Learn all that the book of Proverbs has to say about wise parenting.
Learn all that the book of Proverbs has to say about wise parenting.
– Sermon Transcript –
I thought it would be thing to mesh that together with Disciple Now, and the… Book of Proverbs has a great deal of wisdom about parenting, And parenting is a challenging thing to do. Amen? Some of you know what I’m talking about. Some of you are on the other side of being parented, so you know what a challenge that is as well. But I think there’s just some good things that we can learn, and I wanna zero in on this idea of discipleship in particular. We talk about disciple now for the youth. And the discipleship command is one that’s been given us by our Lord Jesus Christ, is it not? In the great commission, Jesus commanded us to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that he has commanded us.
We are, as parents, called to disciple our children, we’re called to lead them to faith in Christ, and then to train them up in that faith and to present them to the world as mature disciples of Jesus Christ. There is no impact that any discipler or church or a pastor could ever have that comes close to comparing to the impact of a father and mother on the life of a young person, who grows to maturity. And it is part of God’s plan that Christians raise their children in this way. A great number of the great heroes of church history were brought to faith at an early age by godly parents, trained very thoroughly in the Christian life, and then sent off to do great things for God.
And so I praise God for each of these youth that have given testimonies tonight. Now, who knows what God has in store for them? And for those that were not raised, I have not been raised in a godly home, God can step in at any time and bring them to personal faith in Christ and do great things through them as well. God’s grace is that way. But all I’m saying is that God wants Christians to raise their children, to train them up. And what I’d like to do is to show… Before we get into the Proverbs tonight, to show the kind of background of a Jewish mother and father and how they were committed to train their children in the Covenant, the teaching of the Covenant, and this is in Deuteronomy Chapter 6. So take a minute there before we get into whatever Chapter of Proverbs you chose, to look at Deuteronomy Chapter 6.
Now understand, Deuteronomy, the word means second law giving. It’s the second time that the law was given. Remember that the law was given and then the Jews were to enter the Promised Land. But they did not, they refuse to enter, they did not believe God, and God said, “Very well, no one of this generation will enter the Promised Land, but their children will.” Except of course, Joshua and Caleb, who were the two spies that brought a favorable report and said, “We can do it through the power and strength of the Lord.” But the other 10 did not feel that way. And the Jewish people as a whole rebelled and wanted to go back to Egypt, as you remember. Well, they wandered in the desert for 40 years, and then the time came for them to enter the Promised Land. And so this was the second time that the law was given.
This was the covenant that God had given Israel. Basically, this was the rules of the road. I’m about to give you the Promised Land, this is the way it needs to be. And I frequently think, and I’ve mentioned this illustration before, of a parent of youth giving the youth the keys to the car, say, “Alright, this is the car and you can use it, but these are the rules about the use of the car, and you break these rules you don’t get to use the car again.” You know what I’m talking about, it’s a covenant, it’s an agreement. And so it was with the Promised Land. “This is the way it needs to be. You must obey my commandment if you are going to stay in the Promised Land.” Now realize, God intended that they stay in the Promised Land indefinitely for a long time, and therefore, it was key that parents pass on the teaching of the covenant to their children. That they pass on the laws and the rules that God had given them.
And so in Deuteronomy 6, there’s a process in which that Moses gives them for this. Deuteronomy 6:1, it says, “These are the commands and the decrees and laws that the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. So that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God, as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you. And so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you, and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey. Just as the Lord, the God of your fathers promised you.” Now, a couple of phrases I wanna bring out of this, it says that the Lord is giving this commandment, this covenant to them, to their children and to their grandchildren, to future generations, and that they would demonstrate the love they had for God by obeying his commands.
Now, you may think this is an old covenant idea, but it is not. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey my commands.” “This is love for God, that we keep His commands,” it says in 1 John. There’s no change in God on this matter whatsoever. We cannot say that we love him and disobey his commands. So we demonstrate our love for God by obeying the commands and decrees that God has given. And it says in Verse 2, “so that you may enjoy long life.” So if you obey the commands, you will enjoy long life. And then it says “that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers promised you.”
Now, the reason I zero in on these phrases is that we see the exact same thing in Ephesians 6, don’t turn there, but just listen. It says fathers in Ephesians 6:4, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children, don’t frustrate them. Instead, bring them up in the training and nurture of the Lord.” There is to be a training and a nurturing, and to the children, it says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” You see the parallel here? It’s the exact same thing.
And so here in the New Testament, in Ephesians 6, just as in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6, we have the same idea. You want your children to enjoy life, have a long life, teach them the commandments of God. Teach them to obey God, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. And then continue in Deuteronomy, it says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them,” Verse 7, “impress them on your children, talk about them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.”
And then in Verse 20, skip down to the bottom of the page, it says, “In the future, when your son asks you, What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees, and laws the Lord our God has commanded you,” Verse 21, “Tell him, We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.” It goes on from there. So the idea here is that the children are going to ask, What does this mean? And you are to impress them, Verse 7, impress these commandments on the hearts of your children. Now, the word impress is a very interesting word. In every other context in Hebrew, this word means sharpen, it’s the kind of thing you would do to an axe or to a farming tool. You would sharpen it. And you know how you sharpen things with a whetstone, for example, you would rub it in a certain way until everything that didn’t need to be there had been honed off and it was sharpened to an edge. When you are using a whetstone, the key is repetition, isn’t it? You’re just sharpening and sharpening and sharpening. You don’t just rub once, you have to rub again and again, and that’s the word used here in Deuteronomy 6:7. Sharpen these commands into your children. Repetition. Repetition.
And it says so, when they sit down and when they rise, when they go in, when they go out, they should be up in the walls. You should talk about them at dinner, it should be just infused in your life. Now, I’m now looking at my life, I don’t do that the way I should, it’s not the dinner conversation the way it should be. It’s not what we talk about when we come together at the end of a busy day. It’s not the way it should be. And we try and we’re continuing to work on it, but I just think we can constantly do better on this issue of sharpening the commands of God into our children, repetition. But the point I’m giving you is that God intended that this be the way it is with Jewish parents. And then parallel over in the new covenant with us as well, Christian parents.
