doing, I seek my neighbor's good and not my own. That's the first pillar. The second is the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. Surely, no one would say that our Lord in his perfect humanity does not set for us as men and women the moral necessity of living as he lived.

17:22 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself so to walk even as he walked. And here I ask you to turn to Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 2. One of the many reasons our Lord came to every stage of ordinary human development is that when we are trying to teach the biblical ground of good manners to people, we would have him as the example even in his pre-adult state and condition.

17:58 In Luke chapter 2, again, for the sake of time, I can't go into the whole paragraph. You remember it well, I'm sure. Our Lord probably, for the first time, at age 12, was taken up to the temple. Edersheim suggests, in what I found a very helpful suggestion, that it may well have been on this occasion of going up to the temple for the first time that Mary may have disclosed to him his own origins.

18:25 Hence our Lord's surprise when they came and said, You know, we've saw him. We've taught you with great disruption of heart. And he said, What? Did you not know that I must be about my father's business?

18:35 Have you not just told me a few days ago the story of how I came to be? And in the growing, dawning consciousness and the human awareness of Jesus, of who he was and how he came there, Edersheim suggests it could well be that that disclosure of Mary and the secret that only Mary and Joseph knew, and perhaps Elizabeth, that was now disclosed to her unusual son. But be that as it may, it's very interesting that we read in Luke chapter 2, verses 40, 6, and 7, these words. It came to pass after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, the doctors of the law,

19:18 these lawyers, these professional scholars in biblical and rabbinical teaching. Now notice, both hearing, listening to them and asking them questions. So here was this 12-year-old boy interacting with the Great Ones, listening to them and then addressing questions to them. And what was their reaction?

19:43 And all that heard him were irritated at his bratty precociousness. No, all that heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. They were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And in the two Greek words that are used, there is at least a suggestion that in this matter of amazement at his understanding would have been his penetrating insights in disputation and his discerning insights given in his answers.

20:28 But there is no indication that they were disgusted by an aggressive, pushy, insolent kid who didn't know his manners in the presence of adults and of learned, recognized authorities. Very interesting. His good manners stood him in good stead in this only recorded public, quote, ministry of Jesus until the time of his showing forth to Israel at age 30. Then in the following verses, we read that he went down with them.

21:05 That is, Mary and Joseph came to Nazareth and he was subject unto them. And there's a middle voice. He subjected himself unto them. Now, with the dawning consciousness of his identity.

21:19 Did you not know I must be about my father's things? There is at this point the first expression of the consciousness that God was his father in a unique way and that he had come to do the will of his father. So with some measure of personal consciousness of his unique identity as the unique son of God, he voluntarily submits himself to creatures that he made. He submits himself to Mary and Joseph and his mother keeps these sayings in her heart.

21:56 And in that posture of submissiveness to them, what happened? And what a tribute to Mary and Joseph and Jesus. You have an imperfect tense of the verb, which means to make progress in or towards to advance. He was continually advancing wisdom, stature and in favor, not only with God, but with man, he was continually making progress in the patterns of behavior that made him find her in the eyes and in the affections of men.

22:38 Mary and Joseph were teaching him good manners, were teaching him appropriate social decorum so that when he becomes a 30 year old man, he is at home with the outcasts and he cowers before none of the great ones of the earth. And our Lord Jesus Christ is the great example of good manners and appropriate social decorum. And he knew the specifics of it. I commend you again, Luke, chapter seven, verses forty four to forty six, that when he's in the house of Simon,

23:20 the Pharisee and Simon begins to chide him because he's allowed this woman to come in and express her affection to him in an unusual way. He said, Simon, when I came into your house, you did not give me the appropriate social signals of acceptance. You did not wash my feet. You did not anoint me.

23:40 You gave me no kiss. He knew the tokens and the symbols by which appropriate social decorum was manifested, and he was conscious when he was deprived of it and even a rebuke demand for withholding it from him. Now, are you ready to say that's a matter of liberty? Then you cast dispersions upon the impeccable holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

24:08 And you say anyone who's irritated or even conscious that he's not been given the proper appropriate social signals of respect and acceptance is self-centered. Then you accuse my Lord of being self-centered and I rebuke your blasphemy.

