In his sermon titled 'Raising Covenant Children,' Carl Provost explores the biblical approach to parenting, specifically focusing on Ephesians 6. He criticizes the modern self-esteem-based parenting model, arguing that it contradicts biblical teachings by assuming children are inherently good. Provost emphasizes the importance of discipline, which should be carried out with the right attitude to avoid provoking children to anger. He discusses the role of fathers as disciplinarians and the need for both parents to nurture their children in the 'nurture and admonition of the Lord.' The sermon highlights the balance between physical discipline and loving instruction, drawing from Proverbs and Hebrews to illustrate the biblical basis for chastening as a form of nurturing. Provost also warns against parenting methods that lead to anger, such as favoritism and overprotection. He concludes by asserting that a scriptural approach to discipline has eternal consequences and calls for parents to diligently apply God's Word in raising their children.

Please take your copy of God's Word and turn to Ephesians chapter 6. Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth and ye fathers provoke not your children to wrath but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Father, we come before you as we open your word again. Father, we pray that you would illumine our hearts as we look to your word and what you have to teach us about godly families.

And Father, We pray that you would use these words for the sanctification of our lives. We pray in your son, Christ Jesus' name, amen. We live in a culture that basically for the last 40 plus years has been conducting a huge experiment on raising children on this method that pop psychology teaches of self-esteem. Since the 70s, parents have been instructed to tell their children how good they are, how great they are, and how unique they are. People tell their children they can be anything they want to be.

And the philosophy behind this thought is that... Is that basically children are inherently good and if you tell them that they are good they will be better people. Basically that their rebelliousness, that their criminal behavior is only because they don't understand that they are good. Well, obviously we know this is not what Scripture teaches. The world has tried to solve this problem of having a better society by teaching self-esteem to children.

But any of us that have raised children understand that children are born in this world thinking way too highly of themselves. They want to be served by their parents. And in fact, Scripture clearly teaches that they are little depraved sinners that need instruction and correction. And so what we see around us is a huge failure of a system that basically, rather than developing good citizens, has developed a lot of rotten fruit. Instead of getting a better society, we have an epidemic of liars.

Liars who lie about themselves and their achievements. We have basically developed a society of lazy young people who have an entitlement mentality and are looking for others to serve them and provide for them. What's interesting about this was that even as this culture was turning away from God's Word as the textbook for raising children, There were even secular studies that pointed to the errors in these teachings. A Harvard study from the 1950s entitled Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency taught that there were four things that were necessary to avoid juvenile delinquency. There were a father's firm, fair, and consistent discipline, a mother's supervision and companionship during the day, parents that demonstrated affection towards one another, and a family spending time together in activities where all participated.

Now this is out of Harvard in the 1950s. I always find it interesting when you see these studies that seem to find some new discovery that was already clearly defined in God's Word. Understanding that a father must firmly and fairly discipline his children in a loving way. Understanding that mothers must supervise and be with their children throughout the day, not turning them over to the state, but training them throughout the day. And that parents must demonstrate love to one another, demonstrating those principles that were taught in the end of chapter 5 of a wife submitting to her own husband in the Lord and a husband loving his wife as Christ loved the church.

And this family that spends time together, learning God's Word together, family worship together, that it's these principles that build godly families. And that even a secular psychologist was able to see this back in the 50s, apart from God's Word. And in his study, they found that 90% of the kids that had these things did not become juvenile delinquents. And that Those that were missing these had a much more high probability of rebelling against their parents. So how do we transform the next generation?

How do we raise covenant children? The title of the sermon today is Raising Covenant Children and as we look at this text I want us to look at it from three points. The mark of discipline, the method of discipline, and the means of discipline. The mark of discipline. We're going to be focusing on verse 4.

We looked at verse 1 through 3 last week as We discussed how children are commanded because they are in the covenant. They are covenant members are commanded to obey their parents on the Lord. So this is right that they are to honor their father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, and that it may be well with them, and they may live long on the earth. And then today's text, And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.

If we notice this is addressed to fathers because I believe as it teaches in this whole passage, there is a hierarchy to the family. And as Christ is the head of the church and as Christ is the head of the husband, and as the husband is the head of the wife and the head of the family, ultimately the responsibility for disciplining the children falls at the responsibility of the father. But we also need to understand this in a broader context of speaking to parents in general. Because just as fathers can provoke their children to wrath, mothers can provoke their children to wrath also. And we have to recognize that there are those families where there are no fathers, but yet the principle still applies.

