God's Pattern for Children, Pt. 1

Ephesians 6:1-3

Tonight we continue in our study of Ephesians chapters 5 and 6 on God's marvelous design for the family. And we come to God's pattern for children...God's pattern for children. I neglected in the first service this morning to mention the subject, but did in the second that we're going to be moving from the parents now to the children. We've talked about wives and husbands and now we turn, as does the text, to children.

Chapter 6 verses 1 to 3, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with a promise, that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth."

It's not an easy world for children, by any means. The home is not an easy place. The society is not an easy place. A letter from a teenager came to U.S. News and World Report, here's the letter. This is what this young teenager wrote:

"The economy is shot. The family unit is in trouble. Respect for authority is a joke. For the right price you can buy yourself a senator or a judge, or he is out buying himself a sixteen-year-old to use for a couple of hours. Money is worthless and you're worthless without it. Stop worrying about why your son needs a drink before he can face his morning classes, or why your daughter went out and got pregnant, just help them cope with the reality of life. Before throwing us into categories, just remember that we have to run this joint in thirty years when you die off or retire or starve on your Social Security. I leave it up to you, either give us a little help and understanding, or put the world out of its misery and send up the missiles and hope Mother Nature has better luck with the next thing that crawls up out of the slime."

How sad that somebody's little baby came to that so soon. But it does reflect something of the fear and something of the distrust and something of the chaos and confusion and disorientation and lostness of a generation of children and young people.

An old Chinese proverb says, "One generation plants the trees, and another gets the shade." We in this generation are still living in a little bit of shade. Our grandparents and perhaps even our parents, if we're old enough, planted some trees in the past and we are still enjoying some of the shade. But this generation is not planting any trees for the next. And they're going to find themselves in a blistering world with nowhere to hide. The young person who wrote that letter feels no shade, no place of comfort, no place to hide, no place of security, just a fearsome reality both in the present and in the future.

We must plant some trees to shade the future generation. We must do something or the next generation will be frightening worse than this one and the one after that even worse and those are horrible things to think about. And if we think about them very long we would have to conclude that it can't be too long until Antichrist world because of the direction we're going. How can we plant those trees? How can we give shade to our children and their children and their children? The answer is to go back to the standards of God's Word. And that's what makes it so frightening. Our society realizes where it's going, to some degree, realizes the chaos of its children, certainly the children realize it. They realize that there has to be some provision for hope and security. But at the same time they vociferously reject the Bible. They don't want, as we've been noting, its moral impingement on their life style. They're not willing to submit themselves to the standards that it establishes for their own behavior. And so they throw out the only hope for the children.

Scripture is very clear, by the way, on what the Bible has to say revealing the will of God with regard to the family. And just reminding you, way back in the Pentateuch, for example, in Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verses 6 and 7 we read, "And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children."

Our part is very simple...teach the Word of God to your children. Teach them the Scripture. That's our part, Deuteronomy 6:6 and 7. God's part is given a little earlier in Deuteronomy 5:29, "O that there were such a heart in them that they would hear Me and keep all My commandments always that it might be well for them and their children forever."

I can't give them that kind of heart, you can't give them that kind of heart, but God can and God longs to do that. God has to give them a heart for His commandments, a heart for His Word. God has to call them to Himself and we must teach them. That teaching of God's Word is part of the process by which they are called to God. And once called, that teaching becomes the pattern in which they live. God is calling then for families to teach His Word, to present His Word to their children. Parents are really forced to do that, that is the only alternative if they desire to raise their children to love the Lord and to know the blessing that comes to those who obey.

In Joshua 24:15, again in the Old Testament, we read this, "If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served, or the gods in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." And that is the decision that you have to make as parents, who will you serve? Will you serve the gods that are around you, or the gods of your fathers, the gods of the present age? Or will you serve the true and living God? And serving Him means that He takes the priority place in your life, in your family and you teach His truths and precepts to your children.

By the way, in that text of Joshua 24:15 there was a parent making that decision. And he made a right decision in regard to his family when he said, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." And that's the decision that every family has to make. That's the crux of the issue facing the family.

