In his sermon 'Disciplining Children,' Mike Davenport challenges conventional views on discipline by expanding its definition beyond punishment to include instruction and governance. He uses the story of Lot from Genesis 19 as a cautionary tale to illustrate how gradual compromises and a lack of spiritual discipline can lead a family to ruin. Davenport emphasizes the importance of spiritual leadership within the family, warning against costly isolation from the church and carnal rationalization in decision-making. He suggests that parents should actively seek the hearts of their children, provide spiritual protection, and not neglect their duties as spiritual leaders. Additionally, he stresses the need for parents to live well to lead well, urging them to evaluate where they 'pitch their tent' in terms of family values and environment. The sermon concludes with a call to action for parents to be radical in their commitment to Christ and to instill this dedication in their children, highlighting the eternal significance of such efforts.

So as we begin, just want to reiterate what Scott was just mentioning that I want to set the course for our time together by stating from the outset that this message will probably not fall under the label normal or typical in terms of what you may have been expecting. Let me explain. First, when we think of discipline, our minds often run first and foremost to Webster's third definition if you look at the dictionary of 1828 and that definition is to correct, to chastise, to punish. And that's where our minds quickly run when we think of discipline. So maybe you came with an expectation to hear a message on this type of discipline, but I want to go broader than this.

I want to incorporate Webster's first two definitions as we consider the issue of the discipline of our children. That is to instruct or educate, to inform the mind, to prepare by instructing incorrect principles and habits, and secondly to instruct and govern, to teach rules and practice. So as we think about that, thinking about the discipline that the Army seeks to put into its soldiers, or the discipline that the teachers desire to have in their classroom. It's this type of discipline. And secondly, when we think of discipline, our minds often run straight to Ephesians 6 or Colossians 3 or Hebrews 12 or the book of Proverbs.

And as I wrestled with what text to use as my main text, It was to these four texts to which I found myself looking at, grappling with, but not finding any sense of direction, I began to contemplate where God wants to take us as a congregation. Specifically what God has been teaching us here in recent days, here through the book of Isaiah. So with those explanations set forth, I want to ask you to please turn with me to Genesis chapter 19. Genesis chapter 19. Chapter 19.

Genesis chapter 19. For the sake of time, I'm just going to read a few select portions of Genesis 19. So Genesis 19, 1-3. Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground.

And he said, Here now, my lords, please turn into your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise early and go on your way. And they said, no, but we will spend the night in the open square.' But he insisted strongly, so they turned into him and entered his house. Then he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread and they ate." skipping down to verse 12. Then the men said to Lot, Have you anyone else here that is in Sodom?

Son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, whomever you have in the city, Take them out of this place, for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it." So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, Get up! Get out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city. But to his sons-in-law, he seemed to be joking. When the morning dawned, the angels urged lot to hurry, saying, Arise! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.

And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife's hand, in the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him. And they brought him out and set him outside the city. So it came to pass when they had brought them outside that he said, escape for your life, do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain, Escape to the mountains lest you be destroyed.' Then Lot said to them, Please, no my lords. Indeed now your servant has found favor in your sight and you have increased your mercy which you have shown me by saving my life. But I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me and I die.

See now, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Please let me escape there. Is it not a little one? And my soul shall live.' And he said to him, "'See, I have favored you concerning this thing also, in that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.

Therefore, the name of the city was called Zohar. The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zohar. Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens. So he overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his wife, that is Lot's wife, looked back behind him and she became a pillar of salt.

Now skipping to verse 30. Then Lot went out of Zohar and dwelt in the mountains and his two daughters were with him, for he was afraid to dwell in Zohar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave. Now the firstborn said to the younger, Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to come into us, as is the custom of all the earth. Come, let us make our Father drink wine and we will lie with him that we may preserve the lineage of our Father." So they made their Father drink wine that night.

And the firstborn went in and lay with her Father and did not know when she lay down or when she arose. It happened on the next day that the firstborn said to the younger, indeed I lay with my father last night let us make him drink wine tonight also and you go in and lie with him that we may preserve the lineage of our father. Then they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father.

The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. And the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day and the younger she also bore a son and called his name Ben Ami. He is the father of the people of Ammon to this day.