And so we're going to look at this as ultimately fathers who are ultimately responsible for the discipline of the children, but recognizing that this is speaking to parents. For vote not your children, to wrath. The first thing I want us to learn from this is that there should be a right attitude to our discipline. And the attitude of our discipline is very important. The pattern of treatment that builds into a deep-seated anger and resentment that can result in an outward anger and rebellion and disrespect.

That's what it means to provoke your children to anger. There's a method of discipline that can actually lead our children to sin rather than leading them away from sin. And even though children are still responsible for their sinful reactions, we're told it would be better for a millstone to be hung around our neck and us to be cast into the sea than to lead one of these little ones astray. And so there is a huge responsibility in raising up covenant children to not provoke them to anger. One of the main ways we see that you can provoke a child to anger is an ungodly discipline.

But yet we are called to discipline our children. I want to first look at physical discipline. Proverbs 13, 24 said, he that spareth the rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chastens him the times, or basically promptly. And so what we learn there is the rod is necessary in order to show love to our children. And if you have been around children that have never had the rod applied to them, you recognize very clearly they question their parents' love for them.

So we actually show our children love, that we love them, by chastening them promptly. Proverbs 22, 15, foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Now we know that foolishness is oftentimes revealed in children, and we see the good of the rod to drive the foolishness from them. And so we are commanded to implement the rod in a way to drive foolishness from our children but it must be done in such a way to not provoke them to anger. Proverbs 23, 13 and 14, withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.

Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. I can't help but think about every time I see somebody even mention spanking in the public circle and how immediately they're attacked by all these people saying that all you're doing is teaching your children to strike others and to hit others. But here we're clearly told to hit them with a rod and that it will not kill them, but it shall deliver his soul from hell. In Proverbs 29, 15, the rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bring his mother shame. The Rod and reproof.

Now there they bring the combination of the rod with the application of reproof. And that's what we see here, is we see that there must be a balance in the way the rod is used. If a rod is used unlovingly or too severely, it can drive a child and provoke them to anger. And so the rod cannot be used apart from love. Apart from a loving relationship with our children, a loving relationship with our wife, a family that loves God, and a family that loves their children and desires to see them to come to a right understanding of God's Word so that they can govern themselves through God's Word.

But there are other ways we can provoke our children to anger that aren't always physical. One of the ways, and I oftentimes see mothers provoke their children in this way, is through overprotection. We fence them in, we keep them away from things because we want to protect them. And at some point they become resentful of that. They don't see it as love, but they see it as oppression.

Or that maybe we, through overprotection, we never trust them. We never give them an opportunity to develop any type of independence, to do things for themselves. Or maybe we mock their discussions. See, parenting requires some level of risk. Remember that our goal in parenting is to train little self-governing children who become self-governing godly adults.

The goal in parenting is to start to train them and apply God's Word and then to start giving them freedom to make decisions based upon this training, allowing them to fail and giving them correction and direction so that they eventually become self-governing adults. And one of the things that's very clear is we have an entire society of adults who have no discipline, who are not self-governing at all in their own life and have led them to many destructive behaviors. Another way that we can provoke our children to anger is through favoritism. We see this displayed in the lives of Esau and Jacob. Jacob was favored by his mother and Esau is by his father, and we see the problems that came there.

We also see the favoritism of Joseph and his brothers envied him and became jealous of him and we know how That turned out. We should never tell a child, why can't you be like your older sister or your older brother? We shouldn't compare them to one another. This can provoke them to anger. We need to recognize that they are all individuals, they are all different, and that our discipline of each of them has to be tailored to fit each individual child.

We also see those that have provoked their children to anger through pushing for achievement. Oftentimes we see this in sports where a child is pushed to achieve, oftentimes not for his own desires, but for his parents' desires. I can think of young men that I grew up with that were pushed to be good at certain sports, and when you ask them about it, they didn't even enjoy the sport. They only participated and pushed themselves because of their parents or their father. And many times you found out that it was the parent trying to live out his dream through his child.

