In this audio message, Scott Brown discusses the chapter of Ephesians 6 and talks about the subject of child training. We as parents need to explain to our child that obedience is commanded of Scripture and is a blessing. It a blessing to do what God has commanded. On the other hand, it is wrong to let our children just do anything that they want.

John 14:15-16 (NKJV) - "If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever."

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches is pleased to present Training in Admonition. This message is entitled, Obedience, by Scott Brown. Again, please open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6 where we'll take another phrase of this passage Ephesians chapter 6 verses 1 through 4 form the heart of the instruction there to parents and children. And we encounter in verse one the phrase, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. And we've been speaking about the fact that God has called us to do what He does, and that is to create a culture.

We are culture makers. And we first have a responsibility to make a culture of honor. He is our example. He's gone before us. He has made a culture of honor in heaven.

And then he's issued commands and principles so that we would do the same in really every sphere of life that we're engaged in on planet earth and secondly that we establish a life of obedience so those two things honor and obedience as to the great responsibilities The first thing I want to do here is to walk briefly through the text of scripture. And then I want to speak of the battlefield that obedience is in our culture today. I want to speak about a critical principle that obedience is honor externalized. And then I would like to speak of a number of scenarios. I'm going to spend lots of time, most of my time, dealing with really practical day in, day out experiences with children.

I'm going to name particular kinds of behaviors and talk about what you do about it and how you analyze it. So most of my time here will be dedicated to lots of examples. I'm going to be brief in the exposition but I'm not going to be brief in laying out lots of examples. So that's my method here. First, the exposition, children obey your parents.

So there are two parties here their children and their parents and they are designed to operate in a particular way there is an ad There is an authority and there is the object of the authority. There is an inferior and there is a superior in the kingdom that God desires to establish in your home. And it's not superiority or inferiority in intelligence or gifts or insider spirituality it's just the structure of society that God has has ordained and those and all of those who are under the headship of their parents have an obligation to obey this applies to the two-month-old or the 300 month old now the 300 month old is 25 years old. That's some of you I know it applies to children and their parents Obedience is a blessing at any age And I know that older children have found many blessings heaped upon their heads because they honored and obeyed their father and their mother even when they didn't want to. There are so many examples in history and real-life examples that I know of of how God blesses obedience of children even adult children.

And then there's this phrase in the Lord, in the Lord. This is a critical statement. You obey your parents in a very similar way that you obey the Lord. It is service to the Lord. You say, as a young person, how do I serve the Lord?

Obey your parents, that's one way that you do it. And if you disobey your parents, you're disobeying the Lord, it passes straight through. So you obey in the Lord. And then there's this phrase for it for this is right. It's right to do this.

It's fitting. It's beautiful. It's, it's a superior, excellent way. If you want to do something beautiful in the world, do that. It's right.

Instead of wrong, there is a, There is something that is fitting that is set just right in its place so that it shines what is good. That's what it means by it is right. And of course it is wrong and not fitting and it's ugly to let children just do whatever they want to do. It's beautiful and good to see obedience. It is ugly to see disobedience.

For this is right. So that's the text. It's very simple. I think There aren't really very many exegetical problems in this text. It's very straightforward, thankfully.

So the first is the text. Secondly, I just want to mention that the obedience of children to parents is a battlefield in our culture today. And there are many people alive today who are saying that to spank your children is to abuse them. And you know, for example, the PCUSA just sort of, you know, decided that they were going to ban spanking among their membership. A recent issue of Christianity Today took the position against spanking.

Just last week, an article came out spanking causes mental illness. In Alabama there actually was a law just last month I believe for life imprisonment for spanking. In Delaware there was another law just last month as well where really severe penalties for spanking. Well all of this comes out of a worldview. The UN rights of the child is really you know behind this you know this whole thing.

The battleground for obedience is upon us and particularly any punishment for disobedience. And while you have this drive for independence in the society, the Bible really takes you toward dependence. And the United Nations has 20 years ago established the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. 20 years ago this was established. The United States and Somalia, I believe, are the only countries that have not embraced it.