The thing I worry about as a pastor is that we sometimes… I think we drop the ball because each is expecting the other to do it. You know the Church is expecting the parents to be training their children and evangelizing them and praying with them, reading the Bible and all that. The parents say, “Well, that’s why we bring them to Sunday school, that’s for you to do to them.” And each side is kinda dropping it, I think the church has its responsibility, absolutely. We’re here tonight talking about it, aren’t we? And we should. But it’s primarily the responsibility of the parents. The parents therefore must be trained and prepared, and that’s my goal tonight. So that we can have a heightened expectation.
Now, some of you are done with your direct parenting, but then you’ve got grandkids and spending time with them, right Mac? Spending some time today. Worn out, he said. They have limitless energy, but we have a responsibility on generation after generation. As long as we’re here, we’re gonna be involved in this. And even if our grandchildren are all grown, we still can have an influence on other young couples, for example, that are just beginning their training. So important.
There’s something Chelsea shared that was so wonderful. The desire to be friends, that we be friends with our children, our children with the parents, I think that’s a goal. The problem is, parents start out that way, they wanna be friendly at first, and frankly, that’s not really appropriate. There’s an awful lot of training that needs to go on before you finally reach the full friend stage, and that’s our goal, and I’d rather have a lifetime of friendship with my children, because they’ve been brought up and trained and prepared than some special moments early on, and then it becomes more and more, not just because the children aren’t being trained properly. So this is something that we need to look at. We desire definitely, ultimately, as Chelsea said so beautifully, to be friends one with another in the Lord.
Now, as we look at discipleship, turn into the Book of Proverbs, what we’re gonna see is we’re gonna see a positive and a negative side to it, aren’t we? We’re gonna see the positive side of disciple making and training. This is gonna go in terms of nurture and instruction and training. This kind of thing of sharpening the instructions, and so we have repeated in the Book of Proverbs this idea of, “My son, listen to the instruction of your parents. My son, listen to what your mother and father are saying to you.” Over and over, it’s repeated this idea of instruction. That’s the positive side. What’s the negative side? Well, there’s discipline isn’t there? What we call the rod of reproof, and we don’t wanna just focus on the issue of corporal punishment, which is there, and I think a valid thing to discuss, but just the ongoing negative side of training that has to go on right until the children are grown fully, that there’s going to be issues that you have to continue to deal with right on until they’re fully trained.
There’s the positive side of loving and nurturing and training, and the negative side of dealing with discipline issues, and both of them are there, aren’t they? And they’re both established in the Book of Proverbs. And interesting, if you look at the word discipline, which we tend to think of negatively, we tend to think of as a hard thing, and it isn’t pleasant. Hebrews 12 says it isn’t pleasant, okay? But afterward, it yields a peaceful harvest of righteousness, those who’ve been trained by it. But notice the close relationship in English between the word discipline and the word what? Disciple. There’s a real close… And so the goal in all of this is the disciple making of the child, that they’re being made to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Alright, well, what are we talking about in terms of the positive side of the instruction? Look at Chapter 1, Verse 8 and 9. It says there, “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.” So this is right after the intro to the book, we immediately after the praise of wisdom and the whole purpose of the Book of Proverbs, why the Book of Proverbs is written. And we have the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, etcetera, we immediately go into the context of the home, do you see that? Right after the intro, we go right into the home, just like the Billy Graham quote, it’s lived out in the home, but it’s also this idea of Deuteronomy 6, that’s the forum of the training. That’s where the majority of the training is gonna go on in the home.
And so, listen my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. So both father and mother are to be involved in the training of the young ones. This is an incredibly important thing for a man and a woman to do. As I said, there is no disciple making that even comes close to that in terms of daily impact, wouldn’t you say? Wouldn’t you agree? And we have day after day impact on the lives of these folks. Whereas, if you’re meeting with a young man, or if you’re a woman meeting with a young woman to mentor or to disciple, how much time do you really have during the week? You have a little time to read some… Maybe you’re reading a book or read through some Scripture, you can pray together, but the impact is small compared to the impact of a parent on a child, both father and mother.
Look over at Chapter 2, beginning at Verse 1, it says, “My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you. Turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you search for it as for silver, and look for it as for hidden treasure. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright. He is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.” So again, this idea of, my son, taking a father or a mother and a word of instruction. And as this word of instruction comes, this son is to accept the words and store up the commands. You see? Store it up.
So just as the parents are responsible to sharpen those commands into the children, what are the children responsible to do? To store them up, to soak them in, to absorb them, to meditate on them as though they’re important. These are valuable things. And these are gonna protect my life from harm. So both father and mother involved in this. And I think it’s fascinating, especially the mother’s role here. Look, if you will, to the very end of the book, Proverbs 31, and believe it or not, I’m actually not at this point going through the Proverbs 31 woman. Which is probably one of the most famous parts of Proverbs, but actually the very beginning of Proverbs 31, and it’s really a fascinating thing.
Proverbs 31, Verse 1, “The sayings of King Lemuel.” Have you ever heard of King Lemuel? [chuckle] I don’t know who King Lemuel… I really don’t know who he is, just like I don’t know who Jabez is who prays that famous prayer, he’s just in the middle of a genealogy and here, we have King Lemuel in the middle of Proverbs. Now, I know that the majority of Proverbs were Solomon’s, but here’s some teaching here from King Lemuel. And I think it wouldn’t be a stretch to connect this also with the Proverbs 31 woman, that it’s King Lemuel that’s given us this idea of the Proverbs 31 woman. So, well, who is King Lemuel? I don’t know, but he had a mother. And what a mother she was. Look what it says, “The sayings of King Lemuel, an oracle, or teachings that his mother taught him. So now he’s gotten in, comes to colon in the NIV, and now, there’s a series of teachings that his mother had given him.