There's really no hope for the family politically. As much as I would agree with the emphasis and the moral thrust of the Religious Right, as they are called, I understand that politics cannot bring back the order of the family. Politics cannot bring back righteousness in the home. That is a spiritual issue. It can't be done through politics. It can't be done through education. Educators are working very, very hard to try to achieve that apart from the spiritual dynamic of a transforming revolution in the heart wrought by the Spirit of God through faith in Christ. They are endeavoring to educate children somehow back to some level of morality, the standard for which they can't agree on. So you have those who are aggressively politically attempting to do that, some doing it educationally and neither succeeding.

There's only one way to bring the family back to where it needs to be and that is to make the decision that Joshua made, and that is to choose for your house that you will above all other things and first and foremost, serve the Lord. And that means obeying His Word in every aspect of your life. It's as simple as saying we choose God's way as over against the world's way in the matter of our family. And it starts at that point. You have to make that commitment, then begin to follow it up. The Lord has delineated in Scripture the plan for the family, and we'll see it unfold. It's right there, it's very clear, but at some point you've got to decide that that's the plan you're going to follow. And when you commit yourself to follow it, there's no guarantee of its success unless you follow it wholeheartedly and completely.

Now our text in Ephesians 5 and 6 sums up what Scripture says about God's plan for the family, God's plan for the fulfilled family. We have already studied what God designed for the wife who is called to humbly subject herself in love to her own husband and make him and her children and her home the center and really circumference of her life. We have also studied the divine pattern for the husband who is called to loving headship in which he cares for, provides for, sacrifices for, protects, purifies and loses himself in giving everything for his wife.

And now we come to the children's responsibility and what must be inculcated in them. And it says there in the verses we read that they are to obey their parents, verse 1. Verse 2, they are to honor their parents. Obedience and honor, obedience and respect is their responsibility.

May I begin when I talk about children tonight by affirming the fact that children are a welcome addition to the family. I need to say that in this day and age. They are a welcome addition to the family in a time when some people are saying they prefer not to have children, as if somehow that was a negative in their lives. Psalm 127 and 128 says children are a blessing from the Lord. The Holy Spirit said in 1 Timothy 5:14, "I will that younger women marry, bear children and care for the home." Again, children are a blessing, a heritage from the Lord.

Job 42 verses 12 and 13, "So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning." You remember that? Job had everything and he lost it all and then the Lord blessed him even more greatly. How? He had seven sons and three daughters. God blessed him with that great blessing of having children. Children are a blessing given by God. They are an evidence of His love. They are an evidence of His goodness. They are given by God. Although they belong to Him, they are sent to enrich us. They are sent to make our life full and to be raised by us to godliness in order that they too might be a witness to the true God and the gospel of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. What a great opportunity to disciple future witnesses.

Now in bringing God's special gifts to maturity and to godliness and to virtue and usefulness and effectiveness for the kingdom of Christ, there are two things we must teach them. We must teach them to obey their parents and we must teach them to honor their parents. That is simple but very comprehensive. And largely, I think, whether they do that effectively depends on us and our commitment to the Word of God and to what it affirms.

Proverbs 22:6 sort of sums it up in very familiar words, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is mature, he will not depart from it." That is a simple general statement that the way you train a child will show up in his adulthood. That's all it's saying. It's not a promise, it's not a gilt-edge guaranteed pledge, it is simply axiomatic, self-evident that the way you train a child is going to effect what they become. And that is the general truth of that scripture. And when you train them in the things of God, that will have an impact on what they become. If we follow God's plan, we will see that plan bearing fruit. That just makes common sense.

Now admittedly, teaching children to obey and honor their parents is not easy and it's not simple. At least it didn't prove to be so with my children. And it's not proving to be so with my grandchildren. Let me tell you why it's difficult, for the very same reasons that it's difficult for a wife to submit and it's difficult for a husband to express loving leadership, the very same reasons apply to the difficulty of children obeying and honoring their parents, the same basic reasons.

Number one, the curse inside them, they are cursed when they arrive. They are little, selfish, self-centered, rebellious reprobates. Cute, cuddly, but reprobate. That is apparent when they arrive. They scream and they don't share anybody else's pain. They scream only for their own. They have no sympathy. They share no interest in anything going on in the family. They are not at all attentive to the conversation. They make no effort to assist in anything. They just are preoccupied with themselves. They think that no one exists but them, they're great when they get a little beyond that very infant stage, they're great at disobedience, it is built-in stuff. You don't spend the early childhood saying to them, "Yes, why yes, well yes, yes, yes." You continually say to them, "No, no, no, no." Because all the bent is toward what is counterproductive and disobedient.