193 countries have embraced it. Almost every nation in the world has ratified this treaty. And there are a number of critical elements to it. First of all, that the children are to be autonomous, that the best interests of the child are defined by the child. Secondly, and that the child just has a right to freedom of expression, to seek whatever they desire, either orally or writing, or in any form of art or media that the child's choice rules.

Secondly, the children are really set up as separate independent creatures under the idea of freedom of thought, conscience and religion. And thirdly, the child really becomes a creature of the state while the parents are simply caretakers for a time. And I think we have to understand this. This is the spirit of the times. So, but the Bible tells us to operate in a completely different way.

And I believe that the word of God is true, every single word of it. And I believe that you and I ought to be willing to go to jail for defending and practicing the commands of scripture. And that means that whatever the world may say whether it has to do with preaching at the cross or Christian morality or spanking that we ought to be willing to undergo the suffering and even the imprisonment for believing it and doing it. So I'm praying that we have fearless Christians here who are not afraid to perform the chastisements that God has demanded in his word. It is a command and to violate these commands for the sake of peace with the United Nations and the powers that be as sinful.

And so I pray that we are people like that. So, you know, obedience has kind of fallen on hard times. Independence has fallen on good times. And we're here to say that God is true and every man is a liar. Number three, obedience is honor externalized.

Obedience is honor externalized. In other words, obedience is really the evidence of Honor. Obedience gives honor wings. It shows how it works in real life. It's a living demonstration.

You know, in the same way that baptism is an outward sign of an inner honor. And as I said before, it can be falsified, but when it's not, it is honor externalized. And so we ought to consider how important it is to externalize what is internal in our hearts. And then I'd like to just surface now a number of child-raising scenarios. I have eight on my list.

I may morph, I may add a few as we go along but I have at least eight to deal with here and I want I want to couch couch these these you know sort of case studies in obedience and disobedience you know under the heading of first-time obedience I hope you know what that means. And that is that anything less than first time obedience is disobedience and should be regarded that. So we live in a world, I don't know how many of you grew up in a world where your parents counted to three or, can you raise your hands if you grew up in that kind of a world? You know, I think really most people did, but you know, second time obedience, third time obedience is disobedience. That's sort of the premise that I want to be operating under here.

So let's talk about the first category and that is the category of don't touch. If you have small children you have encountered this question about what you do when you say don't touch, but that's not exactly what happens. You know, mother says, you know, don't open that door and the child reaches for the door and turns the handle and the mother says I said don't open that door and then the mother starts making her way toward the child the child drops her hand and starts crying and throws a temper tantrum. And the mother accepts that as obedience. That is not obedience.

That is disobedience. And yes, it is true that the daughter took her hand from the door, but there was not a molecule of obedience in her heart, as proved by her outward behavior. The mother should have spanked the child the first time. That would be my recommendation. You know, computers, stereos, there's so many wonderful things that children can touch.

I've never seen a child that didn't love to touch a computer or a mobile phone. Such a dangerous thing to do, You know, I shudder when I see little children carrying around these expensive, you know, mobile phones because I know what is going to happen next. Your child discovers a computer. He goes to touch it and you say, now don't touch that Johnny. And then he touches it and you say I said no and then he leaves it alone and he walks away and he he has been trained by his parents to be in rebellion and to understand that there is no punishment for him as long as he catches it in time.

Now if you're not there, then he's completely free. But he has had no opportunity to have his heart corrected and They he was told once he defied authority. It did not honor. He did not love his parents in fact he he rejected He rejected their counsel Deuteronomy 31 27 says for I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. "'If today while I am yet alive with you, "'you have been rebellious against the Lord, "'then how much more after my death?'" You have a scenario here that Moses is speaking about where he's on the scene and there's some level of obedience but what happens when he's gone?

And that's a situation that parents often see. If you engage in the second time obedience sham, what will your children do when you're gone? Because they're really just waiting for the moment when you will relent. They're just waiting for, maybe it's one time, two times, three times, and it escalates, and then the anger rises. Often, anger in discipline comes from parents who accept second and third time obedience because their thermometers just continue to rise and then they pop and off goes the lid.

