Proverbs 19. The part of the chapter that I wanted to focus on is beginning there in verse number 18 where the Bible reads, "Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. A man of great wrath shall suffer punishment, for if thou deliver him, yet thou must do it again. Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end. There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless, the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." What I want to preach about tonight is the subject of raising godly children. The Bible says here in verse 18, "Chasten thy son while there is hope," and the implication there is that there's going to come a time when there's no longer hope.
This is something that you have to do early, and this is something that has to start as soon as possible. What I wanted to point out just after that is where it says in verse 21, "There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless, the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." There are a lot of people who have trendy ideas about child rearing, and it seems like they're constantly coming out with new books and new methods for rearing children. All of these devices out of the heart of man, of new ways to discipline your children, or even this new movement that says, "Don't discipline your children at all, don't even replace spanking with a time out, just no consequences, no negative," and it almost sounds hard to believe, but there are websites out there promoting this stuff.
There are books that are being written. If you look at the Facebook pages and the websites that are promoting this stuff, they have hundreds of thousands of people that are buying into this garbage and following this teaching that says, "Never have a neg- Don't even tell the child that they've done something wrong. Don't even say to them, 'You've done wrong.'" All positive, all positive reinforcement. Some of these people even claim to be a Christian. I saw this week somebody said something along the lines of- This was on a major website where all these people are looking to, you know this website for parenting advice. It literally said, "God never one time in the Bible said that he was disappointed with us."
Whoa, what Bible are you reading? Think about those passages in the Old Testament where God just like, "I'm the Lord. Obey me. I'm gonna destroy you. You're evil. You're wicked." I mean, just on and on. What about when God, in Genesis 6, said that it repented Him that He'd even made man on the Earth? Sounds a little disappointed. I'm not saying to look at your child and say, "Hey, you know, it repents me that I even made you," but the point is though, for people to just make these crazy, outlandish statements of, "Well, the Bible never (blank)," and then they just fill in man's device, man's understanding.
Tonight I want to show you what the Bible teaches, and I hope you have your Bible in your hand with you, the King James Bible, to follow along with what's being taught, because the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand. Okay.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: The Bible says in verse number 20, "Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end." This world is following the foolishness and shifting sands of man's philosophy. The Bible says that anyone who hears the sayings of God's Word and doeth them is like a man that's building his house upon a rock and the floods come, winds come, the rain descends and beat upon that house, and it will not fall, because it's founded upon a rock. The foolish man that does not hear these sayings, does not obey these sayings, is likened unto a man who builds his house upon the sand. The rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell, and great was the fall of it. Great is going to be the fall of this generation of children that is raised with this ridiculous attachment parenting, and positive-only parenting, and unconditional love, it's so called, when the Bible says, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son, ...
Congregation: That's right.
Pastor Anderson: ... but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." They say, "Oh, no, unconditional love is when you don't discipline," and they do all these crazy methods of just only positive reinforcement, or to distract the child, you know, with something different. "Oh, let's do something different," you know, "Don't swing that hammer at your sibling's face. Let's find something-" Is there a better way that you could have done that perhaps? Look, before we get into the scripture, let me point out another verse for you. This is a key point. I want you to think about this.
You don't have to turn there, but Matthew 12:33 says this, and this is Jesus rebuking the Pharisees. He says to them, "Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt, for the tree is known by his fruit." You see, you either have to say the tree and the fruit are corrupt, or you say its a good tree and it's bringing forth good fruit. Which one is it? Jesus said, "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." Today, if we want to know what the right child rearing is, obviously we know that the counsel of the Lord is what stands, but not only that, look at the product ...
Congregation: Exactly.
Pastor Anderson: ... of right parenting, Biblical parenting and then look at the product of the world's parenting, and that's the fruit, okay. If the fruit is corrupt the tree is corrupt. If the fruit is good the tree is good. The reason I bring up this verse is because I have eight children, okay, and I am constantly out in public being complimented for the behavior of my children. "Wow, your children are so happy. They smile so much, and they're so friendly, so polite, so well behaved." Here's the thing. These same people, many of them, hate our religion.
Congregation: Yeah. Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: It doesn't make any sense. They hate our religion, but they love the product. They're amazed by the product. It's like they don't understand that these two things go together.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: It's not just random chance that we just happen to have eight kids and they're all obeying and doing what they're supposed to do. It's just really amazing, like it just happened by accident. That's what people think, and that's ridiculous. Anybody here who has a lot of children knows that they're all very different from one another. You can raise them exactly the same way, same exact home life, same environment, teach them the same things, and they have dramatically different personalities from one another. They're all unique, because they have a soul that's created by God that's unique only to them.
You have eight kids. They're all doing what they're supposed to do. They're all minding their manners. They're all obeying. It's not an accident. I remember my pastor back in Sacramento, he used to tell a story about how he'd be in public and somebody walked up to him and said, "How is it that you get your children to be so good?" He just said, "It's because they're scared to death." People would just be horrified. "Oh, man," you know. He would do it just to kind of joke with them a little bit. You know what, the Bible does say that every man should fear his father and fear his mother. That's what it says in Leviticus, chapter number 19.