So we have here the sad account of the self-destruction of a family, the family of Lot. Lot, the nephew of the father of Israel, the patriarch Abraham, a man described as righteous by Peter in his second epistle, chapter 2, a man whose very soul was tormented by the lawlessness all around him, a man who was successful in the eyes of the Lord, sitting in the very gate of the city." These passages provide us a window to look into the life of this man and to note how his family came to ruin. You see, ruin did not come to Lot's household overnight, and ruin will most likely not come to your household overnight. It is usually slow and most often undetectable without much searching. In the early stages, it is almost like carbon monoxide, undetectable to the senses, slowly putting you into a sleep of death.

After all, do you really think Lot expected to lose his family? Godly discipline, the discipline that I want to talk about today, godly discipline only takes place when we as parents are deliberate in the pursuit of it. And so I want this afternoon to ask you several questions, several questions as we think about the discipline of our sons and our daughters. Number one, where are you pitching your tent? Where are you pitching your tent?

Where are you setting your tent up? See, we are quick to condemn Lot for dwelling in Sodom, but that's not where he started. In fact, it may be that he never intended to dwell there. After all, Peter describes him as a righteous man. But that is where we find him here in chapter 19, right in the middle of Sodom.

How did he wind up there? How did he wind up there? Flip back a few pages with me to Genesis 13. Genesis 13, look with me at verses 7 through 13 and then the last verse of the chapter. Genesis 13, 7.

And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock. The Canaanites and the Parasites then dwelt in the land. So Abram said to Lot, Please, Let there be no strife between you and me, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me.

If you take the left, then I will go to the right, or if you go to the right, then I will go to the left." And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the Garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go towards Zorah. Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east, and they separated from each other. Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom. But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord." And then verse 18, Then Abram moved his tent and went and dwelt by the terabith trees of Mamre, which are in Hebron and built an altar there to the Lord." So the first thing I want you to note in this passage regarding the location of Lot's tent is the costly isolation. The costly isolation.

God's call was to Abraham. God's promise was to Abraham. God's blessing resided upon Abraham. So when strife arose between their herdsmen, the response was to separate. In this response Lot was separating from the church at that time, from that place, that man upon whom God had rested all the promises, all of his word.

He was isolating himself. He flees as it were from the promised land because if you read here, Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan. Lot separated himself. The devil desires to isolate sheep. Isolate them from the shepherds and from the other sheep.

Those who are isolated are easy prey for the lion who seeks to destroy and devour them. Men, are you purposefully or inadvertently separating your family and specifically your children from the life of the church? Are you becoming isolated? You are teaching your children that you can be a part of the head that is Christ without being a part of the body, His church. You're teaching them by that that the church is not needed that the cities of man are crucial to life But not the church that the church cannot meet the deepest needs of their life Such ice In such isolation our families are cut off from the means of grace, they're cut off from the gifts of the body, they're cut off from the fellowship of the saints, They're cut off from the watchfulness of the under-shepherds.

They're cut off from the grace of Christ which he manifests to his body. So it's crucial. There is costly isolation here as Lot separates from Abraham. The second thing to note here regarding the location of Lot's tent is the carnal rationalization. The carnal rationalization.

Lot did not seem to take into consideration the will of the Lord or the welfare of his family when making this decision. He merely lifted his eyes up and took in the landscape. He noted the abundance that was there and he made his choice accordingly. No prayer to Jehovah. No consideration of what was best for his uncle who was older than him.

No due fear of the condition of Sodom. No consideration of the impact upon his family. He chose the ease of life and the attraction of the city over the less desired deserted area. But what was the response of Abraham? He moved his tent, we read, and built an altar to the Lord there.

Carnal rationalization. That's why Lot moved his tent there. Men, your children are being discipled to either lift their eyes to the plains around them or to lift their eyes upward to the Lord, which is it. Walk about your house and identify all the objects of your house. Do they draw your heart after Sodom, after Babylon, or do they draw your heart after God?

Are we in our homes making mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth or in righteousness because we are holding a lie in our right hand. Are we heeding the commandments of God? Our children are being disciplined, discipled in our homes by our words and conduct, by what we set up and what we allow, we are instructing and educating them. We are informing their mind. We are solidifying in their consciences principles and habits.