They blow up and it's not very pretty. And then the parents are sinning just as much as the children did. In first Samuel 15, 23 reread for rebellion is the is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. I mean, when your sweet little child, Johnny, is reaching for the computer, you have to recognize what is going on. There is an exposure of these two terms, rebellion and stubbornness.

In Hosea 4.18, we read, their drink is rebellion. They commit harlotry continually her rulers dearly love dishonor so when when when Susie or Johnny reaches for the handle and then is able to get by on a thread of a technicality or Johnny is touching the computer and is able to get away with second time obedience, you have taught him to be a rebel. You have taught him to drink the rebellion and love the dishonor. That's exactly what you've done. Here's another scenario, scenario number two.

I'm going to read you a story that actually comes out of a book by J.C. Abbott that will explain what I'm sure you've seen happen in your own home and I've seen it happen many times. A gentleman sitting by his fireside with his family around him took the spelling book and called upon one of his little sons to come and read. John was about four years old. He knew all the letters of the alphabet perfectly but happened at that moment to be rather in a sullen humor and was not at all disposed to gratify his father.

Very reluctantly he came as he was bid but when his father pointed with his knife to the first letter of the alphabet and said, what letter is that, John? He got no answer. John looked upon the book, sulky and silent. My son, said the father pleasantly, You know the letter A. I cannot say A, said John.

You must, said the father in a serious and decided tone. What letter is that? John refused to answer. The contest was on. John was willful and determined that he would not read.

His father knew that it would be ruinous to his son to allow him to conquer He felt that he must at all hazards subdue him He took him into the into another room and punished him and then returned again and showed John the letter But John still refused to name it. The father again retired with his son and punished him more severely. But it was unavailing The stubborn child still refused to name the letter. And when told that it was A, he declared he could not say A. Again, the father inflicted punishment as severely as he dared to do it.

And still the child with his whole frame and agitation refused to yield. The father was suffering from intense conflict. He regretted that he had been drawn into the contest. He had already punished the child with a severity which he feared to exceed. And yet the willful sufferer stood before him sobbing and trembling, but apparently as unyielding as a rock.

I have often heard that that parent mentioned the acuteness of his feelings at that moment his heart was bleeding at the pain which he had been compelled to inflict upon his son he knew that the question was now to be settled who would be the master and after his son withstood so long and so much he greatly feared the result. The mother sat by suffering of course but perfectly satisfied that it was their duty to subdue the child, and that in such a trying hour a mother's feelings must not interfere. With a heavy heart the father again took the hand of his son and led him out of the room for punishment. But to his inconceivable joy, the child shrunk from enduring any more suffering and cried, Father, I'll tell the letter. The father took the book and pointed the letter to the letter.

A said John distinctly and fully and what is that said the father pointing to the next letter. B said John. And what is that? C he continued. And what is that?

Pointing to the first letter. A said now the humble child. Now carry the book to your mother and tell her what it is. What letter is that my son? The mother said, A said John.

He was evidently perfectly subdued. The rest of the children were sitting by and saw the contest and they saw where there was the victory and John learned a lesson which he never forgot that his father had an arm too strong for him he learned never again to wage such an unequal warfare He learned that it was the safest and happiest course for him to obey. Now there are a number of principles to draw out of this very, very common conflict And of course one of the most important is perseverance and perseverance that prevails. Parents must persevere until they prevail. Often parents out of the out of the the ill-conceived softness of their hearts stop the discipline and allow the rebellion to continue to run.

And what they have done is they have nurtured the rebellion. So my encouragement is to take heart. This is a man who is carrying out the principles of scripture in dealing with his son. Now, unfortunately, things like this often happen in public when visitors are around and what do you do you do the same thing rather rather be shamed by man then condemned by God for allowing rebellion to run in your home scenario number three temper tantrums in stores and other places. I don't know how many of your children have ever delivered some version of a temper tantrum.

They come in different versions. Different children have different personalities. Some children will actually flop on the floor and scream. That's less common. There are other kinds.

