Parenting in a Broken World | Part 4

Host: 00:00:01

Welcome to the Fortifying youg Family podcast.

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It can be daunting to navigate through an anti marriage and family culture.

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Our teacher will expound biblical principles to help fortify our families and keep these sacred institutions strong.

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And now, here's this week's teaching from Sam Wood.

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We might ask the question, what exactly does this discipline look like when it says to bring them up in the spiritual atmosphere?

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In the discipline of the Lord, what does this discipline, we might say look like?

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Now, I believe today we see two extremes.

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I like to call them extreme approaches to discipline.

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We have this extreme approach, then we have this other extreme approach.

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Now, I believe the first extreme approach is the authoritative parent, we might say, and I like to call it the authoritative parent.

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And the main concern of the authoritative parent is a greater emphasis, listen, folks, on what not to do than it is on what to do.

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And their main goal is to restrain evil, not necessarily to elevate good.

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Most people that are probably my age, at least my age or older, grew up in a very authoritative type home.

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And you often hear this statement said by authoritative parents, do what I say or else.

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And don't, as I said this morning, don't ask me why.

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This is a parent that's very, very authoritative.

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Now, when I think of this, I think of an example that I like to give.

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When we lived in Tennessee, and in our backyard was an old apple tree.

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And on this old apple tree, it had these really green little scrubby apples.

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And they weren't really any good for anything.

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And I can remember Debbie would come out and she'd say, sam, maybe she'd come out on the deck and say, sam, that apple tree is just ugly.

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Why don't we do something about it?

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I would love to see some Red Delicious apples all over that tree.

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And I say, honey, listen, I'll take care of the problem, come back in a couple hours, and I'll have the problem solved.

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So when she leaves, I get in my pickup truck, I go downtown to the farmer's Co op, and I buy several bushels of Red Delicious apples.

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I go by the hardware store and I buy an industrial stapler.

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I come back to the apple tree at home.

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I get a ladder, I climb the apple tree, I shake it really hard as I can to shake all these other apples off the tree.

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And then I staple all these Red Delicious apples all over the tree.

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I say, baby, come on outside on the deck.

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I solved the problem.

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She comes outside, she looks at the apple tree, says, man, that is beautiful.

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Now, I ask you a question.

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Have I solved the problem.

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I've temporarily solved the problem.

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But to solve the problem, I've got to get what to the heart or the root of the problem?

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And I haven't got to the root of the problem.

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I'm going to probably have to prune that tree.

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I'm going to have to feed that tree.

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I'm going to have to do some things to nourish, nurture that tree to produce these Red Delicious apples.

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Now, the authoritative parent loves to give rules, but rules without relationship will always lead to rebellion.

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And I think that's so important to see and understand.

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Rules without relationship will lead to rebellion.

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It's like trying to get somebody who's not saved, somebody who doesn't know Christ, to read the Word of God and obey the instructions, the.

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The precepts in the Word of God.

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They have no relationship with God.

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They're not going to obey these rules that are given in the Word of God because they do not know God.

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And so the authoritative parent kind of trains their child by rules, but there no relationship behind those rules given to the child.

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And so they're not really reaching the heart of the child.

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So to me, that's kind of one extreme.

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And a lot of us have been brought up in that kind of environment when it comes to discipline.

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Now, the other extreme is the permissive parent.

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And that's probably more prevalent in the day and time that we're living in today.

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And this parent has bought into today's philosophy, we might say, of parenting.

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The permissive parent is not concerned with restraining evil or elevating good.

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The main concern of the permissive parent is to keep the child happy.

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Let's just don't rock the boat.

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Let's just try to do all we can to keep the child happy so the permissive parent will avoid conflict at all cost.

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Now let me go back to the illustration of the apple tree in the backyard.

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I gave you the authoritative approach to solving the problem.

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And so Debbie comes out and we stand on the back porch and she says, sam, that tree is so ugly.

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I'd like to get rid of all those little green scrub apples on that tree.

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I'd like to see Red Delicious apples on that tree.

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And I look over and I say, honey, listen, don't worry about it.

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Eventually it will just produce these Red Delicious apples.

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So let's don't rock the tree.

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Let's don't shake the tree.

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Let's don't do anything to that tree.

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Let's just hope it happens one day to produce red delicious Apples.