All through Proverbs the Bible teaches discipline through spanking, corporal punishment, the rod of correction, chastening. Okay. This is a necessary component to proper child rearing. This is not optional. This is something that has to be a part of any Christian child rearing. Now, I've had people say this, "Well, my child just never made a mistake, so I had never had to spank them." Are you insane? You know what, that's the child that you have to worry about the most.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: Because that means they're just hiding everything, because the Bible teaches that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and that there's none righteous, no not one. My children that get the most spankings are the ones that I worry about the least. It's the ones that get less spankings that you wonder, "What are they up to?" The point is that every child needs discipline. God said it all throughout the book of Proverbs, and we need to not listen to the world's understanding and get brainwashed. Some of these websites and some of these books, they make a really convincing case. If you listen to those lies you can be sucked in and you can be deceived. If you're not grounded in the word of God, if you're not reading the Bible, and if you're not going to a church that's preaching the Word of God, you can get sucked in.
Let me just put it to you bluntly. These people are lying. They tell a story about, "Oh, my child was a brat and I just did this really positive approach and it just worked perfect, and the child just tearfully came to me, 'I'm so sorry. What have I done?'" It's just a lie. Look, it blows me away how naïve people are in the world we live in. This is a wicked world that we live in. The Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it. Then we're surprised when unsaved people lie to us. Why are you surprised at all about that? I'm telling you. Here's the thing. Because you are a person who is generally honest, I hope that I'm talking to people that are generally honest, you think, "Oh, everybody's like me."
Guess what, people out there who don't have Jesus, people out there who aren't saved, they are unscrupulous many times and will just lie through their teeth. You say, "Well, what's the motive to lie?" Oh, I don't know, selling a lot of books. Getting thousands and thousands of visitors to a website because it's this wonderful, positive, uplifting, encouraging, avant-garde approach to child rearing and it's going to solve all your problems and blah, blah, blah, and it's a lie. People will literally just lie. You know what, especially on the internet, people can lie, because of the fact that with social media, like Facebook, YouTube, people can put forth whatever image of their life that's often a complete lie. People can take pictures of themselves that make themselves look different than they look in real life.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: Then they can put out only the best parts of their life. They're not photographing every meal, oh no. They're only Instagraming the meals that came out awesome. My point is that they're putting forth this image of, "Oh, look how happy these kids are and look how happy we are, and look at this fun vacation, when in reality behind the scenes, for all you know, it's like, "You just shut up and act like you're having a good time and line up and smile for this picture. I need to get this on Facebook," and, you know, "Pretend like you're having fun. Errrr." You can't just believe stuff that you see on the internet, or just think, "Oh, well look at all these really happy people and they're not following the Bible, and look how perfect their life is." It's a fraud. It's a lie.
You know who you actually know in real life, people at church. Look around. Look around the church, right. This is real. You're actually here tonight, right. You're physically, bodily here. Look around. These people are real flesh and blood people. We're not here with an avatar and just putting certain- You're actually seeing and meeting, you can actually look at my children and talk to them, and see how they act, and I can see how your children act. This is real life.
You can see what the Bible says and believe the Bible over all these illusions that the devil's out there. What does the Bible say the devil's going to use to deceive us in Ephesians 4? He said sleight of hand. He said the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive. There are people out there with a plan to trick you, and you don't think the devil would love to trick you. Hey, spanking doesn't work, positive only.
You know, one of the biggest examples of this also, besides just the internet and Facebook and things like that is reality TV. It's not real. Nothing that's on TV is real, okay. Everything's fake on TV because it's all staged, and the lighting, and everything. One of the big examples of this is that Duggar show. I preached this years ago, that I said, "You know what I have a problem with the Duggars is that they have all these kids, right, and they're all so happy, and obedient, and playing their violins, and everything's so perfect. Okay. My kids play like harmonica, guitar, and I could get like a hillbilly band going on my house, but "Oh no, not them, they've all got violins, and cellos, and clarinets." I mean everything's so perfect, right?
Here's the thing, they'll never talk about spanking their kids. Never. Never. People would even ask them, "Hey, do you spank your kids? They'd never give a straight answer. "Oh, but we just try to use positive reinforcement." It's a lie because I guarantee you that they were spanking their kids at some point or they'd be slinging from the chandeliers, okay. It was just this illusion where they're real positive, and friendly, and everybody's so happy, and there's no spanking going on on that show, and there's no talking about spanking. You know what, that's deceptive. That's lying. Obviously, those people have other bigger problems, too, with all the weirdos that they hang around with and what some of their kids have turned into and everything else. That goes to show you why reality TV isn't as real as you think. I'm saying all that to say this. Look, the Bible is the Word of God, and we got to keep in focus what the Bible says, and not get caught up. Look, "Every wind of doctrine," the Bible says ...