But anybody who's ever been to Walmart has seen that. So you're in Walmart and your two or three year old child asks for gum or candy or a toy and you say No And your child says please and you say no and then he says please please please and you say no And the child escalates into his or her version of tantrum, whatever that might be. And what do you do? Well there are a number of things you could do. You could first call the manager and report that there's a child on aisle 7 who's serving the customers That would be one thing you could do Here's what you Do not do you do not say?

You just wait till we get home and we'll deal with this. You have just engaged in causing your children to sin. Or say, when your father gets home, he'll deal with you. You ought to immediately leave your shopping cart in the store, take your child out of the store and deal with that rebellion immediately. In the last session, Dan rightly said that discipline should be delivered sooner rather than later and harder rather than softer.

This typically is the heart of discipline problems in families, in my opinion. You leave the store and you deal with rebellion immediately. Perhaps you drive home or to a private place and you deliver the discipline. And then you go back into the store and you finish your shopping. And if it happens again, repeat.

And if it happens again, repeat and repeat until you've prevailed upon the matter. That's my advice to you. You don't have to take my advice, but I'm giving advice. I'm in the position to give advice. And since I'm sort of done with raising children in this way I somehow feel qualified to give some kind of advice and and so that's how I would encourage you to handle these things Now you might say as as someone said to my wife recently, well my children, if I have to do that I'll never be able to go into a store, I'll never be able to go in public again.

You know what do I do? And my wife's answer was then, then your family just needs to understand that the reason that they're home, the reason that they're eating rice again, is because they are not, They are not able to go out in public. And when they are able to go out in public, then you will go to the store. You might actually even starve your children until they are ready to be nice when they go to the store. That would not be the worst thing that could ever happen to them.

I would actually be willing, my wife would certainly be willing, to have a forced fast until there was a happy life. And it would be a good thing and I guarantee you it would win the war. That would win the war. It would be better for your family to starve for a few days than to let rebellion run in your family because remember rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. Let's be very clear about what we're talking about here.

Obedience is honor externalized. Obedience is honor externalized. Scenario number four. When you are in a social situation and your child does not rightly honor the person that they just met and they know that when they see someone and meet them that it's only right to look at them in the eye to greet them with their voice and shake their hand and that it's dishonorable to ignore people and act like they don't exist that's not what Christians do we love one another we're kind to one another one way we submit to one another is that we acknowledge Someone's presence and that we're and we're gracious to those people. That's what that's what people are supposed to do.

This is just common common behavior And so you come and You're with Mr. Smith and your darling son refuses to look at him and he's just doing this like that. And you say, Johnny, you know, look at Mr. Smith and shake his hand. And he does that.

And you have just discovered that you have a rebel who is doing the thing that is like witchcraft. He's rebelling. And what do you do? Well, in the same way that you deal with the child who will not say A, You continue to press until you prevail, until that child is happy again, and the world is set back in order. Let's talk about screaming.

Let's say you have a child that screams. And in my experience, every child ends up testing the screaming function. And My view of screaming is the following. I'm going to give you four critical realities about screaming. And just generally, I would just like to say, screaming should never be tolerated in your family.

You cannot tolerate screaming. Here are four critical realities about screaming. First of all, screaming is dishonor externalized. It is the verbal form of rebellion. Number two, Secondly, it indicates lack of self-control.

It's a revelation of lack of self-control, which is very dangerous for a child. And you ought not to allow that to continue. Number three, it demonstrates a selfish, self-obsessed spirit. Fourth, it is an expression of lack of love so you have to properly understand what screaming is that's what screaming is now it is it is a sort of a revelation of a self-absorbed spirit. Now, there is judgment against this.

Romans chapter 2 verse 9 says, But those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath. The self-seeking face enormous resistance from God in the form of indignation and so that means that you as a parent need to Prevail with your indignation so the wrath of the indignation of Almighty God Is saved that they're saved from that It's a violation of love Philippians 2 3 says let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, "'but in lowliness of mind. "'Let each esteem others as better than himself. A child needs to understand what they're doing. They are, they're destroying love.