They're good at disobedience, you don't have to teach them how to disobey. Nobody ever had to teach a child how to disobey. Nobody ever had a child that they went to at some point and said, "Now I just want to show you what disobedience is so you'll know it when somebody else does it. It kind of works like this..." and you do a little role playing. No, you don't have to do that. They have to be taught to obey, they have disobedience down very well. They're utterly selfish, utterly self-consumed. They want their will whenever they want it. They don't want to wait for anything. They're utterly impatient. They have no regard for anything that you're concerned about. The whole world revolves around them. And that is an initial expression of their depravity which can be simply defined as being self-consumed.

So they have to be taught to obey through very painful lessons. And they rebel against that to varying degrees, don't they? Some children have to have a myriad of spankings and disciplining while others seem to have a requirement for less. They come with a little bit different personality package, but the training is nonetheless the same. And I suppose David summed it up from the very outset when in Psalm 51:5 David said, thinking of the time that he was in the womb, "I was shaped in iniquity, in sin did my mother conceive me." He doesn't mean that he was an illegitimate child, he simply means that from the very time of my conception I was sinful. And there's no training that occurs in the womb. So when the little life bursts out, it is ready to express its sin. So you have that inside curse and that inside curse is apparent as children manifest their early behavior. And you know what terrible depravity manifests itself in an undisciplined child, don't you?

Then that already sinful bent is exposed, overexposed, to an evil world. Overexposed to evil, other evil children whose speech and behavior becomes a terrible, terrible example for your little ones to see and then you become protective of that. Your children then are pushed in their depravity too rapidly toward adulthood, overexposed to everything without the maturity or ability to deal with their environment, to deal with their pressures, to deal with their passions. And if there isn't strong, strong control and the teaching of obedience along that path, you get a terrible rebel. Overexposed to sexual sin in music, in literature, in movies, in television, children are pushed into deviated thinking patterns way before they can deal with them or control them.

One twelve-year-old told his dad, I quote from a letter, "Look, Dad, I've done it all, drugs, booze, sex, there's nothing left I don't know about, so don't make a big deal out of it." Some people call this the "hurried child."

One of the results is that the age of puberty is being pushed down, that's a physiological result of this, quite interesting. It is now two to five years younger than in the past, according to Psychology Today magazine surveys. For example, in the eighteenth century the...one of the popular things in Europe were choirs, boy choirs, little soprano boys. They stopped singing soprano, according to history in the eighteenth century, at the age of eighteen because their voices changed. Now their voices change between the ages of thirteen and fourteen for the most part. Growth, physical growth, as late as 1900 continued until twenty-six, it now stops at about eighteen. The average age of puberty in 1900 was fourteen point two, and now it is twelve, dropping, they say, about four months per decade. In 1600 the average age of puberty was somewhere over seventeen.

The pressures of overexposure, the pressures of sin cause a child to be accelerated in all kinds of areas, as his soul already bent on evil is overexposed. So you have this depravity in them reacting to this kind of environment that makes it difficult to bring a child into control and into harmony with the standards of the Word of God.

Secondly, you not only have the curse in them, you have the system outside of them, to which I've alluded as it effects the curse in them. But talk about the system outside of them. The world continually keeps the pressure on. That's why Romans 12:2 says, "Don't be conformed to this world." Don't let your children be conformed to the world. Consumptive materialism teaches them self-indulgence. That's a terrible thing to learn. In America alone we spend more money on toys than the gross national product of sixty-plus nations. Indulging our children, children are sold a steady diet of self-centeredness. Two hundred hours of ads per year they see on television. Twenty-two thousand commercials endeavoring to make them discontent or to learn the general discontent of not liking what you have and having the desire for something that you see on television.