Pillar 3: The Credibility of Our Confession and the Gospel

24:29 And I say again, in a generation that has just taken the whole carload of generations of acceptable social behavior in our culture and run them off into the ocean, I dare to plant my blessed Lord as the perfect of one who knew and expressed good manners and appropriate social decorum and was offended when such things were not rendered to him. And then I rested down on a third pillar, the credibility of our confession of Christ and the gospel. I said, Pastor, you're bringing out some big guns.

25:14 You bet your boots I am. I want to get your conscience lassoed this morning. That's what I'm going for, going for your conscience, because it's only that that in the case of those of you who are true Christians is going to help you to make up lost ground in this area. Titus chapter two, Paul is saying to Timothy, I mean to Titus, speak the things, chapter two, verse one, which befit the sound or healthy doctrine.

25:45 Speak things that will cause people in the practical details of life to manifest that they are assimilating good doctrine, that in their spiritual gut they are assimilating good doctrine, and you see it by the patterns of life that are observable and demonstrable before others. That the aged men be temperate, grave, sober minded, sound in faith, in love and patience, that the aged women be reverent in demeanor, not slanderers, not enslaved to much wine, teachers of that which is good, that they may train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sober minded, chaste workers at home,

26:27 kind, being in subjection to their own husbands, to what end? That the word of God be not blasphemed. What's he saying? He's saying if older women do not conduct themselves in patterns that reflect the peculiar manifestations of godliness in an older woman, and impart those perspectives to the younger women, who in turn will embody those perspectives as is appropriate to younger married women with children, the issue at stake is God's word will be blasphemed.

27:09 People will look at your disorderly lives with old women acting like silly teenagers and young women with husbands and children acting as though they were footloose and fancy and free, single women with no concerns to have the proper priority of their being workers at home. People will say, is that what the gospel produces? Is that what God's word produces? He says the word of God will be blasphemed unless in these practical details there is exemplary behavior.

27:46 And then I add to this with respect to the credibility of our confession of Christ, the argumentation of our Lord in Matthew 5, 47, and in the parallel passage in Luke 6, where he says, do this because in so doing you will not only manifest that you are the sons of your father, but you will go beyond what worldlings do. Do not sinners do good to those that do good to them? Do not sinners love them that love them in return? What do ye more than others?

28:22 Well, you see, men in the world, one of the few ways they manifest their love to people that they accept is they afford them the luxury of good manners in their presence. It's one of the ways they say, you count to me. Your feelings count to me. Your sensibilities count to me.

28:41 For example, if there were someone in a local office who was having a special banquet for his office staff and he made it known. That this is going to be a banquet at the Manor there on Route 23, one of the fanciest eating places in this area, and it's being done as an expression of appreciation for their work through the year. What would one of those office staff workers be saying if they showed up at the Manor in jeans and a T-shirt? Well, they'd not only be saying something to the proprietors, they wouldn't be let in for the first place, but they'd be saying something to their boss.

29:21 This is what I think about your stinking meal. It's worth only jeans and a T-shirt, because you see, I happen to be working around the house and for me to take time, take a shower, put on a suit and tie, would have inconvenienced me. And if you really want me and if you really want to show kindness to me, I mean, what's a little bit of cloth? I mean, come on, let's be reasonable.

29:41 What's a little bit of cloth? I'll tell you what a little bit of cloth is. It's the difference between thumbing your nose at your boss and saying thank you.

29:50 Now, what do ye more than others? Men without the Holy Ghost recognize this. Without the Holy Ghost, you're ready. I'm willing to read books on good manners and proper social decorum to have acceptance among their worldlings for personal, for economic reasons.

30:10 What do we more than others? Is the gospel not worth enforcing good manners upon our children? That when we say mine is a Christian home, not that every child is a Christian, but it is a Christian home as the head of the home in cooperation. With my wife, the rule of Christ is the rule of this home.

30:36 And where Christ rules, there will be good manners and appropriate social decorum. And the cause of the gospel is at stake. Now, my friends, if that threefold cord does not convince your conscience, then I feel you either got a seared conscience or a conscience still so wedded to your sin and self-centeredness that you're determined nothing's going to budge you loose. The law of God, the example of the son of God and the testimony of the gospel of God.