We are instructing and governing with words and actions and what we teach is shaping in their hearts specific rules and practices. They are learning to rationalize the desires of their heart by carnal argumentation or they are learning to wage war against the world and against their flesh. Where are you pitching your tent? Don't do so by carnal rationalization. Don't do so by costly isolation.

And thirdly, we see the location of Lot's tent and we see in it constant dissatisfaction. Constant dissatisfaction. Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain, But that was not satisfactory. So he pitched his tent, the text says, even as far as Sodom. By the time we arrive at chapter 19, we find Lot living in a house which spoke of permanence right within Sodom itself.

Abraham was content to dwell in his tent by the altar of God which he had set up. Lot was not content to stay in one dwelling place, so he moved ever closer to Sodom. And alas, he's found in Sodom. One has once said that sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay. Are we teaching our children that the pleasures of sin are for a season only?

Are we by our words and actions proclaiming that in God's presence is fullness of joy, at His right hand our pleasures forevermore? Do not fool yourselves. If you are giving your children even the smallest morsels of the world, you are creating a growing appetite for more because there is no satisfaction to be found in these things. Today they are next door to Abraham, dwelling in the plains, but it is only a matter of time before they are dwelling in Sodom. And don't shrug that off as too great an impossibility for your children.

Lot was a righteous man. It can happen. Where are you pitching your tent? The state of your household is discipling your children. To either love God or to love the world.

To seek the kingdom of God or to seek their own kingdoms. To desire to serve or to desire a life of ease, to build altars to Jehovah, or to build altars to their own pleasure? Where are you pitching your tent? Secondly, second question, who has the hearts of your children? Who has the hearts of your children?

Solomon says in Proverbs 23, 26, my son give me your heart and let your eyes observe my ways." This is what a man does. A man who is serious about the discipling of his children. He seeks after their hearts. He desires to win their hearts. And here, what he's saying here, he desires their imitation.

Let your eyes observe my ways. He understands the importance of having his children's hearts. Where the heart goes, the mind, will, and emotions follow. Christ made that clear in Matthew 5 where your heart is found. There in that same place has found your treasure and whatever it is you treasure it demands your mind, it demands your will, it demands your emotions.

We should desire the hearts of our children in order to set them heavenward. Yet far too often we end up losing the hearts of our children. Or if we do gain their hearts, we set them on the things of this world. Back in Genesis 19, we see the hearts of Lot's family set on everything earthly and nothing heavenward. Men, are you aware of the battle for the hearts of your children?

It is a battle. It's a battle. Stephen McElpine, a pastor and church planter in Perth, Australia, posted the following on his blog just a few days ago. He said, if we assume, and he's speaking in the context of the church that the church has missed the boat and we as families can miss it too. So he says if we assume neutral culture then we assume we can get involved in and play with culture without getting infected by it.

That we can remain distinct from it, undrawn to its more sickly parts, and more than capable of knowing when to say no to culture's soft focus, slow motion, beckoning, and effete, Join us, join us, plea. Simply put, we assume that we can have more impact on culture than it can have on us. That is dangerously naive thinking. Jesus never said the culture will misunderstand you. He said the world will hate you.

And I'm afraid Mr. Michael Pine is correct that we as parents, We thought too naively about the culture we are in. Our culture is not neutral. It is aggressive. It is seeking the hearts of our children.

It is infiltrating our homes in order to steal the hearts of our children and it is often doing so right under our very noses without the slightest response from us. We say no to the influence of the public schools and yet are we opening the doors of Hollywood and Madison Avenue without blinking an eye? Men, we are in a battle and there is more at stake than even our own souls. Do you have the hearts of your children? Are you engaged in battle for their hearts?

Not only to gain their hearts but also to keep them as they grow older. The battle for their hearts increases especially if we have been feeding their appetites on the very provisions of the enemy. Who has the hearts of your children? Third question, what duties are you neglecting? What duties are you neglecting?

See Lot was a successful man. He had so much of this world's goods that he could not dwell together with Abraham. The land was not able to support them both. Not only was he successful, he was an important man. He sat in the gate of the city, most likely as a judge or some city official, but though he was successful, though he was important, his family was in ruins.

They were heading down the wrong path. Men, we can be successful in many areas and yet be neglecting our duty as fathers. How are you measuring your success? Is it possible that you are successful in the eyes of the world but are failing in the things that God has commanded you to do and called you to do? We live in a society where it is acceptable and on some level expected that men will abdicate their duties or pass them off to someone else.