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And that's kind of the approach you say that's ridiculous.

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It is ridiculous.

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Cause it's not gonna happen, you know.

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And so the result of the permissive parent where the listen.

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Where the authoritative parent stresses rules without relationship and it leads to rebellion.

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The permissive parent stresses relationship without any rules, which also leads to rebellion.

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So we see these two extremes.

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So you might say, well, brother Wood, what is the correct approach for discipline?

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Well, the correct approach for discipline is the biblical approach.

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That is biblical discipline.

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And biblical discipline trains the child to put off ungodly behavior and put on godly and righteous behavior.

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Biblical discipline focuses on the heart, the child, or the heart that is behind the behavior of the child.

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And that is so, so important that we see and understand.

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That's why the book by Ted Tripp, shepherding a child's what heart is so Good?

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It's so important because he goes over this.

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Therefore, we need to continually remind ourselves that discipline should always be aimed at the heart of the child.

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And this is accomplished by connecting our listen, our directions with our explanations.

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In so doing, we're building a relationship by exposing our hearts and the way that we think with our children.

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Our explanation should show that we love them because the rule is for their long term benefit.

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We were giving the why behind the correction or the instruction that we're giving to them.

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Johnny, do not play and run out in the street in front of the house.

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And Johnny might say, well why?

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Well, the why is because we love you, Johnny, and you might get hit by a car.

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We don't want you to get hit by a car because we love you.

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So we're taking time to explain the reason.

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Simple illustration.

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But we're taking time to explain the reason why behind the directive that was given to our child.

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Rules with.

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Now listen, rules with relationship equals heart training.

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And that's what we want to do.

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We want to have rules or precepts.

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We have directives, you know, with relationship explanations, the why behind them.

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And it leads to heart training of the child.

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Now let me illustrate heart training by sharing with you four guidelines for bringing up your child in the discipline of the Lord.

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Just four guidelines that I jotted down here that I think are very important to see.

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The first one is to be fair, be fair with your children.

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And I mentioned this, it's one of the attributes of a spirit filled parent.

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But I want to talk a little bit more about this tonight.

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Parents, I believe to be fair with your children, you need to establish boundaries in your home.

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Boundaries.

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Now you say, well, what do you mean by boundaries?

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Well, boundary might be a television show that they cannot watch.

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Okay.

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A boundary might be a time that they need to be at home.

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A boundary might be that certain things, like for your children that you cannot climb up on a boundary might be that you can't run in church.

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And you say, well, why would that be a boundary?

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Or why would you give that instruction?

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You might tell your child the reason you don't run in church is because there's elderly people in church.

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You could hit one, you can knock them down.

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We want to be reverent to the word of God.

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I mean, you can give a lot of different explanations.

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We let them know ahead of time what the penalty is for crossing that boundary.

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Then when they cross the boundary, it's already set what's going to happen when they cross the boundary.

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Now, it's important that mom and dad be on the same page when they establish these boundaries.

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So you have to sit down as mom and dad.

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It takes a little bit of time to establish these boundaries together and say, this is a boundary.

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What's going to happen when they cross that boundary?

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It reminds me of years ago when we had a little weenie dog, and this little dog's name was Flash, and we called him Flash because he was.

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He could Flash.

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He could run fast.

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He would just jump.

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He was quick.

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And we moved in this small house and had a small.

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The small yard in the backyard.

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And I wanted to let Flash be out in the backyard, but I didn't want to put him on a stake.

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So I looked up.

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This was years ago, and I looked up something they had just come out with called electric fences that were underground, you know.

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And so I investigated that and I purchased one.

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And basically what you do is, as some of you know, you take this wire, you put it underground around the perimeter of your yard where you want to establish a boundary.

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And then you put little flags maybe 4, 5, 6 inches inside that wire that the animal, the dog could see.

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And you put them every so often so the flags kind of tell you where the boundary is.

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Now, you put a collar on the dog, and if the dog crosses that wire, it's going to do what?

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Shock the dog.

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Okay.

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Now, I don't just go out and let the dog loose in the backyard and just hope it works.

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I've got him on a leash.

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I walk him up to where these flags are walking around.

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When he comes up and he doesn't know what it is to begin with, he walks up and it shocks him.

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He jumps back.