They're contradicting it. 2 Timothy 3, 2 says, for in the last days, men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of themselves. Screamers are just loving themselves. That's all they're doing. So every parent I've ever known, including myself, has had to grapple with screaming.

And I would just encourage you to deal with it. Deal with it rightly. You know, the whole matter of lack of self-control is really critical. Remember Lot's wife. Proverbs 25, 28 says, whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down without walls.

Don't think for a minute that if you don't deal with that in a screamer that it's going to go away. You've got to deal with it and prevail. Let's talk about mealtime, mealtime situations. Mealtimes are designed by Almighty God to celebrate the faithfulness of God, to give thanks for His provision, to rejoice. And the victories of the day, one of my favorite things to do when I get home and sit down is to say, what were the victories of the day?

Because One of the victories of the day is that we're eating food. He's providing for us. It's a time of rejoicing. One of my dear friends, he's a pastor, his church, is buying him a 32-foot long table. He has a dozen people in his family.

And he's so excited. It's this gigantic, wonderful table because for him, the family table is a time of rejoicing. And so his church is blessing him with this amazing gift of a huge table and of course you know gratitude thankfulness is required in the scriptures and so if you have if you have children who feel free to be ungrateful for food, if you have children for whom you have to do custom dishes for because they're so picky. I would just suggest that you've got a gratefulness problem. You've called it something else, actually.

Well, he doesn't prefer that. Actually, he's not grateful for what the cook has brought to it. And by so thoroughly customizing him in his food, you are creating an ungrateful person who just cannot be satisfied until things are just exactly like they want. So, you know, you have this issue of ungratefulness. The food is served, the child says, I don't like that.

I don't know if that's ever happened to you. It actually, you know, is, it's happened that many times in my family. You know, for example, take a hypothetical example, like my son, hypothetically, David. You know, if he, if he had, when he was a youngster, if he had, you know, committed, committed the, you know, this mortal cuisine sin, and he said, I don't like that, the plate would disappear, and then he would not get to eat that night. Now, I'd have to ask Deb if that happened once or twice.

It didn't happen very many times. One time, with David. One time with David. David was actually the top performer in that category. But if he said, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, I changed my mind.

I really, I like Russell Sprouse, please bring it back, Sorry. Next time will be even greater. You'll love that next meal so much better. It'll be so much more nourishing. You'll desire it so much.

So, you know, dealing with picky eaters, you have to discern whether you're talking about someone who's not grateful. It's way better to have grateful eaters. You know there were picky eaters out in the wilderness, did you know that? There were, like in Exodus 16, verse eight, we encounter picky eaters, just like your children, exactly like your children exactly like you and Moses said This shall be seen when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and In the morning bread to the full and the look for the Lord hears your complaints, which you make against him And what are we your complaints are not against us, but against the Lord. Numbers 11 one.

The people complain are complaining now when the people complained it displeased the Lord and the Lord heard it and his anger was aroused so the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp. I'm thinking I'm pretty much the softy because all I'm doing is just taking the plate away. Numbers 14 29 the carcasses of you who complained against me shall fall in this wilderness, and all of you who are numbered according to your entire number from 20 years old and above. Now, I don't want to compare one to one a picky eater with this, but let's be really clear, complaining is really bad news. Complaining is not something that should be at the family table.

Rejoicing should be there. And every child has it in him to be a complainer and it takes discipline to deal with complaining. Let's talk about the inability to say no. Let's talk about kindhearted mothers. Let's talk about softhearted mothers.

And it's the kind of softhearted mothers that can't say no. It's just so, they just have such a hard time getting that word out because they have equated no with sin. And so, this, I'll give you a scenario that happened to Deborah and Blair the other day. Now Deborah had our granddaughter in a little pool, you know, nice shallow pool and it was a public place. But when she would fall over, her face would go down.