We also see this in academic achievement. Parents who pushed their children for academic achievement even beyond their ability and they become very discouraged and they feel like they can't do anything that's right and they become angry and rebellious. In fact, pushing them to achievement, you can find stories that not only have led to anger and rebellion, but have even led to suicide. Children who feel like they cannot meet their parents' goals that they've set for them. They feel like they've disappointed their parents We also see that you can provoke children to anger through overbearing discouragement No reward or no approval or no honor or affection given to them.

See, kids desperately look to their parents for approval, and if we don't give our children approval, then they will be provoked to anger. We can also provoke them to anger by treating them as if they're a burden. I see this oftentimes. People cannot wait. Those who are in the public school system cannot wait for school to start back to get rid of their kids.

They see them as a burden. They oftentimes speak in this way in front of them. Children should know that you see them as a blessing, even at the time of discipline. They should know that you see them as a blessing and that you recognize that God has given you the responsibility to train them and to discipline them. And that you should sit down with them and talk with them and explain to them why you must discipline them and train them according to God's Word.

And they should understand the love that you have for them and the blessing that you see that they are to your life. You can also provoke your children to anger through neglect. These are parents that are so busy that there's a lack of an attention or a lack of loving discipline. See, to not show your children any attention can cause this, but even to show them attention, but to refuse to discipline them is also a neglect. And as we are told that they will think that you do not love them if you do not discipline them.

And oftentimes these children will rebel for the sole purpose of getting their parents' attention. If you have children, oftentimes, especially when they're really young, they'll be acting up and you'll fondly administer a spanking and their behavior is instantly fixed. And you recognize that they were desiring some attention from you, even if it was the negative attention of discipline. So how do we balance this discipline? Paul starts with the negative here, but then he ends with the positive.

It says, and ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. So how do we balance this discipline so that it does not provoke to anger? I want to look at the method of discipline that we see in this text and other texts that support it. It says, bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I want us to notice that our first responsibility to our children is to bring them up.

Now the word to bring them up means to provide for them and to rear them until they're adults. And so we have a responsibility to provide the needs of our children, physical and spiritual, until they're adults. The same word is actually used in verse 529 if you look back at that. It says, For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church." And so basically, just as it was taught that a man should care for his wife as he cares for his own body, the same word's used here for children, to bring them up in the nourishment and the admonition of the Lord. And so we are to care for our children as we would care for ourselves.

The word nurture here is padilla. It has the range of meaning of instruction, discipline, and can even mean punishment. Now the King James Version here chose to translate the word nurture. Most of you in other translations use the word discipline there. But I believe nurture actually does a better job of capturing the meaning within the context Better than the word discipline here because I think it's There's a sense in which the discipline is very nurturing No Webster's 1828 dictionary actually in defining this word puts a reference to this verse.

It says, that which promotes growth, education, and instruction. And so this discipline should promote growth, education, and instruction. I want to think of a tree as an illustration. Imagine that you purchased a tree and you want to plant this tree in your yard and it's just a small tree. And you plant it and you feed and water it because you want it to thrive and grow and you want it to have a certain shape and so you prune it.

And maybe you want it to grow straight so you stake it and you hinder it from falling over so that it will grow straight. And let's also imagine that it's a fruit tree and at some point you want this tree to bear fruit. And so we see in this process of nurturing a tree that we feed and water it, the aspect of bringing it up, and that we prune it, We cut away certain aspects of it in order to shape the way that it grows and that we can hinder it or stake it up in order that it will grow straight. And now we think about how that word nurture applies to children. There's an aspect in which to nurture children we feed them and we provide for them until they're adults.

And this pruning that takes place is the discipline that we apply to help remove the sinfulness that's in their heart. To help them to recognize where they need to apply God's Word to their life. And how to understand God's Word and incorporate God's Word into their life. So what about this last range of meaning punishment? Thayer's Greek Dictionary, in taking this word where it appears in Hebrews, says, To punish for the purpose of improved behavior, to punish, punishment.

So what is the purpose of corporal punishment here? In order to better understand this aspect of the word, I want to take a look over in Hebrews Chapter 12. Starting in verse 7. If ye endure chastening, that's the same word. It's for nurture here in the Ephesians text.

If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chastens not? But if ye be without chastisement wherefore all are partakers then Are you bastards and not sons? Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and We gave them reverence Shall we not much rather be in subjection under the Father of Spirits and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness.

