In the sermon 'Responding to Foolishness,' Peter Allison discusses the biblical perspective on child discipline using Proverbs 22. He argues that foolishness is inherent in children and can be driven away by the 'rod of correction.' The sermon highlights the importance of biblical discipline, distinguishing it from non-biblical practices often criticized by contemporary society. It challenges modern views against spanking, citing biblical authority and the role of parents as God's representatives. Allison emphasizes that discipline should be carried out with love, instruction, and prayer, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and not merely as a reaction to anger or fear. He warns of the societal implications of rejecting biblical discipline, suggesting it leads to a generation prone to narcissism and laziness. The sermon underscores discipline's necessity for self-governance and maintaining societal order, linking it to the messianic reign of Jesus Christ, and asserting that parental authority is divinely ordained.

Proverbs 22, I like to read verses 6 through 16, these two interlocking chiasms forming one passage. Proverbs 22 verse 6, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is a servant to the lender. He who sows iniquity will reap sorrow, and the rod of his anger will fail. He who has a generous eye will be blessed, for he gives of his bread to the poor.

Cast out the scoffer and contention will leave, yes strife and reproach will cease. He who loves purity of heart and has grace on his lips, the King will be his friend. The eyes of Jehovah preserve knowledge, But he overthrows the words of the faithless. The lazy man says there is a lion outside, I will be slain in the streets. The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit.

He who is abhorred by Jehovah will fall there. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child the rod of correction will drive it far from him He who oppresses the poor to increase his riches and he who gives to the rich will surely come to poverty May the Lord be gracious and merciful to us according to His Word. O Heavenly Father, we enlighten us according to your Word. May your Word come with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with assurance. Sanctify, Father, my sinful lips and this vessel that it might proclaim what is holy and true.

In Jesus' name, Amen. We've been looking at this passage and the dealing with the friend of the King. He who has grace on his lips, the King will be his friend. He who loves purity of heart and his grace on his lips, the King will be his friend. We've seen this chiasm built around that point.

That chiasm opens and closes, as you see from your copy there, that this prosperous society is built with well-trained families. And We've looked at that verse in some detail. We've looked at what it is to train a child and the way he should go. I think it would be helpful for one more sermon on this theme of a prosperous society is built with well-trained families. In that verse 15, which is the other half of the point in verse 6, to train up a child in the way he should go.

The other point is that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. But the rod of correction will drive it far from him. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him. The Bible defines the fool as somebody who refuses to listen to instruction.

The fool is somebody who refuses to listen to instruction. The fool is somebody who mocks at wisdom. The Bible says that this foolishness, this refusal to listen to instruction, this mocking This mocking of wisdom is bound up in the heart of all children because we are born in sin. But there's a promise here that the rod of correction will drive it far from the child. We live in a day when the rod of correction, when spanking, is not popular.

It's not merely unpopular, It's criticized, it's mocked, it's demonized, it's relegated to the class of behaviors that belong to uneducated, backward, neanderthal, rednecks who just don't know any better, who haven't been educated, who haven't been taught the better ways of dealing with raising children, better parenting methods. It's relegated to religious fanatics who are obviously brainwashed and probably mentally unstable. After all, what sane person would turn the other cheek when struck on one cheek? The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, which was a document that was enacted in the late 1980s, 1988-89, ratified by every country in the United Nations, every country in the world except the United States. Every other country.

It used to be Somalia was a holdout, but in 2015 I noticed they ratified this treaty on the Convention on the Rights of a Child. It calls spanking a physical punishment that is legalized violence against all children which should be eliminated in all settings through legislative, administrative, social, and educational measures. I remember in 1992 speaking, lobbying when we lived in near Washington DC being a part of the homeschool legal defenses lobbying of Congress, of the Senate and the House against this committee, this treaty. And now over 25 years later it still has not been ratified by the United States, thankfully. But its effect is certainly felt throughout this land.