So they put these floaties on her that would keep her upper body up, so that she wouldn't drown. Well, another woman came with a child a little bit larger and little boy walked into the pool fell face down and started you know taking in the water the mother jumped up raced got the child you know rescued the baby in time and and my wife you know so sweetly said you know if you put arm floaters on like that he'll be able to stay above the water she said oh no I could not do that and she said why He said, he won't keep them on. That's just it's a mother who she cares more about being nice and she cares really about the life of her child. He won't keep them on. She will not say no.

She will not create an environment where that child is safe, because she's afraid to say No. She has a child run home. Scenario number eight. Dealing with rebellious sons. Often, when sons get older and their hearts are rebellious, they become disruptive in the home.

And it's heartbreaking, very difficult to deal with. And where it seems that perhaps removal is necessary. In the way that, you know, removal was necessary for Ishmael. He was, because he was persecuting Isaac. And because of that he was actually sent out without food.

And it was a horrible situation. There probably are scenarios where removal might make sense, you know, when headship is being overthrown, when dishonor of a wife becomes intolerable, When the other children are being polluted and the presence is just dangerous, then leaven needs to be removed. You know, the prodigal son, he wanted to separate. And there's a time when families have to consider whether they put the evil out or not. And all that discipline doesn't seem pleasant for the moment.

That should always touch off a time of self-examination and perhaps even repentance of parents for how they might have failed. There are legal issues. What are the implications and ramifications for CPS of their removal? And then there are cultural realities. There are children who remain in families and churches and they're rebellious and they just tear up their families with impunity.

What do you do in a situation like those? Those are difficult, heartbreaking situations that have to be have to be dealt with in a very individual way and you know what are the steps of removal the escalation how does how does that handled in the church and how is that communicated to the community. Those are some of the really difficult issues. Okay, so those are some scenarios. Now I'm going to give you obstacles that stand in the way of obedience.

Remember we're talking about obedience, a culture of honor, and a culture of obedience. That's what we're talking about. Now I'm going to give you a big monster list of obstacles to obedience. The first one is the unconverted heart. The greatest obstacle to obedience is the unconverted heart.

I'll read A.W. Pink. The new birth is very much more than simply shedding a few tears to a temporary remorse over sin. It is far more than changing our course in life, the leaving off of bad habits and substituting the good ones. It is something different from the mere cherishing and practicing of noble ideals.

It goes infinitely deeper than coming forward and taking some popular evangelists by the hand, signing a pledge card or joining a church. The new birth is no mere turning over a new leaf, but it is the inception and reception of new life. It is no mere reformation, but complete transformation. In short, the new birth is a miracle, the result of the supernatural operation of God. It is radical, revolutionary, and it is lasting.

Often the greatest obstacle to obedience in a family is the unconverted heart of a child. That doesn't mean that you don't require obedience from the unconverted. But often the greatest obstacle is a spiritual matter and the power of God at work in the heart. This is absolutely the most important issue in all of family life, that God would seek and save the lost and there'd be repentance and a person would have a new heart and then it's possible. You know what happens when people get converted.

We were just talking about it a few minutes ago. Their hearts soften. They start loving like they never did before. They actually look at you different. They care.

They love. And they're not hard against authority like they used to be. They might struggle with it from time to time, but it's not the same. The second obstacle is this failure to get to the heart. Failure to get to the heart.

Making sure that you understand that you have communicated with your child so that you have been able to discern whether that heart is still hard or not is so critical in this whole matter. And it takes a lot of time. There's so much to read in Scripture about the heart. I mean, out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. The heart, it is out of the heart that things spring.

And the Lord weighs the hearts. That's why we should keep the heart with all diligence for out of it spring the issues of life. Here's a third obstacle, hypocrisy. Hypocrisy in parents is what I'm talking about. And and and and and.

And demonstrating your hypocrisy in particular ways. You know, you're with you're with your hero friend and and you and you want you want that child to look him in the eye and shake his hand, but you don't do that with everyone. You just do it with people that you want to impress. And your children know that. Your children know that they're just on a show and you're a hypocrite.