Society teaches them rebellion against authority. It teaches them that the most important thing in their life is self- esteem and self-fulfillment in getting their own will and their own way when they want it and how they want it. They watch an average of 30 hours of television per week while they're growing up until graduation from high school. They have seen 20,000 hours of the tube, more than any other activity except sleeping. They're overexposed to everything on television. Children see more sin in a month then their grandparents or their great grandparents probably saw in their entire lifetime.

And all that media is pumping out an anti-God life style. Is it any wonder that ten million children have VD, five thousand more contracted every day? Is it any surprise that one in five uses drugs twice a week? That over a million engage in prostitution before they reach the age of sixteen? Between seven and fourteen million children are alcoholics. Millions need help in psychiatric clinics, somewhere around two million according to the Children's Bureau of the Health, Education and Welfare group. Nearly two million of them receive help annually from public agencies because of what is classified as psychological or psychiatric problems. And so it goes.

The curse inside. The corruption outside. The third area of debilitating destruction aimed at children is that not only which comes from within them and from around them, but what comes upon them...what comes upon them.

Turn to 2 Timothy 3. In 2 Timothy chapter 3, we go back to this, we commented on it earlier, we read about the difficulty of the last days, 2 Timothy 3:1, "The last days, difficult times will come." And coming upon the children in our generation is all of the last days uniqueness in terms of corruption, when men are lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents.

One of the characteristics of the last days is a defiance toward parents. And society tolerates it, society teaches them to rebel against authority. It teaches them that. It wants to pass out condoms and require that no parent have the right to know that so that they cannot push off on that child their own religious convictions. Rebellious, undisciplined, selfish, sexually stimulated, angry, bitter, frustrated, destructive children are the products of a society that is disobedient to its parents and that is without natural affection...without natural affection. They don't have the normal love of family.

Verse 3, the first word, "Unloving," astorgoi, without natural family love. We have obviously an abused and an unloved generation of children. Children are seen by many as a burden so that one third of all childbearing age couples are permanently sterilized. Fathers have forsaken their love for children. Six million children in our country, more than that now, I think the figure is quite more than that, many millions, we should say, have no father in the home at all.

Mothers have gone also in self-indulgent abandonment and the pursuit of their career or whatever it is they want, and there are millions of lonesome latch-key children who sit behind their locked doors with the shades pulled, overexposed to television. Three quarter million and upwards live in foster homes, residential facilities, institutions, mental hospitals and are otherwise incarcerated in juvenile facilities for criminal behavior, or even in prisons. It is even possible now since 1979 to divorce your parents. A precedent set by a Milwaukee court. This is the chaos in the lives of children. The philosophy of the last days is anti-family, we all know that, we've talked about that. The Feminist agenda is anti-family. The homosexual lobby is anti-family. The abortion thrust is anti-family. One of the authors and lecturers, F.M. Standiary(?) on humanist philosophy said, "To free the child we must do away with parenthood, we must settle for nothing less than the total elimination of the family."

Let me tell you how far this has gone. In 1960, one percent of children under eighteen experienced the divorce of their parents. In 1960, one percent of children under eighteen experienced the divorce of their parents. In 1990, fifty percent, half of them. We're talking about liberating the child. What we're doing with the child is liberating him into the humanistic socialistic propaganda of our time.

Humanist psychologist Richard Farson(?) advocates the following rights for children. They should be free from physical punishment, free to vote, have total sexual freedom and economic freedom. What kind of idiocy is that?

The social engineers as far back as 1979 began to celebrate the international year of the child. And they called for children to be freed from four things...they should be freed from traditional morals or values; from parental authority, including any punishment; from religious discrimination; and from nationalism, or patriotism.

And it always interests me that 80 percent of the media in America have no religious affiliation. So they carry the agenda very well and very aggressively.

One of our U.S. senators wrote me a letter to say that the anti-family forces are bent on fulfilling the following goals, these are the goals he listed: abortion for the happiness of the mother and father, if there is one, in the home. They want to fulfill these goals...abortion, government controlled family planning, legalization of homosexual marriage, and that will be here very rapidly, equal rights for children, government training for children and minimum wage for children for housework.