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous. Nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." So I want to break down this passage just quickly and what we see in this passage. Verse 7, it assumes that all fathers chastened or disciplined through physical striking their children. In verse 8, we see that to be without chastening is to be an illegitimate and not a son at all. And so in order for them to be legitimate children they must come under the chastening of their father just as we come under the chastening of our Heavenly Father.

In verse 9, we see that chastening actually builds respect for the Father. Of course, that's when it's done in love without provoking the anger. It builds respect. Meet children that are never chastened and you will clearly see that they have no respect for their parents. And we also see in verse 10, it says, a father chastens as seems best to him.

Now I want to point out here that no father's chastening is perfect. Only the heavenly father's chastening is perfect. And so as parents, I'm not going to tell you that you're always going to do this right. You're going to mess up a lot. But yet it would be better to sometimes chasten wrongly than there be no chastening at all for them to be true sons and not illegitimate sons.

And the last thing we see in this text is that chastening yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. I want us to think back to the illustration I gave a pruning a tree or you could even think of grape vines which are pruned back very extensively, does the actual pruning produce any fruit? The pruning doesn't produce any fruit but what the pruning does is it cuts away anything that's dead, unprofitable, or any growth that is unnecessary in order to enhance or produce more abundant fruit. And so applying this to the process of disciplining a child think of the physical discipline as that pruning or removing What needs to be removed and allowed in in order to allow the child to grow? And so whenever we discipline a child, we are preparing them for growth.

And so what actually brings the growth here? We've cut away the dead limbs, we've cut away the unnecessary limbs, But there's still no growth. The growth comes from the sap. And the illustration that's used also in God's Word talks about the church being of Christ. And that Christ being the source for that growth.

And so we, in training our children, are readying them for the source of Christ Jesus to help them grow in godliness. Another illustration I want to think about is in training. It's training a horse. A horse is very stubborn. I haven't trained a horse but I've seen and talked to people that have trained horses.

And a horse does not want to comply with its master. And so one of the things they do with a horse, if you've seen the round pins that they train them in, is they give this horse some instruction and if the horse refuses they run it in circles and they just run it. They usually have a whip they're kind of slapping it on the back end not real painful though for the horse mainly just to keep it running and so that horse is exhausted And then they try to train it again. And if that horse doesn't respond, they run it again. And they keep this process until at some point, the wheel of the horse is saying, okay, whatever it is you want me to do, I'm willing to do.

I just don't want to run anymore. That's how I think we should view spanking of our children. The spanking in itself doesn't actually instruct them, but it prepares them to receive instruction. Now that doesn't mean we don't offer the rebuke first. Some children have much more tender hearts, and they respond greatly to rebuke.

But some children must be prepared to receive the instruction and so we give them spankings in order to prepare them to receive the instruction. One of the books that became very popular about training children that was actually based upon horse training is Michael Pearls to train up a child. Now Michael Pearl noticed how the Amish trained their horses And he applied some of these same principles to child training. And what you will find is this is very effective for training. But one of The criticisms is you can train your kids to behave, but if you never instruct them, you're only getting outward compliance, but they can still be rebellious in their hearts.

And So the two have to go together. So what are the means by which we instruct the heart of our children? Our verse here says, and you fathers provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Now those two words are very similar, nurture and admonition, but they're very important that they've been placed here together. Where nurture has this component of discipline in it, but also instruction and education, admonition is that loving rebuke and to sort of move them towards right thinking.

They're both necessary. One without the other doesn't accomplish raising our children up as godly offspring. So what does it mean to admonish your children? The word admonish here is nuthessia. Now the Greek scholar Spyrs Zodiades said, any word of encouragement or reproof which leads to correct behavior, but then he connects it with the padilla.

The padilla is instruction and training by act and discipline. Nathessia is the milder term which Pidea would be incomplete. In both words, there is the appeal to the conscience, will, and reasoning faculties. Now I want you to notice how close, for those who are familiar with it, how close the word is to the word, now for those who know anything about the word, the word basically means biblical or the principle of applying God's Word to change behavior. And the word here is related to that, but it's the use of God's Word to correct behavior in our children.

And so basically this is the application of God's Word for correction. And so what we recognize here, where some saw a weakness maybe in Michael Pearl's book, it was big on training but there didn't seem to be a huge emphasis on the instruction and proof of God's Word. We've also seen other books come out that really focus on one that's called Give Them Grace. And I remember when we were reading this with a group of guys, it didn't really focus on the discipline aspect. And there's a story in there, an illustration about a four-year-old that throws himself on the ground because he didn't get his way, and the mother proceeds to have this long discussion with the four-year-old.