It's not something that you're really cultivating, it's just something that you want to show. And so you demonstrate that you're a hypocrite before your children, and then obedience comes so much harder, because when they look at you, they see a hypocrite. They see how you live at home and they see what a nice guy you are at church and Hypocrisy is often a great obstacle to obedience The double life So prayerful so happy with the people at church, and so worldly and so sullen when not. One of the most important elements of raising children is the spiritual depth and genuineness of a Father's faith. Does He really love the Lord from His heart?

Or is he just giving commands? Is he just trying to have his own little sort of military world where everybody does what he wants to do? Or is out of his heart of love for God, he's desiring to create something beautiful that gives glory to God? There's a really big difference. A fourth obstacle is a child-centered family, where God is not the center, but the children and their affections are at the center.

It's kind of putting the family at the center rather than God. And so it just creates a whole wrong view of relationships and authority. And When this happens, the children recognize that they are the authorities, and obedience is really hard to get. I'm going to give you the next, the fatal five. The fatal five.

The joyless, loveless, absent, passive father. The joyless, loveless, absent, passive father. This is the most dangerous thing in the world in my mind. You could take each one of those and unpack them. But this kind of fatherhood is such an obstacle to obedience.

The joyless, loveless, absent, passive father is often at the heart of the disobedience that exists in homes. And then next, number six, the sixth obstacle, the undisciplined family. Parents who just inadvertently sabotage their children. The bad planner parent is usually the angry parent because their children get so tired because they have no sleep. They have no schedule.

Everything is just popping. They're allowed to stay up as long as they want and they're pushed and the children are just set up. The parents are sabotaging them on the one hand, and then they're angry with them because they're disobedient, because they're not creating an orderly enough environment so that they can thrive. They don't plan ahead, and really the father is the key. The head of the household needs to make things happen.

And I really think an orderly family life is a powerful engine for discipleship. And I was talking to my children about this in their experiences with their own children. They were saying, Children have to get sleep. How are they going to get sleep? You need to teach them to be able to sleep almost anywhere where they can get rest and sleep so that they can function.

And They were telling me about Tracy Santles, who's trying to teach Xander just to sleep, to sleep on her shoulder, wherever she is, so that there's some kind of help, so that he's not sabotaged all the time by being just dragged all over the place. Now my daughter Blair's, you know, doing the same thing with her son. Now should you discipline your children? Let's say they're tired and then they're rebellious. What should you do?

Should you say, oh, oh, I'm so sorry you're tired, you know, you can rebel now. Tiredness and rebellion are acceptable. Is that the right answer? No, that's not the right answer. Now, they may be overly tired.

It's your fault probably. And they're misbehaving, so you need to punish them for their misbehavior. You don't want them to have, you know, have a world of excuses because they will create more excuses. It's important. Hey, obedience is honor externalized, whether you're tired or hungry or not.

Hunger is not an excuse for rebellion and dishonor. Here's another obstacle to obedience, failure to identify sin and the sinfulness of sin children have to understand that sin is destructive and it and and it is sinful And you have to hang the right name on the behavior. That's often a problem. We wanna hang a nice name on a nasty behavior. But your children, You have to teach your children what is going on, and you have to teach them the sinfulness of sin.

Here's another one, failure to fight battles that you can win. Parents often start, they start fighting a battle they know they can't win. You should not start a battle you know you can't win. And have a predetermined plan instead of just a flash in the pan that you can take this to the end that you can have the arms strong enough to give the victory and you know your kids end up whining because you give up you know you become satisfied with with what you get when you're pressed and you compromise, maybe because of the public nature of the situation. But if you're going to deal with the sin, follow it all the way to the end.

But often an obstacle to disobedience is a failure to fight the battles you can win. There's also poor discernment of what battles to fight, knowing when to do it. You can't perhaps, you know deal with every single thing here's another failure to communicate define and rehearse the scenarios that your children are going to be in. Often disobedience happens because you have failed to communicate the rules and how things should play out and what the consequences are. So you don't know what the consequences are until you just get hot and you just deliver the consequences.

One of the things that Dan said is he was orderly about the consequences. That's exactly how you should be. And your children should know exactly what they are. So that you're not just operating out of anger and wrath, but out of an orderly process that deals with these things. It helps to role play situations.