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He Begins to associate the boundary with these red flags.

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So these little white flags, I guess it was at the time.

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And then after doing that for several days, then I would take the leash off, let him out in the backyard, and hopefully he would stay in the yard.

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I've trained him that there's a boundary there.

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Now, Flash, you say.

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What happened with Flash?

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Well, Flash was a smart little dog, and he would come up to those flags.

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When he got there, he knew if he went any further, he was gonna get shocked.

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So he would stoop down and, I'm not making this up, and jump over it.

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He knew to jump over that little wire so he could get out.

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And so it really didn't work for us, but it's a good illustration anyway.

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So now listen, it's important, I think it's very important to establish boundaries, okay?

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And you don't keep.

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Once you establish them.

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That's why you have to think this out ahead of time.

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You don't keep changing those boundaries either, okay?

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It's important to be consistent and not change the boundaries, all right?

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And so we need to be consistent again and be on the same page as a husband and as a wife, okay?

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So the first thing is to be fair.

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Secondly, not only be fair, but be firm, okay?

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Be firm in your discipline or be consistent.

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I've used that word several times.

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Be consistent and firm in your discipline.

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And there's several things in being firm I want to share with you that you shouldn't do.

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The first one is don't be a threatening, repeating parent.

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Don't be a threatening, repeating parent.

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Require first time obedience.

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So here's little Johnny.

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And Johnny, you give him a directive, maybe to pick up his toys, put them in the toy box, and you tell him what you want him to do.

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And you come back five minutes or ten minutes later.

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You give him time to do it, come back 10 minutes later, and Johnny hasn't done it.

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And so you repeat what you just told him 10 minutes earlier, and then you add a threat to it.

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Johnny, I told you to do this.

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Listen, if you don't do this, this is what's gonna happen.

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And Johnny thinks to himself, yeah, I've heard that before.

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I've got three or four more times before I have to really do it.

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And you become a threatening, repeating parent.

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And again, that's not requiring first time obedience as I talked about this morning.

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And first time obedience again is without challenge, without excuse, without delay, and without a bad attitude.

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You need to teach Johnny to be first time obedient as you Teach Johnny to be first time obedient to you.

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It teaches him to be first time obedient to the word of God.

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This is very, very important.

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So don't be a threatening, repeating parent.

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I know all of us have probably done this.

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Don't be a bribing parent either.

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Don't bribe your children to obey you.

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Now, let's take Johnny to the grocery store.

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And we walk in the grocery store, and Johnny loves to run up and down the aisles of the grocery store.

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He loves to take cans off these shelves.

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And so when you get to the grocery store, you say, johnny, listen, if you'll be a good boy and you'll stand beside me as I go through the grocery store, not run, not play with the stuff on the aisles, when we finish, I will buy you this huge, nice candy bar.

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So what are you doing?

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You're training his heart towards a bribe?

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And listen, that's not the way we should do.

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We're not to bribe our children to obey us.

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It.

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It's a difference if you explain the boundaries when you get in the grocery store, Johnny, you're not to run.

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Johnny, you're not to play with the things on the shelf.

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You just stand right here beside mama as she goes to the grocery store.

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You get to the checkout line and Johnny has obeyed you.

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You reach over and buy him now a candy bar and give it to him.

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Then that's not a bribe, that's a what reward.

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So it's a difference in bribing your child and rewarding your child.

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So it's important to be firm and understand that we're not to be a threatening, repeating parent.

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We're not to be a bribing parent.

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But now listen, also, don't be a negotiating parent.

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You know, children like to negotiate.

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They're great negotiators.

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Let's say, for example, I tell my son, daniel, listen, Daniel, your room is a complete disaster.

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You need to make up your bed, hang up your clothes, put your books on your desk, and you need to vacuum your carpet, I come back up 30 minutes later, he's done maybe 50% of what I asked him to do.

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And he will try to negotiate with me.

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Dad, I've done most of what you asked me to do.

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If he's done 50% of what I ask him, has he been obedient?

Sam Wood: 00:15:55

No, he needs to be 100% obedient.

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Not until he's done everything I've asked him has he been obedient.

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Now, children, again, love to negotiate.

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And let me just say, parents if you're not both on the same page, they will go to the parent they can negotiate best with.