But in the last day, we will give an account to God. So here are a few questions in light of the duties seen in our passage. Are you providing your children spiritual sustenance? Are you providing your children spiritual sustenance? Lot's dwelling place was highlighted by his proximity to Sodom.

Abraham's dwelling place was highlighted by his proximity to Jehovah. He built an altar there. As a church we have been reading each month about the duty and privilege of family worship. Have you been reading each month? Have you been reading?

If so, what impact has this reading had on your family's worship patterns? Have you been neglecting this duty? Men, we are to be discipling our children in the fear of the Lord, in the admonition of the Lord, and teaching them the law of our God when we sit in our homes, when we walk by the way, when we lie down and when we rise up. Christ said that man cannot live by bread alone. Are you providing them more than the bread on the table?

Are you requiring them to read good literature? Are you following up with them on what they are reading even in their times of devotions? Is there an altar in your house, a place, a time, a pattern of worshipping Jehovah? If there is not, or it is extremely inconsistent, My suspicions are that your tent is moving ever closer to Sodom. Are you providing your children spiritual sustenance?

Second, are you providing your children spiritual protection? Spiritual protection. The angels, when they came to Lot's house, charged Lot with the warning and safe keeping of all whom he had in the city. Son-in-law's, sons, daughters, the angels commanded Lot, Take them out of this place. From heaven's perspective, it was his duty.

It was his duty from heaven's perspective. Do you have sons-in-law? Do you have sons? Do you have daughters? Take them out of this place.

It's your duty, man. It's your duty. His duty was to seek to spare them from the judgment of God that was coming. He had already failed to provide physical protection for his daughters, offering them as an exchange for the well-being of the angels who had come. Does not your fatherly love and care bristle at the fact Lot was so ready to place his daughters in such an awful predicament?

I mean the hair on the back of our necks just stand up thinking about it. How could you do that? And yet I propose to you that the sin of leaving them spiritually unprotected is far greater, men. It's far greater to leave them spiritually unprotected. How is it not the greater sin when we know that Satan desires their destruction?

That Satan is trying to allure them away from any godly influences. That he is trying to increase their appetite for the things of this world. And that it involves more than the brevity of this fleeting life. It involves eternity. Men, discipling our children involves pressing our children with the gospel of Christ and preparing them for the life to come.

We also need to provide spiritual protection from the press of this world that is seeking to press and to mold our children into the systems of Babylon and Sodom. How are you protecting your children in the areas of literature? Areas of literature, TV and video, recreation, companionships, relationships, social media, internet. Let me put it bluntly, but with loving concern, if you don't have a clue or are not being deliberate in each of these areas, you are not protecting your children. The failure to provide this spiritual protection to his daughters caused the depraved planning at the end of chapter 19 that led to such immoral perversion.

There was no spiritual protection. But also are you taking the word of God seriously? Are you taking the word of God seriously? We are told that it was the sheer mercy of God that the angels he had sent took Lot and his family by the hand and brought them out of the city and told them to escape for their lives. Lot had been commanded to take them out.

But we are told that he lingered. He lingered. We come face to face with these words. We came face to face with these words in Isaiah 48 last week. Go forth from Babylon.

Flee from the Chaldeans. There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked. We've received the same message that Lot received. Lot received the message, take your family from this place. Last week, men, we were told, flee from Babylon.

Get out from among the Chaldeans, for there is no peace for the wicked. Are you lingering? Are you lingering? There is no promise that the Lord will be as merciful with us as he was with Lot. In fact, Genesis 19, 29 makes it evident that it was the intercession of righteous Abraham that moved God to sin lot out of Sodom.

Are you taking the Word of God seriously? If you are, you will be men of action. Not lingering. Men of action. Doers of the word and not hearers only, drawing near to God with heart as well as with lips.

What duties are you neglecting, men? And lastly, fourth question, what do you love most? What do you love most? John MacArthur in his book Being a Dad Who Leads says this, parenting is first and foremost a spiritual task. Parenting is first and foremost a spiritual task, one in which personal righteousness, self-control, and the mortification of our own flesh are all necessary prerequisites to proper discipline and instruction of our children.