“O my son, O son of my womb, O son of my vows, do not spend your strength on women, your vigor on those who ruin kings. It is not for kings, O Lemuel, not for kings to drink wine, not for rulers to crave beer lest they drink and forget what the law decrees and deprive all the oppressed of their rights. Give beer to those who are perishing and wine to those who are in anguish. Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.” Verse 8, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. For the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly. Defend the rights of the poor and needy.” So there’s this whole training going into the life of a king. He’s going to be a great man. He’s in charge of a nation, and he’s supposed to watch out for women, and that’s a big issue earlier in the Book of Proverbs, which in this case, it says, “those who ruin kings.” And then it speaks of beer, becoming drunk, this kind of drunkenness. And then a desire for social justice, a desire to care for the poor and needy. These are all coming from his mother.
And then to just go right on into the teaching on the wife of noble character, to think of it differently, perhaps that it was Lemuel’s mother that said, “Look for this kind of a woman. This is the kind of woman you want.” And then he goes on, “A wife of noble character, who can find?” And it goes on to the Proverbs 31 woman. Coming I think as you just read it naturally from Lemuel’s mother.
And so this instruction goes from father and mother, down to the son and the daughter, the child. And so it’s important for the young ones to listen to their parents and to pay attention. Go back to Chapter 3, “My son, do not forget my teaching but keep the commands in your heart for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity.” In other words, you won’t die early. You won’t die young, you’ll be protected. God will sovereignly watch over you, and he’ll give you a good life. It says in 1 Peter, “Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good. He must seek peace and pursue it.” Why? For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. So you wanna live a long life? Fruitful life? Then obey these commands I’m giving you. This is sharpening, you see? The exhorting, the father and mother training the child. Okay?
Let love, in Verse 3, 3:3 it says, “Let love and faithfulness never leave you, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablets of your heart.” This is just pattern after Deuteronomy language, isn’t it? Write it on the door frames, put it up on the wall. You should have these things in front of you, memorize them, have them in front of you, then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”
So this is the positive side of training, you see it? The laying down of precepts, the teaching of the word of God, and all I can ask you is those of you who still have children at home. Are you doing this? Are you sharpening the commands of God into the hearts and lives of your children? Are you having a daily time in the Scriptures in which you’re explaining and working through Scripture? It is your responsibility, fathers, and especially, I think, to lead the family in this regard. That you be the priest, as I’ve mentioned before, of the family. This is a heavy responsibility, but it’s important one. And mothers have a consistent role in training the children. Constantly instructing and training. In many cases, they have far more clock hours during the week than the father has with the children. So a tremendous positive instruction that parents are to give their children.
But then there’s the negative side, isn’t there? It’s not all roses and joy. There’s some thorns there, isn’t there? And why is that? Well, because, bless their hearts, they’re just little sinners. They just really are. And we shouldn’t be shocked ’cause we’re little sinners too. Actually, we’re kinda big sinners, we’ve been trained, we know what we’re doing, we’re expert sinners.We just kind of hide it better, but we’re all depraved, we’re sinful. That’s why we need a Savior. Amen? We need a Savior, and so do these children, they need a Savior too. And probably one of the most important things you can train your children is that they need a Savior. And so, if you forsake training your children, forsake the negative side, they will not understand just how much they need a Savior. They will not cry out against their sin and realize how much they’re struggling with certain things.
Sin will be no big deal. Well, it is a big deal, very big deal. And the training, the so-called rod of reproof, which is both a literal thing, I believe. Whatever the government says about all that we must understand what… The Scripture too. There’s a direct teaching, it’s not just one Verse, many Verses on this, in terms of corporal punishment. But also a symbolic side as well, that it stands for just that negative side of disciple making that we need to be involved in.
Well, let’s talk about it. It’s all based on the Lord’s discipline. Look at Proverbs 3:11-12, it says there, “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” So, our discipline is actually a dim reflection of God’s discipline, right? And we’ve talked about that before with our children. We’ve been in situations where we’re really not sure exactly what the truth is and what the reality is, and we can say, Listen, ultimately, we’re going to commit this to God, alright? Now, you can be forthcoming with us and we will do the discipline. Or we will commit it to God and let Him do it, and God has ways. He runs this universe and he’s in charge of things. We’re limited in what we can do, and it’s predictable what we do. Alright? I would suggest you take us at this point, okay? Because God will do it because He loves you. He’s going to discipline.
It’s a pattern on that. Take a minute and look at Hebrews 12, which quotes this very thing. In Hebrews 12, very, very important passage on the discipline of the Lord. It says in Hebrews 12:4, “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons. My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you. Because the Lord disciplines those he loves and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” 12:7 says, “Endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined and everyone undergoes discipline, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the father of our spirits and live?” Now, Verse 10, very interesting, “our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best.” Isn’t that true?
Oh, I’ll tell you something, we just come to these discipline situation and we just say, “I don’t know what to do, I’m gonna discipline you as I think best, I don’t know if this is going to do any change. Our goal is to bring you to repentance, that’s our only goal here, just to bring you to repentance.” But God disciplines us in a much higher and more perfect way, doesn’t he? He just has the whole universe at his disposal for discipline, right? We have the rod of reproof and some other things. But God’s got the whole shoot match available to him. That’s kind of scary in a way. I mean, He’s sovereign over over… Look at Jonah, what did he use to discipline Jonah? He’s got a big whale and a tiny little worm, he’s got wind, the whole thing is available to God. And He uses it to discipline us. Praise God.
But it says, “our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” Is that not true? Oh, it hurts. It does hurt. And it’s meant to hurt, as a matter of fact. If it doesn’t hurt, it’s not discipline the way we mean it here. It’s something else. It’s meant to hurt. And why? So that we could be trained out of it. God designed pain into the body as a gift, alright, so that we might know when there’s trouble; there’s trouble in our foot or in our hand or whatever, so that we can address it and deal with it. And so also God designed pain in our lives so that we might repent from sin and turn away from it and stop doing it. And so, no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Parents are always looking at the later on, aren’t we? Later on, it’s gonna yield a harvest. Right now, boy, it’s tough, okay? We’re going through it. But we are not going to fail in this matter. As Samuel said, “Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you.” Well, I think parents should say, “Far be it that I should sin against the Lord by failing to train you.” I’ve got to do it. I’ve got to do it no matter how painful it seems.