Specific Categories of Concern: General Revelation Applied

31:08 Now, having marked out the field of our concern, having sought to demonstrate the biblical basis of our concern now, thirdly, what are the specific categories of this concern, that is the concern to enforce good manners and acceptable social decorum? Now, at this point, I'll be leaving the data of special revelation and we'll be going into the realm of general. Revelation. And there is biblical warrant for doing that.

31:38 Paul says in Romans one, twenty six and twenty seven. How do you know that homosexual activity is wrong? He says they do that which is against nature. The way God has constructed males and females physiologically indicates that their sexual activity should be heterosexual only.

32:02 And he says they do that which is against nature. Likewise. First Corinthians, eleven, fourteen. Does not nature itself teach you that it is a shame for a man to have long hair?

32:17 Well, whatever the implications of that may be, Paul says, does not nature teach you? So at this point, having sought to root the issue in a biblical framework of ethical responsibility, moral duty. Now, then, what are the categories? And here I say it's general revelation applied to this specific society in general.

32:44 The specifics would be different in other societies. The categories might be different. And what I've tried to do to give you something helpful and workable is to break it down, though there's a little bit of overlapping, I admit. And the categories, you may be able to improve on them.

33:01 If so, I welcome your help, but I couldn't take a consensus for three weeks after I hammered these things out, I bounced them off my wife and asked her when she went about her duties last night if she thought of another category to tell me, and since she didn't, I assume she didn't come up with another one. But let me set before you five major categories that we ought to know what good manners and acceptable social decorum are and enforce the same upon our children while they're under our roof, what they do when they leave our roof. They answer to God for it. They may throw it all over.

Category 1: Table Manners

33:36 If so, you will then have a good conscience before God that it ain't your fault. All right. Number one, table manners. Table manners.

33:48 Long before they can speak or long before they can hold a fork or a knife while sitting in their high chairs, they can be forced to learn that food is not a plaything. I'm amazed how many parents laugh when their kids use their food at the high chair as a plaything, and they think it's a joke. You are breeding in them an ill-mannered perspective with regard to table manners. Long before you can communicate much verbally, long before they can hold a fork or knife, you can enforce a pattern in which they become very much aware that food is not

34:28 a plaything, that shenanigans at the high chair are not the occasion to become the center of laughter. A child will suck that up so quick it's frightening. If by his foolish antics in the high chair with his food and and blowing it all over himself and anyone near him, everyone will laugh. The self-centered little Adamic creature will suck that up and he'll be just like a Johnny Carson or a John Leno coming out for his opening monologue.

35:00 He'll really perform. She'll really perform. And if you tolerate it, what you're saying is good manners at the table don't matter. You start there.

35:11 Then, as they begin to hold their various flatware, teach them the proper way to hold it. How to place their utensils on the plate when they are done. Don't expect them to do it right in someone's home at a fancy meal or in a restaurant if you haven't taught them with the ordinary fare of just some mashed potatoes and hamburgers when they're done, there's a proper way to place their knife and fork to signal that they are done when their plate is clean. You teach them how to cut their food into reasonable sizes.

35:47 You don't allow them to take a whole piece of meat and cut it up into three pieces and jab the fork and chew it off. That's just it. No, it isn't. It is offensive to people.

36:03 And it is a violation of these principles of the word of God. And you must be convinced of it. And be determined to enforce these things. And the do's and don'ts of good table manners must be gradually imparted until they are second nature.

Category 2: Greeting, Requesting, and Receiving Manners

36:25 And you are the ones who have the privilege of imparting that to your children. Second category. And here I wrestled how to put it. And this is the best I've come up with.

36:34 The greeting, comma, requesting, comma, and receiving manners. Or you might want to put hyphens. The greeting, requesting and receiving manners. Very early, we must teach our children to take note if someone else enters the room.

36:50 It is rude to go on doing whatever you're doing when someone enters the room. What you're saying is you don't matter. Just as it's rude if someone is in the midst of a delicate project demanding all their concentration for you to come busting in the room, slap them on the back and say, hey, how are you doing? We must teach our children very early that if someone else is in the room, we must beware.