In short, he says, The only way to be a dad who leads well is to be a dad who lives well. How is it with you dad? Are you living well? Where is your heart? What do you love?

If you are not living well, you won't lead well. If your heart is not set on Christ, How can you guide the hearts of your children there? Our children are most likely not going to love something that we don't love. When Lot approached his sons-in-law with the Word of God, they did not take him seriously. They thought he was joking.

I submit to you that it was because of what they had seen in Lot's life, or maybe more precisely, what they did not see in Lot's life. Life. And it is my fear that we are not worshiping God in our family because our hearts, dads, may be preoccupied with a love for something other than our own Savior. And that love for that idol strangles any attempt at leading our families. Our consciences scream out to us, but we draw back from the shadows of hypocrisy.

What do we love? Where are our hearts? We need to check ourselves, and constantly. Men, does your life promote the gospel as loud as your words? Are you disciplining your children heavenward?

We cannot change their hearts. We can't do it. We cannot change their hearts. Only Christ can do that. But what is within the scope of our abilities and duty is to promote the gospel of our Savior in word and in deed to command our children in the ways of the Lord as Abraham did that they may keep his ways in order to do what is righteous and just and to instruct them out of his word.

Christ urged his disciples, remember Lot's wife. Remember Lot's wife in terms of your own hearts. But I urge you to also remember his daughters and his sons-in-law. For the sake of our children and before a watching world and a watching church, we must be willing to be thought radical, to be thought extreme for our God. We must be radical in our commitment to Christ, radical in our view of his law, radical in our worship, radical in our marriage, radical in our labor, and radical in the disciplining of our children.

May God grant us the grace and the resolve to do so. In closing, I would like to draw your attention just to the stark contrasts of the divine visitation. Abraham and Lot both received a divine visitation. In chapter 18 of Genesis, we read of Christ along with the two angels visiting the home of Abraham. This visitation was for the purpose of revealing God's gracious promises for the descendants of Abraham.

These are the words of Christ. Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you according to the time of life and Sarah shall have a son." Christ also said speaking to himself, shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing? Since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him, for I have known him in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him." God knew the heart of Abraham that He would command His children after him. But how about the divine visitation to Lot?

The first thing to note is that Christ does not join these two angelic beings. Christ remains with Abraham. Lot is visited by the angels, but Christ is conspicuously absent. He's God. He's not there.

God's promise of an heir for Abraham is given in the context of the pregnancy of Sarah, whose body is almost 90, past the age of bearing children. For Lot? No such promise. The visitation is not for the purpose of promise. It is for the rescue of their very own persons.

Devoid of any hope, Lot's daughters devise a plan for bringing about the continuance of that family line, far different from the visitation to Abraham. Springing from these visitations came forth heirs to both, to Abraham an heir according to the promise, for Lot heirs born out of incestuous acts, springing from these two visitations came forth incredible providence in the lives of their wives. To Abraham, a wife who became a pillar in the lineage of the Messiah to prolong Israel to Lot a wife who became a pillar of salt springing from these two visitations came forth a trajectory of two families. To Abraham, a family that would prove a blessing to all nations. To Lot, a family that would prove to be a thorn in the side of God's people.

Men, what sort of visitation from Christ are you desirous of receiving? How are you disciplining your children in light of this passage? What is the trajectory of your family? If you have been convicted on some level, even as I have, there is grace. There is forgiveness.

There is cleansing. For all who will confess their sins and flee to Jesus Christ. You are not without hope. Do not wallow in dismay and doubt. Go to Christ.

Go to Christ. God can restore the days, the weeks, the months, the years that the locusts have eaten. May God give us grace to raise up families that will prove to be a blessing to the church and to the world. May God make us faithful. Let's pray.

Oh Father, we thank you for Jesus Christ. We thank you that there is hope in him. Lord, We were reminded of that hope in the message earlier today that Christ came to bring back a remnant of Jacob so that Israel would be complete. But that was not enough. You sent Christ as a light to the Gentiles, and you've gathered us in.

Oh God, may we, like Abraham, prove faithful to that call. May we command our children after us to Walk according to your commandments, to obey you, to do righteousness, to do justice. Oh Father, our duties are great, our time is short. Give us help, give us grace to be faithful men. In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.