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: ... "and the cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive." Every wind of doctrine in our modern vernacular would be trendy doctrine, because winds are things that they just kind of blow in and then they blow out. What that's saying is trendy things, things that just pop on the scene and, "Ooh, the new excit-" The truth is not new. The truth is old. Okay.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: That better be a root beer or something. Somebody's drinking out of a brown bottle here. Okay. It's water. Just checking. Just making sure. All right. At least it wasn't wrapped in a brown paper bag. Anyway.
Let's look at what the Bible says and see what the counsel of the Lord is on child rearing. First of all, let's just start in Proverbs where there's so much scripture about the fact that spanking is the way to discipline your children. Look, if you would, at chapter number 13 of Proverbs, just a few pages to the left in your Bible. Hopefully you're already in the book of Proverbs.
Back up to Proverbs 13. The Bible says, in verse 24, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." Now, I believe that. Now, the word betimes means early. A lot of people misunderstand this word. They think it means like from time-to-time, because they kind of guess at the meaning. If you actually look up all the times the word betimes is used in the Bible, it always means early. It talks about people getting up betimes in the morning and doing thus and so. What the Bible is saying is to chasten them early, okay. Now, there could be a couple different ways to interpret that. You could say, "He that loveth him chasteneth him betimes," in the sense of when they're young. Start early, right, because he said, "chasten they son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying." Then, you could also interpret it as betimes in the sense of, when there's an issue you deal with it right away.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: You don't use spanking as a last resort. There are a lot of people who are Christians that use spanking as a form of discipline but to them it's a last resort. It's something where they try everything else and then if all else fails they have these really rare spankings. I don't believe in that. I like to think of spanking as more like a first-line of defense than a last resort, okay. There are a lot of reasons why spanking is such an effective form of punishment for children. God is always right, okay. One of the biggest reasons why a spanking is effective is that once it's over, it's over. Whereas, when you use it as a last resort, what are you using up until then, just a lot of anger, yelling, shouting, whatever else you're doing that lasts longer. People who use other forms of punishment, time outs, groundation, whatever the case may be, a lot of these are punishments that go on and drag on.
The great thing about a spanking is, you go in, you get the spanking done, and then you move on with your life. Honestly, when I spank my children, usually two minutes later they're smiling and happy and its like nothing even happened. They're not upset at me. I'm not upset at them. Problem is solved. We move on with our lives and it provides closure to the situation, okay. There's not this grudge. So many parents today are bitter against their children, where you see parents that are just angry and frustrated, and they're just, "Arrrrr, I'm so irritated with my son." We literally had a lady come to our house this week and say, "Oh, I'm sorry I'm late," and this and that, but she said, "I have a five-year-old and he is a tyrant." No, look, what in the world, your five-year-old's a tyrant? Unless your five-year-old's stronger than you, what's going on here? Who's running that house? How are you being overpowered by a five-year-old? Okay.
It's just people have such weird ideas about parenting. "Oh, my five-year-old's a tyrant." You know what, I don't feel bad about my five-year-old. Do I have a five-year-old? How many do we have? No, we have four and six, all right. I always just tell people, I pretty much have all ages. "Oh, you have kids?" "Well, I have kids that are the same age, doesn't matter what age your kids are." I have that, because my kids are all like 14 and down every two years pretty much is another one. People talk about the terrible twos, "Oh, your kid's in terrible twos," when in reality the terrible twos to us, that's one of the nicest, sweetest ages, a two-year-old. They're so nice, and cute, and fun to play with at that age, so sweet. When they're two, three, four. It used to be the terrible twos, but now the terrible twos is considered two through four. They just spread it out. It's just an excuse for a kid acting like a brat, and not having any proper discipline.
What you'll find is that when people don't spank their kids the other option is anger. I don't blame them for being angry, because if I had children that are tyrannizing me, children that are just completely disobedient, and I have no recourse, I have no way to fix the problem, and my hands are just tied, Yeah, I'd be pretty angry, too. I'd be irate. That's what we see in the book of Proverbs, that there are a lot of scriptures about child rearing side-by-side with verses about anger. He'll talk about spanking and talk about anger in the same breath, even where we started in Proverbs 19, there was a verse on anger, and then a few verses later he said, "Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying." That's why later in the book of Proverbs it says, "The rod of his anger shall fail." People often use the rod of anger instead of the physical rod, and the Bible says that it shall fail.
It's not an effective form of discipline, anger, and that is what often replaces spanking. Yeah, it sounds great on the website, of just being real positive, but, guess what, everybody's a human being and eventually your kids are going to drive you to the point of insanity if you don't discipline them and keep them on track, especially if you have a lot of them. A lot of these goofball, trendy parenting methods are designed for people who have like one kid, okay. You have to run a tighter ship the more kids you have, okay. Once you have eight children, you have to make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to do and obeying. You can't just go to the store and they just go in eight different directions or something.