Alright, so it’s based on the Lord’s discipline and it starts with the rod of reproof. Look at Proverbs 22:15. It is very clear we’re not gonna finish this tonight, but that’s all right. God willing, we’ll look at it again next time. Proverbs 22:15, it says, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.”
Now, I know this flies in the face of the noble savage view of children, namely that they’re kind of good until corrupted. I call it the noble savage ’cause that was the same thing, the idea about the people who weren’t in view of Western society did not need missionaries to go and ruin them, they were fine the way they were. Well, that’s not true at all. They were depraved and need of a Savior, and so also with children, they’re not noble savages, they actually need a Savior, and they are born in original sin. When we get back to Romans and look at Romans Chapter 5, we will see how biblical this is. They are not born righteous, they’re born with a bent toward evil, and as soon as they understand right from wrong, they will do wrong. Not every single time, just like we don’t do it every single time, but they will. Folly, that’s called foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. The rod of discipline drives it from him.
So, early in the child’s life, there’s this kind of physical training. 13:24, if you look at 13:24, says that this actually demonstrates love. I think parents desire to be friends with their children and think that they’re being loving to them by turning a blind eye or deaf ear to certain patterns and traits, they are not doing them any favors, it’s going to end up destroying their lives if not dealt with properly. 13:24 says, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.” Careful to discipline, there’s a care to it and a wisdom to it. Again, the goal is the training of a child, the discipling of the child, you see? It’s the working of wisdom in the child.
And then 23:13-14, it says, “Do not withhold discipline from a child. If you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.” It’s kind of like evangelistic discipline here. The ultimate goal is their salvation. How do you save a soul from death? Well, by repenting and trusting in Christ, right? But the thing is, you’re not searching for a Savior until you know you need one, and it’s these difficult times that show I’m a sinner, I need a Savior, and they’re just sweet times of prayer and of, “Daddy or mommy, I just can’t stop doing this thing. How do I stop?” And it makes a spiritual beggar out of you, doesn’t it? You start crying out against yourself and saying, “Oh, What a wretched man I am.” Isn’t that a saving cry? Who will save me from this body of death? And you begin looking for a Savior. But if you don’t go into those difficult times, they’re not gonna be asking that question. You must save their soul from death.
And then 29:15, it says, “The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.” Oh, is that your child? Ooh. [chuckle] “I’ve never seen him before.” It’s like Peter, “I don’t know him. I had never seen him before. I don’t know.” “But they’re looking off a lot like you.” You know? Arrange a separate ride home, like you’ve never seen them before. Yes, a child who’s not trained well disgraces his mother and his father. And so, this is the kind of training that must go on.
Now, like I said, the rod, I believe, is both a literal and a symbolic thing here. I think you grow up out of certain types of training into certain other types of training. God doesn’t literally would, vernacular tan our posterior or whatever, that doesn’t literally occur with us, but we get discipline other ways, don’t we? God has ways, okay? We care about a lot of things, don’t we? Care about our financial life, care about our professional life, care about our families, care about our material possessions, we care about our personal health. So God has avenues for this discipline. So what I’m saying is that the rod ends up being a symbol of all kinds of negative training that needs to be done.
Now, there’s one last verse that I want to deal with since we’re here, and that’s 22:6, and then we’ll stop here and then we’ll pick it up next time, God willing. 22:6, and I hate to do this, but I need to do this, alright? Have you ever heard of Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go. And even when he’s old, he will not depart from it.” Oh, what a blessed promise. Oh, I wish that your house were built on a solid foundation. But I wanna move you off a foundation of sand and get you on to a solid foundation, okay? How do you understand this verse? Well, I’ve heard parents have wandering teens and youth use it to say, “Well, you know, train up a child and when they’re old they won’t depart from it, they’ll come back. They’ll come back to the Lord.” Well, first of all, just a straight reading from the text will show you that that’s not what this is talking about. It’s talking about a way that begins early in life and they never depart from it ever, they stay in that way their whole life, whatever way we’re talking about here.
So there is no departing and then they’ll come back at all in view, in 26, you see it? But now, let me tell you what the Hebrew literally says. It says, Train up a child according to his own way and when he’s old, he will not depart from it. Now, according to the attitude of Proverbs about a child, what do you think Proverbs thinks about a child’s own way? Not good, right? So basically, let me give you a kind of a vernacular translation. Give the little child what he wants and he’ll be wanting it his whole life. You see what I’m saying? Give the little child everything he or she wants and they’ll be wanting it and demanding it their whole life.
Oh, no, Proverbs 22:6, it’s up on a wall, I have it embroidered, I spent hours on that. Well, it’s a great proverb, just understand it properly, you know? It’s totally the other way than what you thought. Basic idea is, don’t train a child the way he wants you to. Train a child the way God wants him to. Don’t train a child according to his way, train a child according to God’s way. And what is the way that God wants that child trained? Positively and negatively. Right commands given, and then when they mess up, then the discipline appropriate to the felony or whatever it is. That’s what we’re talking about here.
There is nothing in the Hebrew about way he should go. Nothing at all. It says, out dark, according to his way. That’s all it says. And what I’m saying is, don’t train a child according to his way. Proverbs is using somewhat of a sarcastic approach here, at which it does sometimes, like “Go ahead, train up a child according to his way, and even when he’s old, he won’t be departing from it,” that’s the approach taken here. The advice is really the opposite, don’t train a child according to his way, rather train a child according to God’s way. Alright? And what does that involve? Positive training and precepts, negative training and discipline. Well, I’ve got more to say on this, but we’ll look at it more next time. Why don’t we close in prayer?
Father, I thank you for the time we’ve had to look tonight at the Book of Proverbs, and we thank you for the wisdom therein. Father, we take responsibility, all of us, whether we have small or growing children in our homes or not, that perhaps we need to pray for young parents or perhaps we need to mentor or train, get involved in some way. But if we do have still have children growing in our homes or grandchildren that we can directly impact, Father, I pray, give us wisdom to do both the positive and the negative side of disciple making. Lord, you have called us as a church to do this, and I pray that we’d be faithful to it. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Learn all that the book of Proverbs has to say about wise parenting.