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They know how to do that.

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It's amazing.

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And you know that too, because it's probably happened in your home.

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So it's important to not be a threatening, repeating parent.

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Listen, don't be a bribing parent.

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Don't be a negotiating parent.

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We're to be fair, we're to be firm.

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But let me say in our discipline, we're also to be focused.

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You say, what do you mean by that?

Sam Wood: 00:16:40

let me remind you of Proverbs: 22:15

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It says, Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.

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So when we think about being focused, we must use the proper tool to drive foolishness out of the heart of the child.

Sam Wood: 00:17:02

Now, God instructs parents to use a tool that's called the rod to drive foolishness, defiance and rebellion out of the heart of their children.

Sam Wood: 00:17:12

Now it also says in Proverbs 23 and verse 13 and 14, withhold not correction from your child.

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For if thou beatest him with a rod, he shall not die.

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Thou shall beat him with a rod and shall deliver his soul from hell.

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Now, when it says beat him with the rod, it's not talking about injuring your child in this translation.

Sam Wood: 00:17:31

It's maybe not the desirable word to use, but I think it's important to see and understand that God has given us a tool to use to drive foolishness out of the heart of a child.

Sam Wood: 00:17:45

And it says if you use that tool that it will deliver their soul from hell.

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So it drives out the foolishness from the heart of that child.

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It establishes the foundation of parenting, the authority of the parent over the child.

Sam Wood: 00:18:02

And I can remember, even though my dad was at the time not a Christian father, that he was a big man.

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He was about 6 foot 1, but he was very heavy man too.

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He weighed over 300 pounds and he wore about a 56 inch pair of pants and about a 56, 58 inch belt.

Sam Wood: 00:18:21

So my dad told me I was going to get a spanking.

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My dad told me that he was going to give me three licks.

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And I got ready for those licks.

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I knew with that 56 inch belt around, my little body wouldn't go be three, it's probably going to be nine.

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Like whap, whap, whap, whap, whap.

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You know, it's going to wrap around me several times.

Sam Wood: 00:18:37

Now, I'm not saying now I'M gonna talk about this.

Sam Wood: 00:18:39

I'm not.

Sam Wood: 00:18:39

You should never use, I don't think, a belt on a child.

Sam Wood: 00:18:43

You know, you say, preacher, why?

Sam Wood: 00:18:44

Because it can injure that child.

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We're to never be injurious to a child.

Sam Wood: 00:18:49

And I know that using the rod as it's given in the Bible is not politically correct today.

Sam Wood: 00:18:55

What I'm saying here is not politically correct.

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But let me pause and say that I do believe it's biblically correct.

Sam Wood: 00:19:01

Because all I'm doing is giving you the word of God.

Sam Wood: 00:19:03

Amen.

Sam Wood: 00:19:03

I'm not giving you my opinion on this.

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I'm just telling you what the Bible says.

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But it's important to understand what a rod is.

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Now, believe if you study this.

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A rod is something that has flexibility, that is not injurious to a child, like a switch or something like that.

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And so that's important to understand.

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God would never command us to injure our child.

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A rod to a king was a scepter to rule righteously.

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A rod to a shepherd was a staff to lead lovingly.

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But a rod to a parent is a switch to administer accurately.

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The Duke of Winster stated that everything in America is controlled by a switch except their children.

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I thought that was good when I came across that.

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Now, when we give them the switch or the rod, let your child know why you're using it.

Sam Wood: 00:19:57

Take time even to go to scripture and point out principles from Scripture of how they've broken God's command and sinned against God.

Sam Wood: 00:20:07

I think it's important again to train their heart.

Sam Wood: 00:20:09

It takes time to do this.

Sam Wood: 00:20:10

Okay?

Sam Wood: 00:20:12

It takes some time.

Sam Wood: 00:20:13

And after you discipline your child this way, you need to hold them, you need to love them, reassure them of your love of them.

Sam Wood: 00:20:21

And again, that's so, so important too.

Sam Wood: 00:20:23

And I believe if you use the rod correctly, at least our experience with our four sons, if you use it correctly and consistently when your kids are preschoolers, using the rod later would be very, very rare indeed.

Sam Wood: 00:20:38

Now we have four sons and all of them are very different.

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I mean, we've got one son who was a very strong willed child.