It helps a lot to roleplay situations. That was one of the most effective things that we did in our home. We were getting ready to go somewhere. I knew that sin was crouching at the door. What are we gonna do?

We're gonna roleplay the situation. I would teach my children in roleplay situations to come to me in different situations. A ball would be rolling and we would play these games. That's very helpful. But a failure to communicate, define and rehearse the is the birthplace of disobedience here's another one considering children as inconveniences that's also that's also a barrier to obedience when we When we consider our children as troubles, and so what we want to do is we want to get them away from us so that they're not disturbing us, because really they are kind of inconveniences.

And when that happens, then you have independent children who are not connected to order and authority and right behavior. And that just flourishes, it just gets bigger and bigger. It doesn't ever get smaller. Excessively finding fault is another. Just excessively finding fault.

Never a good thing to say. Never talk about anything except for when they're messing up. That's a powder keg for more disobedience. You're only relating with your children because they're messing up. What do you think that does over time?

And then an angry disposition. You're just getting mad. We have a duty to be governed by the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Our child-raising should be governed by those things, and an angry disposition just destroys it.

Debating with children is another obstacle to obedience. As if you're dealing with peers, you are not a peer with your children. You are the authority, You're the adult in the room. And it's not, you do not engage in debates. Who was it that said we never, I think it was Ronald Reagan, we don't negotiate with terrorists.

So you're not equals. And wrangling in debates with children is unprofitable. It just should not be done. It's a little bit, you know, it's akin to 1 Timothy 6.5, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth. Avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they just generate strife.

There are just foolish and ignorant disputes that you should not get with your children. I can recall some of those that I had with my own father. They were ridiculous. I said some of those ridiculous things to him. Number 18, excuses.

Excuses are barriers to obedience. Now parents are tempted to make excuses for disobedience. You know, he's shy, he's tired. Oh, isn't that cute? Such a precocious thing, you know.

We can make, we can make all these excuses for sin and put the wrong names on them. Here's another one, giving them the same warning every day, the same warning every day. You don't owe your child a warning every day you don't owe them that and if you say to your child don't get on the coffee table and he gets on it the next day you should help him to remember that this was already dealt with yesterday we're not going to relive this every day this is not Groundhog Day and we're just going to relive the same day over and over again. So those are obstacles. The whole point is this, that obedience is honor externalized.

God desires that parents establish a Certain kind of culture we are culture makers just like our father in heaven, and he is bequeathed to us Partnership in creating this culture as we take Dominion and part of part of the dominion mandate is that we set things in order the way that he has them in order in heaven. Because we're preparing a generation for heaven. And as a result of that, because we're preparing the next generation for heaven, we are living in a totally different way. We're not like the pagans who are preparing their children for licentiousness. So we don't child raise like them.

We are totally different. It's going to look different, feel different. We are different. We are children of the kingdom of heaven. We are pilgrims.

We are sojourners. We are strangers in a strange land. But the culture that we're called by God to build is a culture of happiness. And the culture of happiness is really founded on honor and obedience. And if you wanna have a happy home, you've got to nurture and protect those.

You've got to go out and get them. You've got to make them happen. God has given to you the power for culture making. That you would create such a happy kingdom with happy subjects, with happy kings and queens who are bringing the very best laws that ever could be brought into any kingdom and watching the fruit of those laws emerge and cover the land and continue to reproduce from one generation to the next. And so I charge you to understand this critical thing, that God has made us culture makers and the kind of culture He has us making is the most beautiful culture that can ever be made on the planet and He's given us to do that.

I pray that God will give us strength to do it with all of our hearts, with all of our love, that He would help us to get rid of the sin in our own hearts that has so fouled up our own culture making and to make great cultures. Would you pray with me? Father I thank you again for giving us such clarity, for giving us such clear direction, Lord that we would be we would be living pictures of honor and obedience in our hearts, in our marriages, in our homes, in our churches, in our land. Amen. Churches is dedicated to proclaiming the sufficiency of Scripture for church and family life and to the establishment of biblically ordered churches.

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