– Sermon Transcript –
I thought it would be thing to mesh that together with Disciple Now, and the… Book of Proverbs has a great deal of wisdom about parenting, And parenting is a challenging thing to do. Amen? Some of you know what I’m talking about. Some of you are on the other side of being parented, so you know what a challenge that is as well. But I think there’s just some good things that we can learn, and I wanna zero in on this idea of discipleship in particular. We talk about disciple now for the youth. And the discipleship command is one that’s been given us by our Lord Jesus Christ, is it not? In the great commission, Jesus commanded us to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that he has commanded us.
We are, as parents, called to disciple our children, we’re called to lead them to faith in Christ, and then to train them up in that faith and to present them to the world as mature disciples of Jesus Christ. There is no impact that any discipler or church or a pastor could ever have that comes close to comparing to the impact of a father and mother on the life of a young person, who grows to maturity. And it is part of God’s plan that Christians raise their children in this way. A great number of the great heroes of church history were brought to faith at an early age by godly parents, trained very thoroughly in the Christian life, and then sent off to do great things for God.
And so I praise God for each of these youth that have given testimonies tonight. Now, who knows what God has in store for them? And for those that were not raised, I have not been raised in a godly home, God can step in at any time and bring them to personal faith in Christ and do great things through them as well. God’s grace is that way. But all I’m saying is that God wants Christians to raise their children, to train them up. And what I’d like to do is to show… Before we get into the Proverbs tonight, to show the kind of background of a Jewish mother and father and how they were committed to train their children in the Covenant, the teaching of the Covenant, and this is in Deuteronomy Chapter 6. So take a minute there before we get into whatever Chapter of Proverbs you chose, to look at Deuteronomy Chapter 6.
Now understand, Deuteronomy, the word means second law giving. It’s the second time that the law was given. Remember that the law was given and then the Jews were to enter the Promised Land. But they did not, they refuse to enter, they did not believe God, and God said, “Very well, no one of this generation will enter the Promised Land, but their children will.” Except of course, Joshua and Caleb, who were the two spies that brought a favorable report and said, “We can do it through the power and strength of the Lord.” But the other 10 did not feel that way. And the Jewish people as a whole rebelled and wanted to go back to Egypt, as you remember. Well, they wandered in the desert for 40 years, and then the time came for them to enter the Promised Land. And so this was the second time that the law was given.
This was the covenant that God had given Israel. Basically, this was the rules of the road. I’m about to give you the Promised Land, this is the way it needs to be. And I frequently think, and I’ve mentioned this illustration before, of a parent of youth giving the youth the keys to the car, say, “Alright, this is the car and you can use it, but these are the rules about the use of the car, and you break these rules you don’t get to use the car again.” You know what I’m talking about, it’s a covenant, it’s an agreement. And so it was with the Promised Land. “This is the way it needs to be. You must obey my commandment if you are going to stay in the Promised Land.” Now realize, God intended that they stay in the Promised Land indefinitely for a long time, and therefore, it was key that parents pass on the teaching of the covenant to their children. That they pass on the laws and the rules that God had given them.
And so in Deuteronomy 6, there’s a process in which that Moses gives them for this. Deuteronomy 6:1, it says, “These are the commands and the decrees and laws that the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. So that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God, as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you. And so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you, and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey. Just as the Lord, the God of your fathers promised you.” Now, a couple of phrases I wanna bring out of this, it says that the Lord is giving this commandment, this covenant to them, to their children and to their grandchildren, to future generations, and that they would demonstrate the love they had for God by obeying his commands.
Now, you may think this is an old covenant idea, but it is not. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey my commands.” “This is love for God, that we keep His commands,” it says in 1 John. There’s no change in God on this matter whatsoever. We cannot say that we love him and disobey his commands. So we demonstrate our love for God by obeying the commands and decrees that God has given. And it says in Verse 2, “so that you may enjoy long life.” So if you obey the commands, you will enjoy long life. And then it says “that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers promised you.”
Now, the reason I zero in on these phrases is that we see the exact same thing in Ephesians 6, don’t turn there, but just listen. It says fathers in Ephesians 6:4, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children, don’t frustrate them. Instead, bring them up in the training and nurture of the Lord.” There is to be a training and a nurturing, and to the children, it says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” You see the parallel here? It’s the exact same thing.
And so here in the New Testament, in Ephesians 6, just as in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6, we have the same idea. You want your children to enjoy life, have a long life, teach them the commandments of God. Teach them to obey God, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. And then continue in Deuteronomy, it says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them,” Verse 7, “impress them on your children, talk about them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.”
And then in Verse 20, skip down to the bottom of the page, it says, “In the future, when your son asks you, What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees, and laws the Lord our God has commanded you,” Verse 21, “Tell him, We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.” It goes on from there. So the idea here is that the children are going to ask, What does this mean? And you are to impress them, Verse 7, impress these commandments on the hearts of your children. Now, the word impress is a very interesting word. In every other context in Hebrew, this word means sharpen, it’s the kind of thing you would do to an axe or to a farming tool. You would sharpen it. And you know how you sharpen things with a whetstone, for example, you would rub it in a certain way until everything that didn’t need to be there had been honed off and it was sharpened to an edge. When you are using a whetstone, the key is repetition, isn’t it? You’re just sharpening and sharpening and sharpening. You don’t just rub once, you have to rub again and again, and that’s the word used here in Deuteronomy 6:7. Sharpen these commands into your children. Repetition. Repetition.
And it says so, when they sit down and when they rise, when they go in, when they go out, they should be up in the walls. You should talk about them at dinner, it should be just infused in your life. Now, I’m now looking at my life, I don’t do that the way I should, it’s not the dinner conversation the way it should be. It’s not what we talk about when we come together at the end of a busy day. It’s not the way it should be. And we try and we’re continuing to work on it, but I just think we can constantly do better on this issue of sharpening the commands of God into our children, repetition. But the point I’m giving you is that God intended that this be the way it is with Jewish parents. And then parallel over in the new covenant with us as well, Christian parents.