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Every parent deserves at least one of those.

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And where we might have one of our sons, I could just almost look at him and that was enough.

Sam Wood: 00:20:59

Another son, it was like he may require three spankings to get the point.

Sam Wood: 00:21:04

Some of you understand what I'm talking about.

Sam Wood: 00:21:07

But we are to use the proper tool.

Sam Wood: 00:21:10

But we're to use the proper tool at the proper time, too.

Sam Wood: 00:21:13

The proper time, you say, when is the proper time to use the rod of discipline.

Sam Wood: 00:21:19

When the child is defiant and rebellious to your authority.

Sam Wood: 00:21:24

And I think, when we think about that and when I say that we need to, we need to understand there's a difference between a childish act and a foolish act.

Sam Wood: 00:21:33

And that's so, so important.

Sam Wood: 00:21:34

For example, little Johnny.

Sam Wood: 00:21:36

I come in and Johnny is climbing up on the coffee table and he's standing up and down, jumping up and down on the coffee table.

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I've never told Johnny not to do that.

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I've never, you know, given him that directive.

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So little Johnny is doing what little Johnnies do.

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It's a childish act.

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But I take time and I say, Johnny, you're not to jump on the coffee table, climb up there and jump anymore.

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And I tell him why, explain why.

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And if I come back again and he's up on the coffee table jumping up and down, that childish act is turned into a what foolish act.

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He's rebelling against my authority.

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Now I have to take note of that and I have to correct him at the proper time for a foolish, rebellious act to my authority.

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Now let me say also, not only are we to use the proper tool at the proper time, but we to use the proper target.

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You say, preacher, there's a target.

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Well, it says in Proverbs: 10:13

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I love this.

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In the lips of him that hath understanding, wisdom is found.

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But a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding.

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You say, where is the back?

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Well, if you take a measure, a rule, and hook it on the bottom of your child's foot and stretch it to the top of their head and divide it in half, you find God's divine location.

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And it's a very padded location.

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It's a wonderful verse.

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I think it's just so practical.

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So God has given us a divine location for the rod.

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So we're to be fair, we're to be firm, listen, we're to be focused.

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But also, and I would be remiss not to mention this again, we're to be fit.

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We're to be fit.

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And I want to remind you once again that we are to be in control of ourselves and controlled by the spirit of God when we administer discipline to our children.

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And our discipline is to be given in an atmosphere again of love and acceptance.

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Be aware of the tone of your voice and what you're saying, your facial expressions.

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Listen, children can read you.

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And if you're not filled with the spirit and you're not giving it in a spirit filled atmosphere, they will Know that.

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And again, you may need to take a time out yourself before disciplining your child.

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If you need to do that, then you certainly need to do that.

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And once the discipline is administered to the child again, there should be hugs, there should be kisses, there should be reassurance of the parent's love for that child.

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Now, as I close out this session tonight, I remind you of what God says about his discipline us.

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In Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 11 he says, for the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.

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Absolutely true.

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But later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

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So God help us as moms and dads to have the right atmosphere in our homes.

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God help us to have a spirit filled atmosphere in our homes as husbands and wives, as moms and dads.

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And listen now for us as grandparents, grandkids come to visit me that they, when they walk in our house, they can sense that there's a presence of God.

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They can sense that grandma and granddaddy are different.

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There's a peace there, there's a love there that maybe they don't see other places because Christ is there and Christ is ahead of your home.

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So there needs to be that again, that atmosphere.

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And God help us to have that kind of atmosphere in our homes.

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And that's so, so critical, so, so important.

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I believe in our parenting.

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And if we don't have that, listen, if you don't have that, then you are going to provoke your children to wrath and exasperation.

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And I said this morning, when it says, and ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, that one of the ways, the primary ways that we provoke our children to wrath is not, is by not doing what it says next to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

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God help us to do that.

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And God help us to not take a authoritative approach to parenting, not take a permissive approach to parenting, but to take a biblical approach to parenting where we are always trying to train the heart of that child.

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We're trying to get to the root of the problem.

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And God help us as we do that, to do it and exercise our discipline in a way that certainly, as I've described tonight, that would be glorifying to God.

Host: 00:26:26

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Host: 00:26:29

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Host: 00:26:36

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Host: 00:26:42

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