The Bible says, in verse 24, "He that spareth his rod hateth." It doesn't say spare the rod, spoil the child. That's not what it says. It says, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." Discipline them early. I think both meanings are good advice. Start young and do it right away. Nip it in the bud when there's a serious problem. The Bible says, in chapter number 22. Go to Proverbs 22, and while you're turning to Proverbs 22, I'll read for you chapter 10, verse 13 where it reads, "In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found, but a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding." The Bible says in chapter 22, verse 8, this is the verse I was referring to. "He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity, and the rod of his anger shall fail."
Look at verse 15. "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." The Bible is telling us that the rod and reproof give wisdom. It says here that, "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." When you spank your children, the Bible says, "You are removing foolishness from their heart." I mean, think about that. With every stroke a little foolishness just left. Wisdom enters in. You know that term, "Pain is weakness leaving the body," right. If we looked at our children, it's like, "No, pain is foolishness leaving the body when it comes to spanking, right." The Bible says in chapter 23, if you just flip over the page.
A lot of people will say, "Well, but the rod isn't really the rod. What it really means is that shepherd's rod with the hook on the end and it's just talking about guiding. It's not really talking about spanking." There are people out there who will just try to twist the scripture just to try to make it say anything but spanking. Have fun trying to twist this one. Proverbs 23, verse 13. It says, "Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod," so if you want to put a little hook on the end, no problem. As long as you're beating him with it. That's what the Bible says. "If thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die." Thou shalt beat. Now that sounds like a commandment to me. Think about it. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt no commit adultery. Here's a commandment that says, "Thou shalt beat." This is not an option, this is a command of God. "Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shall deliver his soul from hell."
Now, a lot of people will see the word beat and they'll get uncomfortable because they're kind of thinking of the way we would use the word beat. They're picturing beating someone up or something, because that's how we often use the word beat. Obviously, when the Bible is using the term beat here, we're not talking about punching, or pummeling, or injuring the child.
The goal of spanking is not to injure your child, obviously, but rather to inflict pain on the child, right. A stinging sensation of a spanking, okay. You don't want to, obviously, injure them, but the goal is to actually create pain in the form of a spanking that will be a punishment for them, okay. You smite them with the rod. You say, "Well, what's the rod?" Well, back in the old days, they would take a switch from a tree, right. They would take a tree branch and use that as a spanking implement. One of the things that people often use is a cooking spoon, like a wooden cooking spoon. That works well.
One of the things that we've used for spanking, don't tell Lowe's and Home Depot, but we've taken hundreds of their free paint stir sticks, okay. We take a lot of them, okay. We've been using them for years to spank our children, because it is a good spanking implement. I'm taking about the five gallon stir stick. I'm not talking about the one gallon, all right. Honesty, the five gallon stir stick from Lowe's or Home Depot, it's almost like a wooden ruler. It's just a thin, flat- Again, the goal is to be able to spank hard enough to produce a stinging sensation but you don't want to beat them with this blunt force and hurt them, okay, that's not the point.
One advice that I give people is that before they spank their children they should try it on themself, just to see what it feels like so they can understand what level of force to use, because they can try it on themselves. You say, "Pastor Anderson, aren't you afraid to preach like this?" You know what the Bible says? "The fear of man bringeth a snare." Fear not. Fear God and keep His commandments. The Bible says preach the Word. You know what, a lot of churches they don't preach explicitly like this.
Congregation: No they don't.
Pastor Anderson: Because, they're afraid. "Oh, man, I'm gonna get in trouble," and this and that. You know what, if you're going to get in trouble, but if you're not going to preach the Bible, then you can't be a pastor.
Congregation: Right. Amen.
Pastor Anderson: If you're not willing to, "take that chance," then you need to sit down and shut up and let a pastor get up that's actually going to preach what the Bible says.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: I'm preaching the Bible. I'm being explicit because the Bible says we should make God's Word plain.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: And make it simple so that people can understand it. It's not enough to just read a verse and then move on. The whole point of preaching is to expound upon the Word of God and to apply it to our lives in our generation. That's why we need new preachers coming on the scene all the time, getting the Word of God out and preaching it to a 2015 crowd, what people in 2015 need to hear, the things that we're dealing with. One of the things we're dealing with is a generation that has been influenced by Dr. Spock, and been influenced by attachment parenting, and all this other garbage, and we need to get the Word of God and understand that the Bible tells us, "Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shall deliver his soul from hell." That sounds pretty important. This is serious.