Can this really happen? Can it really happen? We face a serious situation. Dr. Michael Novak(?) wrote in Harper's Magazine, I quote, "Clearly the family is the critical center of social force. It is the seedbed of economic skills and attitudes toward work, it is a stronger agency of educational success than the school, and a stronger teacher of the religious imagination than the church. Political and social planning in a wise social order begins with the axiom, what strengthens the family strengthens society. Even when poverty and disorientation strike as over the generations they often do, it is family strength that most defends individuals against alienation, lassitude or despair. The world around the family is fundamentally unjust. The state and its agents and the economic system and its agencies are never fully to be trusted. One unforgettable law has been learned through all the disasters and injustices of the last thousand years, if things go well with the family, life is worth living. When the family falters, life falls apart." And Michael Novak is exactly right.

From the standpoint of just somebody observing the family, from the human wisdom viewpoint, it's obvious that all is well when the family is healthy, and when it's not, there's no hope for a society. The only hope then to shade the generation to come is to submit ourselves to what the Word of God teaches about the family and about raising children. And frankly, folks, it's not that difficult to figure it out. It doesn't take years and years and years, it doesn't take a whole lot of techniques to figure it out. It always amazes me, amazing economy of words with which the Lord says everything. And what He says is this, "Teach your children to obey you and to respect you." That's the sum of it all.

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth." By the way, these are the only verses in the Bible that command children. Children should be taught these. They should specifically be taught these things. They should be taught to obey.

Children, by the way, the word "children" is ta tekna, it's the general word for offspring, it doesn't necessarily identify an infant, there's another word for an infant. It's just talking about children in general, no age is in view, from the birth all the way to being young people, as long as they are under parental control and parental care, as soon as they are old enough to know what is right they are to be taught to obey their parents. That strong self-centered depravity has to be harnessed, and obedience is the key to that. They must be taught to obey. The word "obey" is hupakouo, akouo has to do with hearing, hupa, under--to get under and listen. Obedience is the issue, teach your children to obey.

And really that's the issue. And I'll tell you something. As you raise your children and you're consistently doing that, there will be times when they fight against it more aggressively than other times. And those are the battle times, when you have to consistently force the issue of their obedience and make the consequence severe enough so that they get the message. It's not going to be ten years of battle, it will be ten years of teaching with here and there, a few weeks of real warfare as they endeavor to fight to maintain the freedoms of their own evil nature.

This is so serious to God, listen to what it says in Exodus 21 verses 15 and 17, "And he who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death." Whoa...that's some serious respect. In the old economy, you hit your mother, you hit your father, you're dead.

You say, "Whoa, is God that serious about it?" God knows that there is no way as He identifies His people in Exodus, as He calls them out to be a witnessing nation in the world, there is no way to perpetuate righteousness in a family unless there is obedience. And it is so serious that that law of God be perpetuated from Israel and spread around the world that He says if you have any child that won't obey, just kill him. Disobedience and disrespect, punishable by death. That is how serious an issue this is. You can't pass on righteousness to a generation. You can't even have a society that controls itself. You can't have anything that is ordered unless you have people who have learned submission, obedience, and the big word, self- control. When you teach your children to obey, you teach them self-control. You teach them how to repress their depravity, how to win the victory over their sinful impulses. You do it by making the consequences severe enough that they won't do it.

It's the only hope for society. It's the only hope for the preservation of righteousness. It's the only hope for the truth of God to be passed on, is an obedient generation of children. So serious was God at the start of this that He said kill the ones that won't do it.

One can imagine if there was capital punishment for all rebellious children what kind of an impact it would have. We've got all these people running around trying to stamp out spanking. If they only understood this verse, they would really be enraged. Obviously God in His mercy and His grace at this time in redemptive history does not repeat this command here in Ephesians. But at the very outset of the foundation of establishing a people and giving them His law and wanting that law preserved and passed from generation to generation, it was serious enough at the beginning and the implications were profound enough that He said if you're going to pass this on, you have to have obedient children, committed to self-control and righteousness and just kill the ones that aren't.

Now turn to the book of Proverbs with me because the book of Proverbs is the heart of the teaching of parents to their children. When you get into Proverbs, you're getting into the book which basically parents taught to their children...something you ought to teach yours. Chapter 1 verse 8, "Hear, my son, your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. Indeed they are a graceful wreath to your head and ornaments about your neck." You know what that means? They make you a beautiful person, they make you a gracious person. They will bless you. Listen to what your father and mother teach you.