The attack on the use of the rod is so severe that most Christian parents no longer do it openly for fear of being dragged into court. The attitude of many is expressed by one pediatrician when she said, Don't discipline with physical punishment. Doing so teaches children that the people who love them are the ones most likely to hurt them. That physical force is justified in that violence is an acceptable way of solving problems. The American Academy of Pediatrics, these are the people that certify The doctors that we want to take our children to recommend that parents develop methods other than spanking in response to undesired behavior, adding one that spanking is harmful emotionally to both the parent and the child.

That while it stops the behavior temporarily, it doesn't teach alternative behavior. And that it also interferes with the development of trust. It interferes with the development of a sense of security. It interferes with effective communication and the development of internal self-government or self-discipline. So who's right?

Who's right? What is the result of this rejection of the Bible, the Word of God? A Time magazine article from May 9, 2013 described the first generation predominantly raised with these ideas this way, quote, Here are some broad descriptions about the generation known as millennials. Now millennials, It's not the quote, but millennials would be people that are born between 1980 and 2000. It says, quote, they are, and this is Time Magazine, This is not any Christian saying this.

This is not a proponent of the Bible saying this. This is a magazine that has rejected, for the most part, the Bible. This is what they say about the generation known as Millennials. Quote, they are narcissistic. They're lazy.

They're coddled. They're even a bit delusional. They aren't just unfounded. Those aren't just unfounded negative stereotypes. About 80 million Americans born roughly between 1980 and 2000.

They're backed up by a decade of sociological research." I think that's our answer. What happens to a generation of people who are raised by those who reject the Bible, who have practiced the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who have followed the dictates of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It's a generation that's narcissistic, lazy, coddled, a bit delusional. And a decade of Research has established that. They crave attention.

They are prone to job hopping. They approach their superiors as equals more so than previous generations. They need instant gratification, short attention spans. They haven't grown up. That was an article from the Baltimore Sun.

That's how they describe this generation What do Millennials believe about themselves? Well, they do believe that they are more narcissistic than previous generations That was the conclusion of a 2016 article by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in San Diego. Millennials are more likely to support a progressive tax system. That's a tax based on envy, that wants to tax those who have more than others. The Bible says the tax was to be just.

The rich should not pay more, the poor should not pay less, because after all justice should be blind to wealth. The rich and the poor receive the same justice and should pay the same. Millennials are more likely to support progressive taxes, and they want to increase the minimum wage which puts the people that are unskilled out of work and makes it hard for our young men to learn trades and find profitable employment as they transition into adulthood in their teen years. They believe that government regulations on businesses are necessary in order to keep them in check and to protect consumers. And it could go on and on.

But I submit to you that this is the result of trying to raise a generation of children contrary to the Word of God. But this is more than just foolishness, more than just stupidity. This is an attack on the messianic reign of Jesus Christ. This attempt to come in between parents and their ability to command their children after them in the fear of the Lord is an attack on the messianic reign of Jesus Christ. This attempt to come in between parents and their ability to command their children after them in the fear of the Lord is an attack on the messianic reign of Jesus Christ.

Because Christ's Rule is through three institutions. He rules through the civil magistrate. He rules through the church and he rules through the family. And these are each three separate and distinct institutions with separate and distinct authority. And this attack on the rod of correction, this attempt to outlaw it, to call it uneducated and backward and wrong, is to say that God's Word is wrong, but specifically an attempt to prevent parents, and limit and inhibit the ability of parents to train their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

You see, This is the covenant blessing of baptism, that our children are trained in the fear and nurture of the Lord. This is an attempt to remove that, to break that, and in so doing to destroy the family and the church and the civil government. Because all discipline is based on self-discipline. Without self-discipline, culture collapses. We can never put enough policemen on the streets to make up for a lack of self-discipline in individuals.

We can never have enough cameras on enough corners to monitor every person who lacks self-discipline. When a culture lacks self-government, all government collapses. This is an attack upon the church as well. I don't doubt that a lot of these studies have proven that these people like to quote. I don't doubt that these studies have disproven or that spanking works.