The reason that I explained what implements to spank with is because of the fact that people aren't taught this stuff by their parents sometimes. This should be information that is passed down from parents to children. We need to make sure that everybody knows what we're talking about here. I think that good spanking implements are wooden cooking spoons, the pain stir sticks, which is basically like a wooden ruler in a sense. Those are great things to use. Also, you know what, I know this freaks people out, but the belt.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: The belt is what I grew up being spanked with by my parents, okay. They spanked me with what was called the sailboat rod, which it was like a fiberglass rod and it was flat and it was hard and it kind of had a whipping, kind of like woo woo woo, so it had like a little wrist action where tsh tsh tsh tsh, and that thing hurt. That was the worst. That was worse than the belt. The sailboat rod was the thing that you dreaded growing up. My dad usually used a belt. My mom used the sailboat rod. Both parents would use the sailboat rod. My mom tried to deny using the sailboat rod on me. I'm like, "Mom, you used it on me hundreds of times." "Well, maybe sometimes." She finally admitted. I have the sailboat rod in my house as a trophy of my upbringing, but I don't use the sailboat rod on my kids because of the fact that now it's become kind of old and brittle, so now it's just kind of a trophy there.
A lot of people will say, "Hey, it's unbiblical to discipline your children with the belt," you know, because they'll say, "Hey, it says the rod," but there are also a lot of verses that say, "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every every son whom he receiveth," which would imply something like above. Here's the thing. It's funny how people get real emotional about the belt for some reason, but in reality the belt is the thing that's probably the least likely thing to injure anyone, because of the fact that it's a soft object. You're probably more likely to accidentally injure someone with a big hard blunt object than a belt.
A belt is providing a snapping, stinging without injury, and that's the goal. You're not trying to injure them, or pummel them, or bludgeon them. What you want to do is just provide a stinging discipline. Like I said, try it on yourself to make sure that you're not going overboard, or that you're under doing it. I mean I've seen people spank their kids and their child's just laughing, because it's just such a joke. Some people literally pat their child on the fanny and call that a spanking. People will literally just pat, pat, "No, no." You've seen it, haven't you. Do that to yourself, and then you'll realize, "Whoa, that's not a punishment." Right. You have to make sure that you're actually inflicting pain, right, but that you're not going overboard. That's why you should always try it on yourself and figure out what the proper level of force is. You know what I'm talking about, you've seen it, right. "No."
Let's look at a few more scriptures. The Bible says, for example, in chapter 26, verse 3, just a few chapters later. It says, "A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back." There you go. The Bible says, "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him." What is the whip? What is the bridle? These are training implements, okay. Look at chapter 29, verse 15. The Bible says in 29:15, "The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." Look at verse 17, "Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest, yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul."
Some people look at the fact that we have a lot of children, or that you have a lot of children and they say, "Why do you have so many children? Are you insane?" Somebody literally said to me this week, "You must be out of your mind," which I think is kind of rude and bold for people just to come up to a complete stranger and say, "You must be out of your mind." What exactly did they say, Son? Yeah, "You need to get your head examined," you know. I mean, it's like, "What. Who asked you for advice." Moron. The thing is, people will come at you, "You need to get your head examined." It's because they had such a brat they can't imagine doing that eight times. They had such an undisciplined child that, of course, they're not interested in having any. What does the Bible say, "That if you chasteneth your son, if you correct your son, he'll give you rest and he'll give delight unto they soul." Why would you not want to have delight in your soul?
See, people aren't correcting their children, that's why they are not having delight from their children, and that's one of the measurements of whether you're doing it right. If your children aren't bringing you joy and bringing you delight, you're probably doing something wrong, because they should be an enjoyment for you to be around, if you're doing it right. Let's keep reading. "Where there is no vision the people perish, but he that keepeth the law happy is he. A servant will not be corrected by words, for though he understand he will not answer." See that, sometimes physical punishment is the only thing that gets through. It says in verse 20, " Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? there is more hope of a fool than of him." See, people are quick with the words, right, hasty with their words and slow to spank and that's not the right way to do it.
Look at verse 21, "He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him become his son at the length." Watch this, "An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression." Notice, the righteous man, the wise man, is using physical discipline and the foolish man is angry, furious, and real quick to speak. It's all just the mouth. It's all just the railing and the anger. Now, there are a lot of scriptures we could go to on this. A lot of people would try to say, "Oh, that's the Old Testament," that kind of nonsense, as if the whole Bible is not God's Word, as if Proverbs is not a timeless book for all generations, okay.
All we have to do is go to Hebrews and see the same thing in Hebrews, chapter 12. Flip over there, if you would. While you're turning there, I'll give you some other scriptures. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 8:5, "Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee." That's what Hebrews 12 discusses. In verse 5, it says, "Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, my son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him, for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."
The Bible is saying here that there are both rebukes and chastening. Rebukes are when you verbally tell the child that they've done wrong. That's important, too. I'm not saying, "Don't ever rebuke them or correct them." I'm not even saying, "Don't ever get angry." There's a time to get angry. The Bible says, "Be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. There's a time when anger is appropriate. There's a time when rebukes are appropriate, but we shouldn't just be really hasty to just always use our mouths and slow to spank. No, spanking should be the primary form of discipline, according to the Bible. That's what we see admonished over and over again.