37:16 Beware of what they're doing to see if indeed it's appropriate for us to, quote, barge in. And when someone enters the room, that it's their responsibility to recognize them. If it's an adult and they're a child, for them to stand respectfully most of other things, the greeting manners, requesting manners. Give me this. Give me that.

37:39 That ought to be banned from your house like a curse word. Gimme, gimme, gimme. No, you don't get anything by saying gimme.

37:51 Mother, Dad, please, may I have. Doesn't take long. With us, the little term was, what's the magic word? Nothing was given without the magic word.

38:04 And when it was given, it wasn't kept unless the other magic word came. Please and thank you. Two little magic words. Day after day, consistently throughout the day, you act like you're deaf when they demand anything of you without a please.

38:19 Act just like you're stone deaf. You don't hear a thing. Mommy, I need you. You act just like you're deaf, Mom.

38:25 You may stop and say, I have not heard the magic word until I do. Mommy doesn't hear anything. You say, Pastor, it's such a bother. Yes, I know it's a bother.

38:35 But look at the bother of the person who's got to live with that person in his adult experience who never says please and thank you. They live with a lifelong heartache because of the laziness of a parent who wouldn't teach appropriate manners of requesting and then receiving manners when they receive things, not just to grab them and walk away. Thank you. Thank you, Mommy.

38:58 Thank you, Daddy. Thank you, Mr. So-and-so, even to their siblings. When they passed over a toy, not just to take it, you stopped them and say, look, Johnny, Mary gave you that. What do you say to her?

39:11 Thank you, Sister. Thank you, Mary. You teach it in all of those relationships, greeting, requesting and receiving manners. Very interesting.

39:21 It struck me in my reading in my own devotions in Luke this week, that Jesus in Luke 635 B puts unthankful and evil together. God is kind to the unthankful and evil. Unthankfulness cultivated puts your children in the category of evil people. Then the third category is what I call the right of property matters.

Category 3: Right of Property Manners

39:49 The right of property matters.

39:53 It seems to me there are four areas where most of our kids have to learn the right of property matters in your own home, in the homes of others, in the school, if they're in a group school setting and in the place where the church meets. Now, most of our kids have to learn right of property matters in those four areas. Now, I haven't touched on the neighbors and the relatives. It's not exhaustive. I'm just trying to give you enough to work with.

40:19 More details than that. That's the place of books on these things and pastoral counseling, not the place of this pulpit of instruction. But first of all, right of property matters in your home. You must teach your children not to take toys which belong to their siblings without asking and gaining their permission.

40:37 They have no right. If a toy is the property given to that child as a gift or something they work for to allow one of the siblings to go into his or her room or even into a general toy box and use it, if it's been made clear this is Johnny's toy, you may not touch it nor use it without Johnny's permission. This is everybody's toy. Everybody's toy.

41:01 Whoever gets it first can use it. When someone else then wants it after you've used it for a while, that's a toy by which we learn to share common property. But that's part of training in life. We share common property, have to learn how to do that.

41:13 But there's also the right of individual property and we must teach right of property matters so that our children don't take the toys that belong to their siblings. They don't take things that are moms and dads. They don't use things for any other purpose than that which is their intended purpose. They don't even ask for permission to jump on the couch.

41:38 The couch is for sitting on. They don't ask for permission to walk across the kitchen floor with muddy shoes. No. Permission denied.

41:50 Right of property matters in your home, but then in the home of others. I'm amazed kids go into other people's homes and do a little Sherlock Holmes and they go roll. They go home and off throughout the house, open closed doors. That's rude.

42:08 That is rude. You must not permit that. You teach your child that the only place in that home into which he goes as a guest is where the heads of that home welcome him or her. You children may play down here in the family room.

42:28 You may come up the stairs and get mommy and daddy if you need us. You don't go anywhere else. The curiosity. Yes, they have to learn to harness their curiosity.

42:38 It's ill mannered to let them go combing around in rooms. They don't have a right to the bathroom in someone else's house. Where's the bathroom? No, this is so and so.

42:50 May I use your bathroom? Yes, you may. Would you please show me where it is? They don't have a right to the sodas that are in the cupboard.