Because what they're studying is not Biblical discipline. And the results that they are reporting are not the results of Biblical discipline. It's the results of something else. And there is often an element of truth in what a lot of these people, these people that are rejecting the Bible, there is an element of truth in what they are saying. And that often what they are talking about is not biblical discipline.

It is not what the Bible is talking about when it speaks here in verse 15, that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him. They're looking at something else. And that's what we want to look at this morning. What does the Bible say about the rod? What is biblical discipline?

What does drive foolishness far from our children? The first thing we see is that God uses the rod. God Himself uses the rod. Speaking of Solomon, God said to David when he told him that David wouldn't build the temple but that his son would, God said this to David, He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son.

If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the blows of the sons of men." God Himself said, I will be a father to Solomon your son, and if he commits iniquity, I will chase in him with the rod of men. David said of Christ, the Good Shepherd, His rod and His staff, they comfort me. God's rod was a comfort to David. Speaking again of David's descendants, God says in Psalm 89, verse 30, If his sons, if David's sons forsake my law, and do not walk in my judgments, if they break my statutes, and do not keep my commandments, then I will visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Jeremiah wrote in Lamentations, I am the man who has seen afflictions by the rod of His wrath.

Jeremiah said, I have seen God using His rod on His children. So God uses the rod. God uses the rod of men to chase in us. But Secondly, the use of the rod is commanded. Let's not forget that.

This isn't just some suggestions. These are commands. Proverbs 23 says, do not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with a rod he will not die, you will beat him with a rod and deliver his soul from hell. We want to look this morning at what is the Bible speaking about when it says that. Because it's not speaking about what all these pediatricians in the UN are writing about when they talk about corporal punishment.

The use of the rod is commanded. Train up a child in the way he should go. The other half of that point is that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child and the rod will drive it far from Him. Thirdly, the authority that is represented in that rod that we are talking about, the authority that is represented in that rod is God's authority. The authority of parents, parental authority, is from God and is subordinate to God.

Parents, we can only declare what God says is right or wrong. We can't make up our own laws. Our authority comes from God and from God only. And if God doesn't give us authority, we don't have that authority. We do not make the law.

We simply are the mouthpiece, God's mouthpiece to speak God's law. So this is not a desire to lord it over our children because we are bigger and stronger than they are. So that's what's often going on in the biblical or in the use of the rod that is condemned by the pagans. It's simply what Jesus called the Gentiles love to lord it over. He said we're not to be that way.

Our authority over our children is not just because we're bigger and stronger and a desire to lord it over little people. We must rather bring God's authority directly to bear on our children. We need to show our children that what we are telling them is what God has commanded them. That God tells them to do what we are telling them to do. So we have to take them to the Word of God.

It's not us, but it's God that is commanding them. The Bible says, children, obey your parents in the Lord." There are things that we must make decisions about, where the Word of God is silent. It's not completely silent. It teaches us the principles, and as parents we have to apply those principles. We have to use our judgment.

So sometimes we do need to go back simply to the fifth commandment, or to Ephesians 6, which says, children obey your parents in the Lord. But we have to show that what we are commanding is required by a sanctified understanding of the Word of God. That we are not just making up things for our own convenience. These aren't just rules that we'd like, but these are rules that, these are commands that are necessary if we are as parents to be faithful to the Word of God. So we must represent the authority that as parents, we must represent it as God's authority.

In Ephesians 6, this is what Paul does. He's writing a letter to the church. By the way, maybe you don't have children, maybe you don't have little children. And this message may not seem to be directly applicable in your situation. But the example of the scripture is that God addresses specific groups of people in the context of the greater congregation.

When Peter was giving instruction to elders, he spoke to the elders as those elders who are among you. In other words, he didn't take the elders off by themselves, but he addressed their duties, he addressed them in the context of a larger assembly. And Paul does the same thing in his letter to the Ephesians. He's writing a letter to the church, and in the middle of this letter, he turns to children and he says, Children. And he gives instructions to children in front of everybody else.