Of course, Jesus said in Revelation 3:19, "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent. There's a place for both, but the physical discipline is primary. It's key. Now, it days here if we continue reading, "If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons, for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence." When you correct your children and chasten them they respect you. They give you reverence. It says, "Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto 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," listen to this, "it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."
Look, spanking works according to the Bible.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: It says that at the time it might not even seem like it, but that afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness. It really does work. It really will drive foolishness far from him. The Bible says in Proverbs. I don't think it's in my notes, but it says, "The blueness of the wound cleanseth away evil, so do stripes the innermost parts of the belly." The belly referring to the heart, okay. So, what's the Bible saying? Just as the blueness of the wound, meaning let's say you were to cut yourself, or injure yourself, or be wounded in some way, and the wound had blueness, what is causing the blueness? Let's talk to some of the nurses in the audience. What is causing that blueness? What is that? What is it? You are a nurse and you better give me the right answer. All right, let's go to the nurse behind you that's hiding. What is it? Everybody who's not a nurse is giving me the right- Jay, help me out here. What's the blue stuff? What is it?
Congregation: It's broken blood vessels.
Pastor Anderson: It's blood. Okay. Everybody who's not a nurse is like, "Blood, blood, blood," and the nurses are like, "I don't know." Anyway, here's the thing. It's blood, right. Like if you get a bruise, what's that discoloration? Blood, okay. If you get a wound and it gets discolored because it's infected, it's blood, right? Do you agree with that? You're making faces at me. Okay, yeah, at least I'm getting vigorous nodding from this nurse. All right, very good. How many nurses do we have in our church tonight, three, four? We're going to get to the bottom of this. It's blood. That's what's causing that. Well, here's the thing. The blood has these white blood cells, right. White blood cells, okay, that are part of the immune system, that are there to get rid of that which infects, right, and to get rid of that which is causing ailment and that needs to be removed.
The Bible days, "Just as the blood," you know, "just as the immune system will cleanse away the evil from a wound and that blueness of the wound cleanse away evil, it says, "So do stripes the innermost parts of the belly." Think about that. The Bible teaches that physical discipline actually affects the heart. Of the person who's being disciplined, and it actually makes them a better person. It removes evil from their heart. It removes foolishness from their heart. It really does yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
You know, one think, I've got to hurry up because every time I preach on child rearing I start on the spanking point and it just fills the whole sermon, just because there's so much Bible. Obviously, there's more to raising your children than just spanking them. That's not enough. I got to move on. Before I move on, okay, one of the things that you'll notice about this is that when it talks about discipline, physical discipline, about half of the verses are about disciplining children, and about half of the verses are about disciplining adults, okay. The reason why is because this used to be a major form of punishment for criminals.
Now, this has been replaced in our modern society with jail or prison, which is a horrible way to punish people, and is completely unbiblical. Never in God's law, did He mandate lock them in a cage as a punishment? It's never brought up. It's never taught. The punishments that God gives are always punishments which are carried out right away. The main punishments are either to pay a fine, like for example you steal, you pay back the victim double, or fourfold, or fivefold, depending on the situation. We're not going to go into that for the sake of time. You pay it back. Other punishments are a beating, and then, obviously, very serious crimes like kidnapping, rape, murder, are punished by death, but beating was a major kind of go-to punishment just for minor crimes, a beating.
Now, people would say today that it's barbaric to beat someone for their crime as a punishment. This is just how stupid our society is, when they think they're smarter than God, and how, "Professing themselves to be wise, they become fools." "Oh, it's so cruel and inhumane," right. If we went to the prison right now and we asked all the prisoners, you have a choice, receive a public beating or continue your present sentence, they would 99% choose the beating. I've talked to people who've been in prison, and they've asked that question when they were in prison. They asked all the people around them, "Oh, yeah, I'll take the beating." Of course they would take the beating.
Let me ask you this, if 99% of prisoners would rather get the beating than to finish out their prison sentence, then how could it be cruel to give people what they want?