The thing I worry about as a pastor is that we sometimes… I think we drop the ball because each is expecting the other to do it. You know the Church is expecting the parents to be training their children and evangelizing them and praying with them, reading the Bible and all that. The parents say, “Well, that’s why we bring them to Sunday school, that’s for you to do to them.” And each side is kinda dropping it, I think the church has its responsibility, absolutely. We’re here tonight talking about it, aren’t we? And we should. But it’s primarily the responsibility of the parents. The parents therefore must be trained and prepared, and that’s my goal tonight. So that we can have a heightened expectation.
Now, some of you are done with your direct parenting, but then you’ve got grandkids and spending time with them, right Mac? Spending some time today. Worn out, he said. They have limitless energy, but we have a responsibility on generation after generation. As long as we’re here, we’re gonna be involved in this. And even if our grandchildren are all grown, we still can have an influence on other young couples, for example, that are just beginning their training. So important.
There’s something Chelsea shared that was so wonderful. The desire to be friends, that we be friends with our children, our children with the parents, I think that’s a goal. The problem is, parents start out that way, they wanna be friendly at first, and frankly, that’s not really appropriate. There’s an awful lot of training that needs to go on before you finally reach the full friend stage, and that’s our goal, and I’d rather have a lifetime of friendship with my children, because they’ve been brought up and trained and prepared than some special moments early on, and then it becomes more and more, not just because the children aren’t being trained properly. So this is something that we need to look at. We desire definitely, ultimately, as Chelsea said so beautifully, to be friends one with another in the Lord.
Now, as we look at discipleship, turn into the Book of Proverbs, what we’re gonna see is we’re gonna see a positive and a negative side to it, aren’t we? We’re gonna see the positive side of disciple making and training. This is gonna go in terms of nurture and instruction and training. This kind of thing of sharpening the instructions, and so we have repeated in the Book of Proverbs this idea of, “My son, listen to the instruction of your parents. My son, listen to what your mother and father are saying to you.” Over and over, it’s repeated this idea of instruction. That’s the positive side. What’s the negative side? Well, there’s discipline isn’t there? What we call the rod of reproof, and we don’t wanna just focus on the issue of corporal punishment, which is there, and I think a valid thing to discuss, but just the ongoing negative side of training that has to go on right until the children are grown fully, that there’s going to be issues that you have to continue to deal with right on until they’re fully trained.
There’s the positive side of loving and nurturing and training, and the negative side of dealing with discipline issues, and both of them are there, aren’t they? And they’re both established in the Book of Proverbs. And interesting, if you look at the word discipline, which we tend to think of negatively, we tend to think of as a hard thing, and it isn’t pleasant. Hebrews 12 says it isn’t pleasant, okay? But afterward, it yields a peaceful harvest of righteousness, those who’ve been trained by it. But notice the close relationship in English between the word discipline and the word what? Disciple. There’s a real close… And so the goal in all of this is the disciple making of the child, that they’re being made to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Alright, well, what are we talking about in terms of the positive side of the instruction? Look at Chapter 1, Verse 8 and 9. It says there, “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.” So this is right after the intro to the book, we immediately after the praise of wisdom and the whole purpose of the Book of Proverbs, why the Book of Proverbs is written. And we have the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, etcetera, we immediately go into the context of the home, do you see that? Right after the intro, we go right into the home, just like the Billy Graham quote, it’s lived out in the home, but it’s also this idea of Deuteronomy 6, that’s the forum of the training. That’s where the majority of the training is gonna go on in the home.
And so, listen my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. So both father and mother are to be involved in the training of the young ones. This is an incredibly important thing for a man and a woman to do. As I said, there is no disciple making that even comes close to that in terms of daily impact, wouldn’t you say? Wouldn’t you agree? And we have day after day impact on the lives of these folks. Whereas, if you’re meeting with a young man, or if you’re a woman meeting with a young woman to mentor or to disciple, how much time do you really have during the week? You have a little time to read some… Maybe you’re reading a book or read through some Scripture, you can pray together, but the impact is small compared to the impact of a parent on a child, both father and mother.
Look over at Chapter 2, beginning at Verse 1, it says, “My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you. Turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you search for it as for silver, and look for it as for hidden treasure. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright. He is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.” So again, this idea of, my son, taking a father or a mother and a word of instruction. And as this word of instruction comes, this son is to accept the words and store up the commands. You see? Store it up.
So just as the parents are responsible to sharpen those commands into the children, what are the children responsible to do? To store them up, to soak them in, to absorb them, to meditate on them as though they’re important. These are valuable things. And these are gonna protect my life from harm. So both father and mother involved in this. And I think it’s fascinating, especially the mother’s role here. Look, if you will, to the very end of the book, Proverbs 31, and believe it or not, I’m actually not at this point going through the Proverbs 31 woman. Which is probably one of the most famous parts of Proverbs, but actually the very beginning of Proverbs 31, and it’s really a fascinating thing.
Proverbs 31, Verse 1, “The sayings of King Lemuel.” Have you ever heard of King Lemuel? [chuckle] I don’t know who King Lemuel… I really don’t know who he is, just like I don’t know who Jabez is who prays that famous prayer, he’s just in the middle of a genealogy and here, we have King Lemuel in the middle of Proverbs. Now, I know that the majority of Proverbs were Solomon’s, but here’s some teaching here from King Lemuel. And I think it wouldn’t be a stretch to connect this also with the Proverbs 31 woman, that it’s King Lemuel that’s given us this idea of the Proverbs 31 woman. So, well, who is King Lemuel? I don’t know, but he had a mother. And what a mother she was. Look what it says, “The sayings of King Lemuel, an oracle, or teachings that his mother taught him. So now he’s gotten in, comes to colon in the NIV, and now, there’s a series of teachings that his mother had given him.