And so this is what we're doing this morning. It's important that we all understand, regardless of where we are, what stage in life we are, it's important that we all understand what God's Word teaches about the use of the rod. It's important because as a congregation we have taken a vow to pray for and support these parents who have before us baptized their children and committed vowed to train them in the fear and nurture of the Lord. And if we are going to rightfully pray to them, if we are going to rightfully help them, then we need to understand what it is that they are to be doing. So that we can rightly pray, and so we can rightly encourage, and so that we can rightly help them.

And we don't become part of the larger society that frowns upon the use of the rod, but rather we can encourage parents when it's being rightly used and gently come alongside and help them when it's being wrongly applied. So we need to understand, all of us need to understand this message this morning. But Paul does this in Ephesians 6. He comes to the children and he says, children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. But then he takes the children and he goes back to the scriptures and he says, This is what God's Word commanded.

See, the next verse is, He's quoting the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother. So he's explaining to the children that this is God's command for them. And then he explains why. He tells them the rule, he tells them the principle, he ties it back to the Word of God. He's saying this is what God's Word tells you to do.

And then he explains why they should do it. What's the benefit? He says, for this is the first commandment with promise. There's a promise attached to doing this, that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. See, we have to represent our authority coming from as given by God.

Fourthly, our use of the rod should reflect God's dealings with His people. Remember, God uses the rod. How does He use it? Parents are God's instrument for chastening for their children. Then our chastening and use of the rod should imitate God's chastening and use of the rod.

So God's chastening, his anger is momentary. It's momentary. His anger lasts a moment, his favor all our days. The use of the rod and this correction should be momentary. It shouldn't be descriptive of the entire day.

It shouldn't be descriptive of what it's like to live in your home. It should be momentary. And when it's rightly applied, it is momentary. It doesn't control the whole tenor of the home. And that's why it really grieves me to see parents walking around with a paddle sticking out of the back of their pants pocket, or out of their dress pocket.

Because that's communicating something that is ongoing. It's not a momentary thing. It's rather a continual presence in the home. I'm not critical of any time that somebody has had that in their pocket. I'm talking about an attitude that this is a continual, This is just the way we do things in the home, and that use of the rod is a continual, ongoing thing.

Sometimes it might need to be. Sometimes there might need to be where, as parents, we've failed, and we need to repent and correct ourselves. There may need to be times where it's used more frequently, but it should be like God's chastening. His anger lasts a moment. His favor all our days.

Our homes ought to be dominated by favor, by grace. It's also not done in wrath. Psalm 38 says, Oh Lord, do not rebuke me in your wrath and chase me in your hot displeasure. Now there is a difference between something being done while we are angry and something being done in anger. There is a difference.

We are to be angry and do not sin. It is not wrong to be angry at wickedness. It is not wrong to be angry when children have been greatly disobedient. But what we don't want is to chasten in that anger, being driven out of that anger. We are to be angry and do not sin.

So we need to have great caution when we are angry. That we are not chastening using the rod out of that anger. But that the use of the rod is being rightly motivated. Fifthly, the rod is effective when it hurts. Proverbs 20-30 says, blows that hurt, cleanses away evil, as do stripes the inner depths of the heart.

Hebrews 12 tells us that All discipline isn't joyful for the moment, but it's painful. It's painful. Do your children go off laughing when you use the rod? Is there a change in their demeanor? Is there a change in their heart?

When God chastens, it brings fear. In Acts 5, God struck down Ananias and Sapphira when they lied to the Holy Spirit. The Bible says there in Acts 5 that great fear came on all the church when God used the rod. Great fear. The rod is effective when it hurts.

It blows that hurt that cleanses away evil. That cleanse away evil. Sixthly, the rod is effective only when it is accompanied by instruction. It's the rod and the reproof that bring wisdom, Proverbs 29 says. The rod and the reproof bring wisdom, but a child left to himself brings his mother to shame.