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: It's just so loving to give them what they hate, and here's the thing about a beating, it doesn't ruin your life. You know what a beating does? It makes you a better person.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: You know what prison does? It makes you a worse person, and it ruins your life. You know, 80-some percent of women divorce their husband when he goes to prison. Did you know that? You go to prison and you know what, you probably lost your wife now. You probably lost your job. You probably lost your career because now you have this criminal record that you carry around for the rest of your life. Look, it would be far more humane to just flog that person publicly. It's over, it's done, they go to work the next day and they're a better person, and they're less likely to do it again. You say, "Well, I don't think." Shut up. The Bible says it's going to work. I believe it's going to work.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: Prison doesn't work.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: You come out of prison worse. Correctional facility. No. The correctional facility out to be a beating facility. You know what the Bible says? When the judge says, "guilty," and he delivers the sentence of how many stripes, the Bible says that they do it right then and there and that the judge has to watch. Right now, the high and mighty judge, you know, last time I was in court the judge had this giant coffee mug that said like, "I'm the boss," or "I'm god," or something. He had some kind of a really obnoxious cup. The pompous, arrogant judge sits up there and just destroys people's lives by, "Guilty, ten years, fifteen years," just handing out these sentences that are destroying people's lives. I'm not talking about murders, and rapists, and people. I'm talking about the 90-some percent of people that are in prison for nonviolent crimes.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: Ninety-some percent, and it doesn't mean that they're horrible people or that they're reprobates, or that they can't be fixed. No, they're people who made a mistake. They committed sin, and they should be restored, because we're not talking about rapists, murders, I'm taking about the majority of people in prison that are just there for something like stealing, or drugs, is probably 90% of it, right, pot and whatever. Look, they need to be restored. They need to be punished, but these judges just hand out these sentences of life. I mean, what kind of stupidity is giving somebody a life sentence? Either kill them or let them live their life. How can you just lock them up for their entire life? What's even the point of their life at that point?
A lot of these people don't even want to live, you know, because it's like life in prison. It's so depressing to them because it's such a cruel and inhumane punishment, that's why. But, the world says, "Oh, it's loving, it's wonderful, it's fine," and "Oh, the beating," you know, "is so bad." They carry that over to parenting. Timeout's like a little prison sentence, right? "Oh, no, inhumane spanking." See, what about if the judge had to actually watch the punishment, right, then he might be more fair, and more humane, because he understands the repercussion of what he's doling out. If he says 30 stripes, or whatever, he has to watch that and then his heart can tell him whether that's appropriate. Not just, "Guilty," never see the guy again. He doesn't have to sit and listen to the children of that person crying, "Where's our dad? When's dad coming home? I want to see dad." They don't have to be there for the divorce proceedings.
They don't have to be there for the real repercussions of that punishment when the guy can't get a job and when the guy's marriage falls apart and then his wife marries somebody else who molests his kids and whatever, because people are most likely to be molested by a stepparent a lot of the time, or boyfriend, or whatever. It just destroys people's lives because it's a stupid system because it's not Biblical. What God says is always right and wise and what the world says is always foolish and stupid, you know. Of course man has all kinds of devices in his heart, but the counsel of the Lord that shall stand.
This prison industrial complex is a money-making machine for a lot of people who run it, okay. Did you know that the United States has more people in prison per capita than any country on the planet. The land of the free has more people locked up than any, than Russia, than communist China. We have more people locked up per capita than any nation in the world. Doesn't that tell you that something weird is going on in our country, when there are hundreds of countries in this world and we lead the world in prison population. Then people say, "Oh, we're good people here." Well, if we're good people then why are we locking up all these good people? It doesn't make any sense, right?
Look, there are horrible people in prison, but you know what ought to be done? This is what I would do if I were king, we'd take out all the murders, and rapists, and child molesters and shot then all in the head with firing squad, execute them all, right, and then let the rest go free, all the people who committed nonviolent crimes, and give them a beating and let them go. Actually, just let them go because they've already suffered enough. They've already suffered enough. Doesn't make any sense, my friend.
Now, a couple of things on that subject, okay, is that when we talk about spanking, you know, "When do you start," people will often ask, and then they'll often ask, "When do you stop," you know when it comes to spanking your children. I know we kind of got off on a commercial break there about the prison system. Back to child rearing, all right. When do you start? Early. When do you stop? When they leave the home.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: Now, a lot of people, "Whoa." Here's what's so funny. The world thinks you're abusive for spanking young kids, right, and then they think you're abusive for spanking a teenager. It's like, whoa, wait a minute. You don't like spanking them too young, but then all of a sudden a teenager is too old? What's going on, Goldilocks? There's just this one little stage where you think spanking's okay? Here's the thing about that. I thank God my parents spanked me. I'm thankful for it. I don't look back, "Oh, my parents were so abusive with that sailboat rod, or the belt, or whatever." I've thanked my parents. I've said, "Thank you for spanking me. Thank you for disciplining me so that I didn't grow up and become a monster." By the way, I got spanked more than any of the other kids in my family, okay. You know what, I'm glad of that, because of the fact that it helped me learn about right and wrong and taught me to fear the Lord and to fear my parents and so forth.
Here's the thing, my parents stopped spanking me when I was about 11-12 years old, okay. They stopped spanking me. This is the part I don't agree with. I believe that they should have continued spanking me if I needed it. Here's the thing, when you turn 11-12 and your parents stop spanking you, it's not that they stop telling you what to do, it's not that they stop getting upset with you when you do wrong, right, so what is the spanking being replaced with. It has to be replaced with something, right. In my house it was replaced with a lot of lecturing, right. A lot of anger, and lecturing, and yelling. Here's the thing about that, I would have preferred to get spanked personally, okay.