“O my son, O son of my womb, O son of my vows, do not spend your strength on women, your vigor on those who ruin kings. It is not for kings, O Lemuel, not for kings to drink wine, not for rulers to crave beer lest they drink and forget what the law decrees and deprive all the oppressed of their rights. Give beer to those who are perishing and wine to those who are in anguish. Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.” Verse 8, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. For the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly. Defend the rights of the poor and needy.” So there’s this whole training going into the life of a king. He’s going to be a great man. He’s in charge of a nation, and he’s supposed to watch out for women, and that’s a big issue earlier in the Book of Proverbs, which in this case, it says, “those who ruin kings.” And then it speaks of beer, becoming drunk, this kind of drunkenness. And then a desire for social justice, a desire to care for the poor and needy. These are all coming from his mother.
And then to just go right on into the teaching on the wife of noble character, to think of it differently, perhaps that it was Lemuel’s mother that said, “Look for this kind of a woman. This is the kind of woman you want.” And then he goes on, “A wife of noble character, who can find?” And it goes on to the Proverbs 31 woman. Coming I think as you just read it naturally from Lemuel’s mother.
And so this instruction goes from father and mother, down to the son and the daughter, the child. And so it’s important for the young ones to listen to their parents and to pay attention. Go back to Chapter 3, “My son, do not forget my teaching but keep the commands in your heart for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity.” In other words, you won’t die early. You won’t die young, you’ll be protected. God will sovereignly watch over you, and he’ll give you a good life. It says in 1 Peter, “Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good. He must seek peace and pursue it.” Why? For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. So you wanna live a long life? Fruitful life? Then obey these commands I’m giving you. This is sharpening, you see? The exhorting, the father and mother training the child. Okay?
Let love, in Verse 3, 3:3 it says, “Let love and faithfulness never leave you, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablets of your heart.” This is just pattern after Deuteronomy language, isn’t it? Write it on the door frames, put it up on the wall. You should have these things in front of you, memorize them, have them in front of you, then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”
So this is the positive side of training, you see it? The laying down of precepts, the teaching of the word of God, and all I can ask you is those of you who still have children at home. Are you doing this? Are you sharpening the commands of God into the hearts and lives of your children? Are you having a daily time in the Scriptures in which you’re explaining and working through Scripture? It is your responsibility, fathers, and especially, I think, to lead the family in this regard. That you be the priest, as I’ve mentioned before, of the family. This is a heavy responsibility, but it’s important one. And mothers have a consistent role in training the children. Constantly instructing and training. In many cases, they have far more clock hours during the week than the father has with the children. So a tremendous positive instruction that parents are to give their children.
But then there’s the negative side, isn’t there? It’s not all roses and joy. There’s some thorns there, isn’t there? And why is that? Well, because, bless their hearts, they’re just little sinners. They just really are. And we shouldn’t be shocked ’cause we’re little sinners too. Actually, we’re kinda big sinners, we’ve been trained, we know what we’re doing, we’re expert sinners.We just kind of hide it better, but we’re all depraved, we’re sinful. That’s why we need a Savior. Amen? We need a Savior, and so do these children, they need a Savior too. And probably one of the most important things you can train your children is that they need a Savior. And so, if you forsake training your children, forsake the negative side, they will not understand just how much they need a Savior. They will not cry out against their sin and realize how much they’re struggling with certain things.
Sin will be no big deal. Well, it is a big deal, very big deal. And the training, the so-called rod of reproof, which is both a literal thing, I believe. Whatever the government says about all that we must understand what… The Scripture too. There’s a direct teaching, it’s not just one Verse, many Verses on this, in terms of corporal punishment. But also a symbolic side as well, that it stands for just that negative side of disciple making that we need to be involved in.
Well, let’s talk about it. It’s all based on the Lord’s discipline. Look at Proverbs 3:11-12, it says there, “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” So, our discipline is actually a dim reflection of God’s discipline, right? And we’ve talked about that before with our children. We’ve been in situations where we’re really not sure exactly what the truth is and what the reality is, and we can say, Listen, ultimately, we’re going to commit this to God, alright? Now, you can be forthcoming with us and we will do the discipline. Or we will commit it to God and let Him do it, and God has ways. He runs this universe and he’s in charge of things. We’re limited in what we can do, and it’s predictable what we do. Alright? I would suggest you take us at this point, okay? Because God will do it because He loves you. He’s going to discipline.
It’s a pattern on that. Take a minute and look at Hebrews 12, which quotes this very thing. In Hebrews 12, very, very important passage on the discipline of the Lord. It says in Hebrews 12:4, “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons. My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you. Because the Lord disciplines those he loves and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” 12:7 says, “Endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined and everyone undergoes discipline, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the father of our spirits and live?” Now, Verse 10, very interesting, “our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best.” Isn’t that true?
Oh, I’ll tell you something, we just come to these discipline situation and we just say, “I don’t know what to do, I’m gonna discipline you as I think best, I don’t know if this is going to do any change. Our goal is to bring you to repentance, that’s our only goal here, just to bring you to repentance.” But God disciplines us in a much higher and more perfect way, doesn’t he? He just has the whole universe at his disposal for discipline, right? We have the rod of reproof and some other things. But God’s got the whole shoot match available to him. That’s kind of scary in a way. I mean, He’s sovereign over over… Look at Jonah, what did he use to discipline Jonah? He’s got a big whale and a tiny little worm, he’s got wind, the whole thing is available to God. And He uses it to discipline us. Praise God.
But it says, “our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” Is that not true? Oh, it hurts. It does hurt. And it’s meant to hurt, as a matter of fact. If it doesn’t hurt, it’s not discipline the way we mean it here. It’s something else. It’s meant to hurt. And why? So that we could be trained out of it. God designed pain into the body as a gift, alright, so that we might know when there’s trouble; there’s trouble in our foot or in our hand or whatever, so that we can address it and deal with it. And so also God designed pain in our lives so that we might repent from sin and turn away from it and stop doing it. And so, no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Parents are always looking at the later on, aren’t we? Later on, it’s gonna yield a harvest. Right now, boy, it’s tough, okay? We’re going through it. But we are not going to fail in this matter. As Samuel said, “Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you.” Well, I think parents should say, “Far be it that I should sin against the Lord by failing to train you.” I’ve got to do it. I’ve got to do it no matter how painful it seems.