The rod and the reproof. The rod is completely ineffective when it is not accompanied by instruction. So if our children are fussing with each other and headed for a coral, we need to go to Proverbs 17 and teach how the beginning of Strife is like letting water out. Once you let it out, you can't get it back. And therefore we need to teach them that you have to stop these contentions before they start, before a quarrel starts.

If our children can't sit still in church, they have, as we used to say, ants in their pants. They can't control themselves. We need to go to the Scriptures and explain that whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down without walls. They're ripe for being led astray. They're ripe for being taken over.

He that rules his Spirit is stronger than he that takes the city. We need to explain and to teach why they need to sit still. And we need to do it from the Word of God. The rod is only effective when it is accompanied by instruction. Seventh, The rod is only effective to those who love their children.

The rod is only effective to those who love their children. And that's not the love of the world. The love of the Bible is a love that sacrifices. It's a love, it's an action, it's a giving. It's not speaking about this natural parental affection.

It's Speaking about a biblical understanding of love. He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly. Discipline your son while there is still hope and do not desire his death." Hebrews 12 goes into a little bit of detail on this point that the rod is effective only to those who love their children. Have you forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as sons, verse 5, Hebrews 12, My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him. For whom the Lord loves, He chastens and scourges every son whom he receives.

If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate. You are bastards and not sons. You are orphans.

You have no father. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of Spirits than that we have had human fathers who corrected us and we paid them respect. God said in Revelation, those whom I love I rebuke and chase them. If the use of the rod is not coming out of this desire, a genuine desire to see our children bow in submission before the Lord of heaven and earth.

If it's not coming out of a genuine desire for their own soul and their own well-being, it won't be effective. The rod must be an instrument of love and it has to be presented that way. It must then be used With those signs of affection, with hugging, with embracing, with holding, with kissing, with words, verbal reminders and expressions of our love for them. The one thing that breaks my heart is to see some child be spanked and then left to lick their wounds on their own, or sent out from the presence of their parent without any affection, without any expression of love. And yet one of the most beautiful things to see, and one of the indicators that we are rightly applying biblical discipline, is that after we have spanked a young child, to see them turn around and reach out their arms to hug and embrace the one who used the rod of correction because that rod was used in love.

Do you see that in your little children? Do they turn around and reach out their arms to you? Because the reuse of the rod has brought them to the point where they have recognized that they have grieved you, and that they are grieved that they have grieved you. And they are brought to the point where they desire to have that relationship restored, that relationship of affection restored. That's why they're reaching out.

Because They realize they've broken it, and they're reaching their arms out to reestablish it. That may not happen every time, but it ought to happen most times. If it doesn't, that's an indication that the rod is not being used, it's not being seen, it's not being received, it's being given in love. It's not being seen as given because we have a genuine desire for their well-being, to deliver their soul from hell. This means that the use of the rod has to come out of a greater context of a loving relationship.

It should have that same response as when God chastens us. When God chastens us, what do we do? Well if we are the Lord's it brings us back to Him. When God chastens us it humbles us and it turns us and we cry out to the Lord with greater fervency and greater devotion and greater love because we recognize that God is loving us. And that I have to characterize our parental use of the rod.

The reason all these studies come up with the opposite is because they are not studying biblical discipline. They are not studying discipline that is coming in the context of a loving relationship. They are not studying discipline and the use of the rod that is coming out of a genuine heartfelt desire to see one's children's souls saved from hell. Does it grieve you to have to use the rod? It should.

It grieves the Lord when we go astray and He needs to chase in us. Eighthly, the rod is only effective by the power of the Holy Spirit. The rod is only effective by the power of the Holy Spirit. Look at your chiasm. This whole chiasm is the point of it is that the King will be the friend of those who have grace on their lips and love purity of heart.

And the interlocking chiasm is that identifies who this King is. It's Jehovah. Jehovah is this King. Jehovah is this King. Only the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, can drive foolishness from our children.