Chapter 2 verse 1, "My son, if you will receive my sayings and treasure my commandments within you, make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding." A father is saying, "Listen to what I'm telling you as he passes on divine truth.

Chapter 3 verse 1, "My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Do not let kindness and truth leave you, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart." In other words, listen to what I tell you and wrap it around your body and live it out in every area of your life.

Chapter 4 follows with the same idea, verse 1, "Hear, O sons, the instruction of a father and give attention that you may gain understanding, for I give you sound teaching. Do not abandon my instruction. When I was a son to my father, tender and the only son in the sight of my mother, then he taught me and said to me, Let your heart hold fast my words, keep my commandments and live." Now that's a faithful father.

Chapter 4 again down in verse 10, "Hear, my son, and accept my sayings and the years of your life will be many."

Chapter 5 verse 1, "My son, give attention to my wisdom. Incline your ear to my understanding."

Chapter 7 of Proverbs, verse 1, "My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you. Keep my commandments and live and my teaching is the apple of your eye, bind them on your fingers and write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, you're my sister."

Chapter 8 verse 32, it just goes on, "Now therefore, O sons, listen to me, for blessed are they who keep my ways."

And then just a couple more, chapter 13, "A wise son accepts his father's discipline." Chapter 13 verse 1, "A wise son accepts his father's discipline." Chapter 15 verse 5, "A fool rejects his father's discipline."

Now there are some samples of how we are to instruct our children, how our children are to respond. Go to Proverbs 30 and you see the opposite. Here is the opposite. When a child does not respond, does not obey, is not properly disciplined, verse 11, "There is a kind of person, a man, a woman, a kind of person who curses his father and does not bless his mother, there is a kind who is pure in his own eyes, yet is not washed from his filthiness." That's so typical of children who are rebellious and against their parents, they've got their own way, their own wisdom, their own approach to everything, you're not going to tell them what to do. They think they've got all the answers and the fact is they've never been washed from their filthiness. "There is a kind, O how lofty are his eyes, and his eyelids are raised in arrogance." This is the proud, selfish, self-centered, rebellious child who listens to nothing that his parents say. "There is a kind of person whose teeth are like swords and his jaw teeth like knives, to devour the afflicted from the earth and the needy from among men." They're unkind, they're merciless, they're brutal children, they've never been taught kindness, they've not been taught the graces that make them loving people.

Verse 15, "The leech has two daughters...`Give,' `Give.'" That's talking about a horse leech that had two teeth, if you will, or two prongs that came out of its mouth and it sinks it into the horse and sucks the blood. And he says these kind of children are like a leech that sticks both of his teeth in and sucks the blood out, they're blood sucking rebel children.

There are, in verse 15, three things that will not be satisfied, four that will not say, `Enough,' Sheol and the barren womb." That's very, very graphic language, hell never has enough, the barren womb is never satisfied, earth that is never satisfied with water and fire that never says enough. And you can add to that that leeching child, no matter what you give him, no matter what you give him, he never has enough. And that's good word, you know, to those people who have rebellious children and think they can buy their loyalties, or buy their obedience or buy their respect, you cannot do that because they never are satisfied. They're like the grave, they're like the barren womb, they're like the earth that never has enough water for its parched ground, they're like the fire that never says enough.

"It is the eye that mocks a father and scorns a mother." And what is God's response? "The ravens of the valley will pick it out and the young eagles will eat it." Pretty graphic language.

Where you have a child that doesn't get the discipline and training and instruction about obedience and honor, you have that kind of leech, blood-sucking child who in the end with all of his merciless unkindness, all of his animosity and filthiness is going to feel the judgment of God. And how sad, how sad. How many parents? How many of you have a child that has fallen under divine judgment? Some have even perished. It's absolutely heart breaking.

Now how do you do this process? How do you bring a child to obedience and respect? Let's go back to Proverbs chapter 3. Proverbs chapter 3 verses 11 and 12, "My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord, or loathe His reproof, for whom the Lord loves He reproves, even as a father, the son in whom he delights." And by the way, that is quoted in Hebrews 12 verses 5 to 11 where it talks about chastening. The category here is one of discipline. The father who real