43:00 Can I have a cup? No. If you're thirsty, it's appropriate that they should say. May I have a drink of water?

43:07 Well, Johnny, we not only have water, but we have some soda. Would you like some orange juice? Oh, I would very much thank you. That's different.

43:18 But to allow your kids because they see things. Can I have some cookies? Have you got any candy? That's rude, dear people.

43:26 That's terribly rude. It's an intrusion upon the property of others. Don't allow it in your children. Deal with it.

43:37 Make it plain they are not to do that. Gently remind them at first. But if it shows recalcitrance and stubbornness, then you show them an equal stubbornness in principle obedience to teach them manners appropriate to being in the homes of others. What about in the school?

43:57 Well, the desks are not for leaving remembrances that they sat at it in class for by etching their initials in the desk or scuffing up by putting their feet up on the desks. No, that is not their property. Their tuition is not paying for those desks, and they must be taught to respect the property of others in the school books that are passed on and are not purchased for their own use, purchased for their own use. Last study last week study comes in the stewardship of personal property.

44:36 But if it's not, someone else must receive that book. As good a shape as possible. And we must teach that respect. And then in the place where the people of God meet, this place is not a gymnasium.

44:52 This is not a running track. So it's got nice wide aisles and your kids love the carpet. You should not permit your children to run around in this building. For that matter, to be running around even downstairs in the hallways is not safe.

45:07 The church building was not made for track exercise, for aerobic exercise. Now, it's different when the kids are downstairs in the foyer at the Christian school, we've given permission to use that on rainy days, extremely cold days. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about what you permit of manners and social decorum in this place.

45:29 These nice, soft, comfortable pews are not for them to bounce on like a trampoline with their feet and to scuff into dirty in the backs of the pews are not for them to chew on when they're teething. They said, Pastor, you're being ridiculous. No, I'm not. I'm not talking about anything that doesn't go on in this place.

45:48 And if I were some of you as parents and my children did that, I would be embarrassed to let it be known. And some of you lack the capacity to be embarrassed. That's why I know this sounds like language from Mars for some. I hope I've convinced your conscience from the word of God.

46:10 It's an outworking of God's law. It is a dimension of following the example of Christ. It is something that connects itself with how much the gospel is really taking root in your heart. Fourth category, I must hasten on table manners, greeting, requesting and receiving manners, right of property manners in the home, home of others, in the school, in the place where the church meets.

Category 4: Male and Female Manners

46:37 Then fourthly, male and female manners. If boys are to fulfill first Peter three, seven as full grown men and husbands giving honor to their wives as the weaker vessel, where are they to learn it when in the home you begin to teach them the manners appropriate to boys and the manners appropriate to girls? And it's your responsibility as parents to do that very early. You can insist that your son hold the door for his sisters.

47:12 Oh, that's ridiculous. No, it isn't. He doesn't hold it for sisters. He's unlikely to hold it for young women if he doesn't hold it for young women.

47:21 He's unlikely to do it for his wife and for other women. How many times in this foyer have I had to say in a kind of tongue in cheek rebuke when with a woman standing two feet from me, she's reached for her coat and go to put it on and I said, please stop. Will you allow me to be a gentleman? Oh, I'm sorry.

47:41 So accustomed are women to have no expressions of that kind of social decorum appropriate to a man honoring women. They don't even expect it anymore. What a tragedy. What a tragedy.

47:57 When it's among Christians, more than others, the women at the mall will faint. When you're two feet behind, they go to reach for your door. You say, ma'am, I'll get it. And you take a couple of quick steps and open the door.

48:13 Yeah, they almost faint. So what? Do you honor them as women made in the image of God? They may not accept that they are the weaker vessel, but they're screwed up heads that affect reality.

48:28 We treat them according to biblical reality, not according to their assessment of themselves.

48:37 Teaching your son's appropriate male, female manners. Are you teaching your daughters? You say, well, my daughter's a Tom girl. She just can't be feminine.

48:49 You better teach her to be feminine. You got to teach her that she just can't act like she's wearing jeans all the time in the way she sits. Well, it's just not. No, it isn't natural to her.

48:59 That's right. A lot of things aren't natural. Brushing your teeth isn't a natural. Exercise any of you just one day find yourself with a toothbrush.