Only the Holy Spirit can drive foolishness from our children. Only the Holy Spirit can drive foolishness from our children. And so the rod is the tool, the rod is the instrument, the rod is the means through which the Holy Spirit works, but there must be the Holy Spirit. So all the studies of spanking and corporal punishment are utterly meaningless. They're utterly meaningless if they do not distinguish between that which is done by the power of the Holy Spirit and that which is not.

And that's why all these studies are about as useless as the studies on whether prayer helps to heal people or not. Because God doesn't hear the prayer of the wicked. And these spiritual things are only understood and discerned by those who have the Spirit of God. So some researcher who doesn't have the Spirit of God is never going to be able to discern this spiritual thing. It's a spiritual matter.

So that's why the use of the rod must be accompanied by prayer. Without prayer, All of our work is useless. It's not by might nor by power. It's not because you're bigger than your child and you can spank them because you're physically bigger. It's not by might.

It's not because you're smarter. You shouldn't base your parental authority on the fact that you're smarter. Because sometimes, what if you're not? What if you're not smarter than your child? You know, there are many children that are smarter than their parents.

Then what? If you based your authority on the fact that you're bigger and smarter, it will fail. You have to base your authority on the fact that you are exercising God's authority. God is all wise. And we do that by prayer.

That prayer should include the confession of sin. It should include confession of parental sins. If nothing else, it should acknowledge that this sinful nature that is in our child came because they inherited it from us. You can confess that to the Lord in front of your children in prayer. You can acknowledge that this foolishness which is bound up in their heart, you gave it to them.

Came from us. We need to pray that the Lord would make effective the instruction of His Word that we bring, that He would make effective the use of the rod, that He would make effective, that the Holy Spirit would work and bring repentance, that this use of the rod might bring a change of heart in our children. Because the rod by itself doesn't. That's why all these studies have an element of truth in them. Because they're probably studying all, they're not studying biblical discipline.

They're not studying the use of the rod by those who are using it the way the Bible instructs us to use it. So of course it doesn't work. The use of the rod brings great benefits. It brings obedience. Before I was afflicted, David said in Psalm 119, I went astray, but now I have kept thy word.

Before I was afflicted, before the rod of God's chastening came to me, I went astray, but now I keep your word." The rod brings comfort and the rod brings security. No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. It's painful. It has to be painful. If it's not painful, it's not effective.

But afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit. That doesn't come from the mechanical use of a stick or a hand. It comes by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is Jehovah.

The King is the friend of those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, of those who have been born from above, of those who are the objects of His grace and mercy. So this promise that the rod of correction will drive it far from our children. This foolishness only comes by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. Anything else is a temporary response. And that's what these studies show.

They acknowledge you can get a temporary change, but nothing lasting. The reason is because it's not biblical discipline. What they're studying is something else. It's just people who are bigger than little people beating up on them. And it has a temporary effect, but nothing lasting.

One of the problems is the rod is too often misused. It is too often misused. It is too often used because parents are scared. One man, Samuel Martin, writing a polemic against spanking, said, one of my earliest recollections of a small boy was being spanked in inner Lach in Switzerland for getting too close to the edge of a mountain guardrail. I, like so many people before me, was taught that these smackings were good to help me become a better person." What happened there?

It's pretty obvious. This was not a biblical correction he was receiving. His parents were scared that he almost fell over the cliff. And so they took it out on him. That's not biblical discipline.

It's not a response when we're scared that our child almost ran out in the street and got killed. That has nothing to do with biblical discipline. So the fact that this is how he opened this paper, his whole book, on that this was a huge thing that he remembered now even as an adult. He remembered this. Why?

This isn't biblical discipline. This was parents that were scared. That's the worst time to spank. Or parental embarrassment. Your children don't do something in front of other people and you're embarrassed.

Your children do something foolish in front of other people and you're embarrassed. And so you spank. That's not biblical discipline. That's not Discipline that is motivated by a sincere love to deliver our children from souls from hell from motivated by our love for them It's motivated by our being embarrassed Or parental loss they just Our children just broke our prize china plate or destroyed something that we value. They put a rock through the window and we've lost something and so we spank.

