Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
Proverbs 29:15
We have looked at how freedom and marriage have been attacked from within our nation for several weeks. Adding to these attacks is the assault on the authority of the family.
God blesses a nation that upholds his definition of marriage, and the children born to that marriage should be raised to honor their parents and honor God. Those children have a God given right to security and provision and protection in that family, Eph.6:1-4. God does not say children are the property or responsibility of the state or the Church for that matter. They are the sole responsibility of their parents. It is only when parents cannot handle their children should the state get involved especially when those children become a danger to society. As we will see one of the first curses that comes upon a nation that has turned its back on God is rampant rebellion of its youth.
Prov.30:11 “There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother.” When an entire generation of youth rejects parental authority everyone suffers.
Children need direction and they need a structured life that demands an authority figure. That authority figure is the child’s parents. However, parental authority does not include abuse of their children. Children have the right to be protected if they are abused by their parents. By abused I do not mean being biblically corrected, but unfairly and immorally treated.
Again children need parental leadership. The Bible no where says children are to guide their parents. Parents are never advised by God to seek their children’s permission on family matters. Children need instructive discipline and authority figures and here again the parents are responsible.
Deut.6:4-7 read.. Eph.6:1-4. Genuine humility is needed for security and childhood maturing in a civilized society, and in most cases this involves enforced humility administered through parental correction when the child is disobedient.
Eph.6:1 Children obey - Greek, tekna hupakouete - Obey is in the verb form as a present active imperative [a command]. This is obedience as a habit. That means children are to be obedient whether they like what they are told or not. The home is ground zero for children learning obedience, not the school, not the church, not grandma’s house. It is the parent’s duty to see that their children obey for this is right in the Lord. Children honor. The Greek word for honor is, tima. Honor as used here is also used in a verb form as a present active imperative. This is honoring the parents as a habit. This word means to show dignity and respect. The pay back for such children who show obedience and honor to their parents is a promise from God things will be blessed for them and that their days may be long on the earth. To follow up this command and promise is an exhortation to fathers in v.4. And fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, i.e. do not pick on them and belittle them, but instead cultivate them in the nurture and encouragement of the Lord. This is being forgotten in so many Christian homes, or it is being ignored by a generation of children who refuse to listen to the example, guidance and love of their parents. Woe unto them for where much is given, much is required.
Our nation has undergone a radical shift in parenting practices and we are finding out how destructive a child left to himself can really be.
Parents are murdered, school mates are murdered and all because children have either been ignored in the home, or for some children they have chosen the selfish egotistical way of Cain, who by the way would have been raised just like his brother Abel, Gen.4:1-5.
Accountability Starts In The Home
It is only when the child understands that suffering is associated with disobedience that the child learns the self control such as; how to handle his frustrations and not hit his sister as an example or sass his elders or steal or cheat and so on. Children need to understand that all sin is disobedience to God, and that there is a penalty for sin. After all, parents need to raise their children to understand that everyone will give account of their lives to God, including their children. When children learn right from wrong as it is instilled in them by their parents’ guidance, then the children have a conscience that will keep them from getting into a lot of trouble and heartache. If parents do not attend to correcting and guiding their children then both parent and child will reap untold heartache as a result, Prov.29:15, .. but a child left to himself [ unrestrained , undisciplined] brings his mother to shame. Prov.17:21 .. “ He who becomes a parent of an arrogant fool does it to his sorrow, and the father of a fool has no joy in him.” Amplified.
Parents are no where in the Scriptures called upon to spoil their kids by buying them everything they see, or want. Parents are never called upon in Scripture to seek out a buddy relationship with their children, children already have buddies at school.
They already have peers to hang out with. I think often times that children wonder why their parents have no adults to hang out with.
Also parents must teach their children respect for others and good manners as well. Good manners and respectful behavior demonstrated by your children bring about the favor of others upon your children. Children also need to see their mom and dad as a security blanket for everything, including the boundaries parents establish.
Hopefully parents will become close friends with their teenage going on twenty maturing youngsters, but young folks need guidance and they need lessons taught especially when they have been wrong about something.
The worse thing a parent can do is coddle their child when he or she is wrong, and needs to be corrected. This minimizes the hurt and harm they either inflict on others or themselves. The child then learns a behavior pattern of dissociation, whereby the child become callous toward the rights and feelings and property of others. This behavior pattern becomes the foundation of a criminal mindset. All criminals started out as children.
Children need to be able to associate suffering with disobedience for this is what it is like in the adult world, and we are supposed to prepare our children for adulthood. This is why the Bible says we are not to spoil our children, Prov.13:24; 19:18. All disobedience is an offense to God primarily and secondarily to others.
They cannot do, or have whatever they want. When we give in to this kind of behavior we create the very thing we do not want. Prov.30:11 “There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother.”
Children who are always excused for their actions, and not made to reap the consequences for those actions, never learn personal responsibility.
Children must learn to follow their one divine mandate of obeying and honoring their parents, Col.3:20 “ Children obey your parents in all things; for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.”
When children learn respect for authority in the home, and I will remind you, this must start at an early age before their old sin nature has had a chance to establish itself in the child’s behavior patterns. When they have learned this respect for mom and dad’s authority then they will show it for others outside the home such as the teacher in the school and at grandma’s house, and yes, at church.
If you do not demand respect out of your children, then you should not expect to see it in your children. [Virtue love demands that respect must be instilled, for it is not instinctive, Gen.8:21; Eph.2:2-3.] Parents should never stop loving their children, but please understand that all of us have sin natures, including our children. And there is no such thing as a peaceful coexistence with the sin nature.
Children will learn later why you demand what you demand, and they do not have to have an explanation given to them. For the past sixty years liberal child psychologist and liberal educators have told us that when our children question our decisions that we should reason with them and come to an agreeable compromise. And yet the Bible says children are to be taught to be obedient to their parents’ instructions, Prov.1:7-8; 23:26 read..
Letting A Three Year Old Back You In a Corner
If you want to give an explanation to your child you can, but all you are doing is opening up the floor for an argument, and this is asking for disrespect for your decisions. This tells the child your decisions are negotiable. [The reason so many kids are so confused in this country is that parents have given their immature children choices that only mature adults can make. Children sometimes have no idea who is in charge at home] Ex. Asking a three year old what they want for dinner: like a three year old understands nutrition, or how to read a label or asking a six year old girl to pick out whatever clothes she wants to wear to school. Good citizens in a client nation do not come natural, they are raised by conscientious parents who are either establishment oriented or who also want to please God.
All you need to remember as a child, and have taught to you is that you are to obey your parents. Do what you’re told to do and do not argue and do not sulk.
Children need to understand that their attitudes count more than their opinions. And the respectful attitude seen toward their parents and society will work in the child’s best interest and in the child’s favor, and why? Because a respectful attitude honors God, and God will honor and bless that child. Lk.2:52 says when Jesus was just a boy that he increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. That’s the example you want to follow children.