49:10 You got to teach them to do that. No, it's not natural, but it's amazing. If there's faithful parental nurture and cultivation, it'll be as natural as breathing for your young girls not to sit with their legs propped up. If they have a skirt, but to sit in a way appropriate to a young woman.

Category 5: Age and Specific Relationship Manners

49:30 This is what I mean about the peculiar male, female manners. And then finally, the fifth category is the age and specific relationship manners. And here again, the scriptures are clear. First Timothy five one Paul says to Timothy, though Timothy is an apostolic representative with peculiar power and authority conferred upon him by the apostle to regulate the life of the church at Ephesus.

49:55 He says, don't rebuke an older man, but entreat him as a father. Timothy, even though you must discharge a spiritual duty, one that demands authoritative pointing out of this older man's sin, don't forget your age and relationship. He's an older man. You're a younger man.

50:15 Therefore, don't rebuke him as though he were your peer in age and rank, but entreat him as a son with his father, even the grace of God and the necessity of pointing out sin by an apostolic representative does not cancel the need for good manners, the text says first Peter two in verse 18, another excellent text, honor all men.

50:46 A few breaths later, honor the king. What's the assumption? The assumption is that the honor given to all men generally and the honor given to the king are different things and that we will know what is appropriate honor to give to all men, an uplifted face, a gracious, warm hello. But in the presence of the king, the bent knee, your majesty, proper title, proper attire, you honor the king in a matter appropriate to his specific station in relationship to you.

51:22 Now, if there were a queen reading first Peter two for her to honor the king would be different from my honoring the king. She stands in a different relationship as his wife. So good manners, appropriate social decorum means that we teach to our children. Those manners that are rooted in age and specific relationship.

51:49 You don't let them call adults by the first name, though they hear you doing it. And you measure the nature of the relationship. If it's unusually close to call that particular adult, Mr. Jones might be stilted.

52:03 So you call him Uncle Bob or you call him Mr. Bob, but you teach them that as a child, they don't enter in automatically. The first name basis. With mom and dad's friends.

52:16 It's appropriate for mom and dad to say Bob, but it's not appropriate for them. And we must teach them these things. It is part of appropriate social demeanor. I wish that I had the time, but my time is gone.

52:33 Read the opening chapters of the Book of Daniel. And Daniel is a marvelous example of this. You just I went through yesterday and circled the places or underlined the places where Daniel needs to focus his attention, and he says it's important that you minister to the people of Israel, because it is part of this knowledge of God. It is part of the understanding of human nature, and it is part of the understanding of the heavens and the waters, which is the basis of the relationship between you and God.

53:04 That's if you want to be like this child and want to be like me. It's about that. That's what you want to be like. That's what it means to be good.

53:10 And that's what we need to be good. You don't get to know everything because you don't know everything. All kings live forever. He uses titles appropriate in the demeanor.

53:23 Study Daniel as an example of these things. Well, our time is gone. And I said I want to get through it in one lesson. I trust God will help us.

53:33 Take the exhortation to heart. Do not fail to enforce good manners and appropriate social decorum. And in our brief review next week, hopefully I'll give you a bibliography of a few good books on good manners as they relate to later 20th century America and our culture. And some of you may wish to purchase those in order to use them in this aspect of your instruction.

53:59 But remember what's at stake is God's law are reflecting the image of Christ and the credibility of the gospel we profess to believe. Let's pray together. Our Father, we pray that you'll take the truths of your word that together we have considered and that you'll give us the strength to do so. Amen.

54:16 Write them upon our hearts and in an age of social boorishness, coarseness, when there has been such a leveling in our society and when uncouth and uneducated, coarse and vile men make jokes and speak disrespectfully of presidents and vice presidents and the leaders and rulers that you have set over us and when children speak disrespectfully to parents and to children and to their parents and workers to their employers. Oh God, help us to shine as lights in the midst of this dark generation. We pray that you would persuade our consciences

54:59 and then guide us into a plain path as we would seek to enforce in our children good manners and appropriate social decorum. Hear us, Lord, and help us, we plead. In Jesus' name, amen.

55:21 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.

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