That's not biblical discipline. There's nothing close to biblical discipline. Or inconvenience. We were inconvenienced. We had to wait because they weren't there at the right time or some other matter of inconvenience.

Or it's used to enforce unwise commands. Don't bring mud into the house. Well, alright, that's a good principle. But that's not a command that you can then just say you can spank because there's mud in the house and somebody tracked it in. That's what I call an unwise command.

There are far too many contextual things that go into the mud coming into the house. It's inconvenient. Now you have a mess to clean up. There are other ways to deal with those kinds of things. Now you might discern that there is a heart of rebellion in that action, but you need to be very carefully to still out the heart of rebellion from that action of bringing mud in the house.

Don't break my china. All these sorts of things, these are sort of generic commands. They're not appropriate. They're not the right sort of situations to use the rod. The rod is to be used for foolishness, which is a refusal to listen to instruction.

It is not for childish ignorance. They didn't know something. They didn't know their lessons. It's used for foolishness where they are refusing instruction but not because they were lazy and didn't do their school lessons. That was another common use of the rod.

It's not to be used for childish incompetence. It's not to be used in an unclear context where all these above elements are mixed in with disobedience. Where parental embarrassment, parental loss, parental inconvenience, unwise commands, you've got all those things going on, and you have disobedience, and that's all mixed up in the eyes of the child. They're not going to see the little fine disobedience. Unless we are very careful to explain the situation.

And we also have to be consistent. If when you have a parental embarrassment, loss, inconvenience, unwise commands, and disobedience, and they get spanked in that situation, but the exact same disobedience without the loss, without the inconvenience, without the unwise commands, doesn't get the rod, then what are they going to learn from that? Well, they're getting spanked because it was inconvenient for you, because you were embarrassed. There has to be a consistency so that they see that why are they getting spanked? They're spanked because they're refusing instruction, that they are scoffers, that they are mocking the Word of God.

We've talked about when it's used without instruction or reproof, when it's used without prayer. Our children need the Holy Spirit to change. Without the Holy Spirit there is no lasting change, no reception to the correction. Or when it is used to simply vent our frustration and anger. Anger.

These are all times where the rod is not biblical discipline. There are challenges to using the rod. Sometimes we might have been raised, your parents may have misused the rod in significant ways, and so the rod to you is a symbol of parental love and training, but rather it's a symbol of just big people beating up on little people. That's going to make it very difficult for you as a parent to use the rod with your children appropriately. Proverbs is often misquoted.

I remember when CPS, years ago, when we were dealing with our CPS case, where they wanted to take our children away, we had an interview with them in our house after many, many, many months. The very first question the social worker asked me was, so you believe spare the rod and spoil the child? Well, no, I don't. That's not in the Bible. It's misquoting Proverbs.

It doesn't say that. It says that he that spares the rod hates his child. So there's a lot of misunderstanding, there's a lot of misquoting of Proverbs, and there's a lot of misunderstanding of what we are doing when we do Biblical discipline. And that's true even in the church. A lot of misunderstanding.

And these present different challenges to use of the rod. But I would encourage each of you who are parents of young children to overcome these challenges and to not let them deter you from raising your children in the fear and ammunition of the Lord. I'd like to look in closing at just a few reasons that are given not to spank children. And see if with The instructions that we've gone through this morning and the explanation of biblical discipline, you can answer these objections because these are real things that are being thrown at us as Christian parents today. We need to be able to answer them.

It's too easy for a frustrated parent to cross the line from spanking to abusing. There's an element of truth in that. It's possible. It's possible. And that's why we need to do this in the power of the Holy Spirit.

That's why we need prayer. That's why we need a protocol that involves these expressions of our love. That's why we need to remember the admonition that be angry and don't sin. That's why we need to call upon the Lord to keep us from crossing the line from spanking to abusing. Spanking makes a child feel helpless and damages self-esteem.