And of course, those that were critical of the story said how can you even talk to a four-year-old as they're rolling around on the ground you must correct that behavior first and I believe it's it was a correct understanding. Now what they didn't recognize is the book was written in the context of those who hold to an errant view of presumptive regeneration. And so the book was trying to explain that for those who have covenant children, no matter how you choose to discipline them, they need to constantly hear the gospel. And that was the gist of the book, but the gist was missed because the aspect of discipline was missing from the book. And so it wasn't the whole package.

And what we recognize in this passage we had today is that they must be combined together. That you can't reason with a four-year-old who's rolling around on the ground screaming because he didn't get his way you must first correct the behavior Bring him to a point of reason and then you can discuss with him the application of God's Word about his selfish behavior and why it's inappropriate for him to act that way and what God requires of him. So what do we teach them? Do we need to go out and buy any of these books I've mentioned? Well see, God has already given us a manual for life.

Everything we need to know for training children is right here in this book. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't useful tools out there that help. In fact, If you've been around this church very long, you probably have heard of this book. For Instructions and Righteousness. And all this is, is a book that is taking different sins that children struggle with and giving you a list of scriptures.

And so it's a very helpful book. But if you understand and know God's word, you can train children apart from helps like this, because everything we need is right here in God's word for training covenant children in godliness. Deuteronomy 6, 4 to 9. It says, Herod Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thy rises up, and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and thou shalt be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house and on thy gates." Now I want us to think about what this Harvard professor discovered in the 1950s.

First of all, we know about the consistent discipline that's necessary. But think about the mother who's always with her children throughout the day teaching them. And this tells us clearly what that teaching should be. It should be a home, first of all, where the parents know God's Word themselves and know how to apply it themselves. And then they teach it diligently.

That means hard work. It's not going to just happen on its own teach them diligently unto thy children and You talk with them When you're sitteth when you walk when you lie down when you rise up basically it should be a part of every aspect of their life, instructing them in God's Word. Now I mentioned an era of those who hold to and reform churches, some of those that teach this presumptive regeneration. Basically it's a view that if children are baptized in the church, parents presume they are regenerate. And I talked last week about covenant children being in the covenant, by being born to Christian families and by receiving the mark of baptism and that they are members in the church.

But we also recognize that only God knows when they're regenerate and that we are called and given the Responsibility to train them and as fathers ultimately that responsibility falls to us See one of the reasons of bringing children up in the nurture and ammunition of the Lord is because they were born sinners and Sin must be confronted and driven out of them through discipline and instruction. That's our job as parents. What we're giving God's word, 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 says, All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect and thoroughly furnished in all good works." So there we see that even implying this to our children, all Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament, is good. So go to the Proverbs and look at all those instructions for children. Go to the other places in Scripture and apply them to our children.

It's profitable and it will bring about righteousness, righteous fruit in our children. When they have been disciplined rightly they will produce fruit abundantly. Proverbs 22 6. I want to basically close with this verse. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

I want us to recognize that this is a promise from God's Word. And even though we don't hold to presumptive regeneration, I do hold to presumptive election. I believe that my children, by virtue of being born in my home, are God's children. And I raise them as God's children. I train them according to God's Word.

See, we as fathers must be faithful to God's Word and trust this promise and know that if we will train our children up in the way they will go, when they are old they will not depart from it. That doesn't mean that we'll always see the fruit right away. But it means that we must be faithful to God's Word to train them up. We must not provoke them to anger, but we must bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord because, As God's Word teaches, this has eternal consequences. And we as fathers in the home and as parents of children have given this responsibility to train them up because it has eternal consequences.

So that when they are old they will not depart from it. Let's go again to the Lord in prayer. Father, we come before you and we thank you that you've given us this word that is clear instruction on how we are to raise up our children in the church. Raise up children that are obedient to your word, that love you and serve you all of their days. The children that are used by you as arrows sent out, used by you for the advancement of your kingdom.

Children who understand covenant faithfulness, children who train their own children, according to Your Word, and that we would see a generation and generations of covenant families who are used by You to build Your Kingdom. And Father, we pray that you would use this church, Father, and these families in a mighty way. In Christ's name, Amen.