Alright, so it’s based on the Lord’s discipline and it starts with the rod of reproof. Look at Proverbs 22:15. It is very clear we’re not gonna finish this tonight, but that’s all right. God willing, we’ll look at it again next time. Proverbs 22:15, it says, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.”
Now, I know this flies in the face of the noble savage view of children, namely that they’re kind of good until corrupted. I call it the noble savage ’cause that was the same thing, the idea about the people who weren’t in view of Western society did not need missionaries to go and ruin them, they were fine the way they were. Well, that’s not true at all. They were depraved and need of a Savior, and so also with children, they’re not noble savages, they actually need a Savior, and they are born in original sin. When we get back to Romans and look at Romans Chapter 5, we will see how biblical this is. They are not born righteous, they’re born with a bent toward evil, and as soon as they understand right from wrong, they will do wrong. Not every single time, just like we don’t do it every single time, but they will. Folly, that’s called foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. The rod of discipline drives it from him.
So, early in the child’s life, there’s this kind of physical training. 13:24, if you look at 13:24, says that this actually demonstrates love. I think parents desire to be friends with their children and think that they’re being loving to them by turning a blind eye or deaf ear to certain patterns and traits, they are not doing them any favors, it’s going to end up destroying their lives if not dealt with properly. 13:24 says, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.” Careful to discipline, there’s a care to it and a wisdom to it. Again, the goal is the training of a child, the discipling of the child, you see? It’s the working of wisdom in the child.
And then 23:13-14, it says, “Do not withhold discipline from a child. If you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.” It’s kind of like evangelistic discipline here. The ultimate goal is their salvation. How do you save a soul from death? Well, by repenting and trusting in Christ, right? But the thing is, you’re not searching for a Savior until you know you need one, and it’s these difficult times that show I’m a sinner, I need a Savior, and they’re just sweet times of prayer and of, “Daddy or mommy, I just can’t stop doing this thing. How do I stop?” And it makes a spiritual beggar out of you, doesn’t it? You start crying out against yourself and saying, “Oh, What a wretched man I am.” Isn’t that a saving cry? Who will save me from this body of death? And you begin looking for a Savior. But if you don’t go into those difficult times, they’re not gonna be asking that question. You must save their soul from death.
And then 29:15, it says, “The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.” Oh, is that your child? Ooh. [chuckle] “I’ve never seen him before.” It’s like Peter, “I don’t know him. I had never seen him before. I don’t know.” “But they’re looking off a lot like you.” You know? Arrange a separate ride home, like you’ve never seen them before. Yes, a child who’s not trained well disgraces his mother and his father. And so, this is the kind of training that must go on.
Now, like I said, the rod, I believe, is both a literal and a symbolic thing here. I think you grow up out of certain types of training into certain other types of training. God doesn’t literally would, vernacular tan our posterior or whatever, that doesn’t literally occur with us, but we get discipline other ways, don’t we? God has ways, okay? We care about a lot of things, don’t we? Care about our financial life, care about our professional life, care about our families, care about our material possessions, we care about our personal health. So God has avenues for this discipline. So what I’m saying is that the rod ends up being a symbol of all kinds of negative training that needs to be done.
Now, there’s one last verse that I want to deal with since we’re here, and that’s 22:6, and then we’ll stop here and then we’ll pick it up next time, God willing. 22:6, and I hate to do this, but I need to do this, alright? Have you ever heard of Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go. And even when he’s old, he will not depart from it.” Oh, what a blessed promise. Oh, I wish that your house were built on a solid foundation. But I wanna move you off a foundation of sand and get you on to a solid foundation, okay? How do you understand this verse? Well, I’ve heard parents have wandering teens and youth use it to say, “Well, you know, train up a child and when they’re old they won’t depart from it, they’ll come back. They’ll come back to the Lord.” Well, first of all, just a straight reading from the text will show you that that’s not what this is talking about. It’s talking about a way that begins early in life and they never depart from it ever, they stay in that way their whole life, whatever way we’re talking about here.
So there is no departing and then they’ll come back at all in view, in 26, you see it? But now, let me tell you what the Hebrew literally says. It says, Train up a child according to his own way and when he’s old, he will not depart from it. Now, according to the attitude of Proverbs about a child, what do you think Proverbs thinks about a child’s own way? Not good, right? So basically, let me give you a kind of a vernacular translation. Give the little child what he wants and he’ll be wanting it his whole life. You see what I’m saying? Give the little child everything he or she wants and they’ll be wanting it and demanding it their whole life.
Oh, no, Proverbs 22:6, it’s up on a wall, I have it embroidered, I spent hours on that. Well, it’s a great proverb, just understand it properly, you know? It’s totally the other way than what you thought. Basic idea is, don’t train a child the way he wants you to. Train a child the way God wants him to. Don’t train a child according to his way, train a child according to God’s way. And what is the way that God wants that child trained? Positively and negatively. Right commands given, and then when they mess up, then the discipline appropriate to the felony or whatever it is. That’s what we’re talking about here.
There is nothing in the Hebrew about way he should go. Nothing at all. It says, out dark, according to his way. That’s all it says. And what I’m saying is, don’t train a child according to his way. Proverbs is using somewhat of a sarcastic approach here, at which it does sometimes, like “Go ahead, train up a child according to his way, and even when he’s old, he won’t be departing from it,” that’s the approach taken here. The advice is really the opposite, don’t train a child according to his way, rather train a child according to God’s way. Alright? And what does that involve? Positive training and precepts, negative training and discipline. Well, I’ve got more to say on this, but we’ll look at it more next time. Why don’t we close in prayer?
Father, I thank you for the time we’ve had to look tonight at the Book of Proverbs, and we thank you for the wisdom therein. Father, we take responsibility, all of us, whether we have small or growing children in our homes or not, that perhaps we need to pray for young parents or perhaps we need to mentor or train, get involved in some way. But if we do have still have children growing in our homes or grandchildren that we can directly impact, Father, I pray, give us wisdom to do both the positive and the negative side of disciple making. Lord, you have called us as a church to do this, and I pray that we’d be faithful to it. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