It's hard to feel like you have any control when you're told that if you don't stop crying you'll be hit again. It makes the child ask, what's wrong with me? Well, if that's happening, it's not biblical discipline. A child shouldn't be helpless and damage self-esteem. They should be humble.

They should know that you have a love for them and that your chastening is for their own good. They ought to know that. If they don't, then there's a problem with our discipline. Spanking teaches aggressive behavior. Children who are spanked learn to handle some problems by hitting or threatening to hit.

Others find that their parents are too big to get even with, so they take it out on other kids. Well you see if you're spanking is simply because you're bigger, if your authority as a parent is simply because you're bigger and you're smarter, then that's true. But if your authority is based on the fact that you are exercising God's authority, that you are God's hand, and this correction is done in the context of a loving relationship, and it's done with prayer and a calling upon the Holy Spirit, and it's done with humility, and it's done out of grief in your heart, then it's not going to teach aggressive behavior. Spanking usually leads to more misbehavior. The problem with spanking is that it does work for the immediate misbehavior.

Kids will stop this instant, however they resent the spanking and seek out conscious or unconscious ways to get even. Well, if that's happening, that's not biblical discipline. Maybe the spanking was not enough to inflict the pain that brings cleansing. Maybe it was done not in the context of a loving, ongoing relationship. Maybe it wasn't done the way the Lord chases.

Spanking can damage your relationship with your child. Spanking puts an emotional wedge between the parent and the child. Well, just the opposite should happen. Just the opposite should happen. If it does put an emotional wedge between you and your child, that's not biblical discipline.

Spanking should restore a damaged relationship. And if it doesn't, there's something wrong with the spanking. Spanking often leaves the parent feeling guilty. That's probably absolutely true. The problem wasn't that spanking is wrong, the problem was that spanking is wrong, the problem was that that spanking was wrong.

And that spanking was done out of anger. And you should feel guilty if that's the case. It might have been done as a vent for your frustration. It might have been done because you're embarrassed, and if that's the case you should feel guilty. So the fact that they're saying this is just one indication that what's being criticized is not biblical discipline.

Spanking can increase the likelihood of developing mental health symptoms. According to this study, links have been found from later mental health diagnoses to higher incidence of childhood spanking for disciplinary purposes. Well, again, that's not biblical discipline. It doesn't result in mental health problems, it actually prevents mental health problems. There are many more effective methods of discipline.

Well there are if the spanking is done wrongly, if it's done just because you're bigger and you can beat up on your children, then yes, there are many more effective ways. But there's no more effective way than God's chastening. It's very effective. I grew up being spanked. And I can say as a child, it was very effective.

It was very effective. And I love my parents because of it. It didn't drive an emotional wedge between my parents and us, my father and I. And yes, there were times when spankings were wrong. It happens.

Parents are sinners. And we make mistakes. We're fallible. We don't know. And when that happens, we need to apologize.

We need to acknowledge that we made a mistake. But I can tell you that biblical discipline, when it's rightly done, does none of these things. But rather it does produce peaceable fruit of righteousness. And so I hope this morning that you are encouraged in this and that you are not discouraged by the testimony that is pressing around us from all of these voices that are saying, this is wrong, we can't do it. And that you don't feel guilty about having to do it in secret.

But rather understand that like Gideon, threshing his wheat in the wine press because of the Amalekites, that we live in a very wicked culture. We live In a day when Satan is seeking to destroy the Church of Jesus Christ, attack it just as he sought to destroy the Church when Christ was born, sought to kill the line, or Pharaoh, sought to kill the Jews, or Athaliah, or any of the other people that Satan has moved to against the Church of Christ. That this is nothing more than the latest plot against Christ. And I want to encourage you this morning to be faithful to the Word of God. To put the Word of God above the testimony of all of the scientists of the world.

Let God be true, but every man a liar. Almighty Heavenly Father, your Word is true. We ask that you would impress its truth upon our hearts. We ask that you would give us a right understanding of it and a right application of your Word. We may rightly apply it.

We ask, Lord, that we may fear you and not men. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.