I'm not criticizing my parents. I'm not down on my parents, because, you know what, I'm very thankful for my parents and I can say this, we have four children in our family and all four of us are independent, fundamental Baptists. We're all saved, all soul winning, all people who love the Lord, okay. Not saying that we're perfect, but I'm saying at least all their children are Christians and in church and living decent lives. My parents did a good job. I'm not down on my parents at all, but I believe that this was a mistake on their part to stop spanking, because they still had discipline problems with the kids, but then they just didn't spank, I guess just because society was telling them "Don't spank."
I'm telling you what, I don't care what society thinks, because the Bible, like I said, half the time talks about disciplining adults. I've no problem continuing to spank my children as long as they're in my house, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Now, obviously, as they get older they should need less and less spankings because they're more foolishness has already been removed earlier on, and they're getting wiser and wiser, and they need discipline less and less. If they need it, they're going to get it. Not saying it happens all the time, but if they need it they're gonna get it, period. There's no end in sight, you know, until they move out of the house. That's where I stand on that.
As far as what's too early, I'm not gonna be the judge of that. I'm gonna let you be the judge of that, because, honestly, it's different with every child. We started spanking different children at different ages because of the fact that some children need it sooner than others. Some of my children have gotten two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine times as many spankings. No, I'm just kidding, but some of my children have gotten more spankings than others, okay. That's just life. You have different kids, different personalities.
I will say this, any time your child is old enough to just defy you, which is pretty young, right, then that's a situation where they need to be spanked. Obviously, a little newborn baby doesn't even have a concept of right and wrong. They're screaming and crying for food because that's just what they do. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not sinful for them to do that. As they get to a point where you tell them, "No," and then they just do it anyway and then just look at you like, "What are you gonna do about it, punk?" You know what, every child does that at some point. When you tell them, "Don't touch that," and they touch it and then they look at you like, "What now? Your move." It's true. They do. When that happens, you know, you know what you're move is at that point.
Here's one thing that I see people making a mistake with the real young children, is don't spank them through the diaper. This is a way that you could injure your child, because if you spank them through a thick, padded diaper, basically what you're doing, and lest you freak out, kids wear diapers for years, you know, until they're, what, three years old or whatever. The think is, if you spank them through the diaper by the time you're inflicting any pain through that padding, you're probably hitting them too hard, you know, where you could actually injure them. It's not safe. I don't think it's safe to spank your child through a diaper. You should always remove the diaper or pull it aside and not spank them through the diaper.
Now, I've got like two minutes for the whole rest of the sermon, but anyway. Obviously, spanking's not enough. Let me just real quickly in closing, but we had to spend time on that. It's a lot of Bible, and it's important, and people need to hear this stuff because there's a lot of false teaching out there. Here's some other elements that go into successful child rearing besides just spanking, okay. Here are some things to keep in mind. First of all, everything brings forth after it's own kind. A major important thing about child rearing is being the right example for your children.
This is very, very powerful. You can sit there and say, "Don't smoke kids. Cough, cough. Cough. Don't be like me." They're going to grow up and smoke, period. People who smoke, their kids grow up and smoke, like 90-some percent of the time, probably, right? You know, you've seen it so many times, and the example is powerful. Here's a great illustration of that. I remember when Solomon was first learning how to play piano. Keep telling him, Practice your piano, practice your piano, didn't really practice much, didn't want to practice. Then I went through a phase where I was trying to get better at piano, so I was practicing all the time, and as soon as I started practicing all of a sudden he started practicing all the time, and all of a sudden he's spending hours and hours practicing. The example was more powerful than saying, "Practice the piano." Children naturally want to be like their parents. Children look up to their parents and want to be like them and emulate them, and they'll act like them.
Another example is running. I run a lot and my children they all love running, all of them. Most kids right now, if they're at school and they're told, "Hey, go run a lap, or go run a mile, they're like, "Aw, man," it's like a punishment, right. "Take a lap." That's a punishment. In our house, it's like a reward. They love it. You're like, "Why in the world, who loves running?" Honestly, because I love running and because my children see me running, they beg me to go running. They're like, "Dad, can we go running. Dad, take us running." I mean sometimes, I'm like, "Look, we can't go running. It's 115 degrees outside, you know, we're gonna die." They're just like, "Take me running. Take me running," and they're like, "I'm gonna run a mile." My children come to me, "I'm gonna run a mile every single day, every day. I need to improve my running." "What?" They love running. Why? Simply because I run. I never tell them like, "You need to run." Never. They're coming to me begging to go running, okay. This shows how powerful the example is more than just words of telling them what to do. Show them how to do it, okay.
I think another huge thing with parenting is that you need to spend time with your children. The Bible says, "A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." I think the reason why the mother is brought up is because she's the primary caregiver, so if the child's left to himself, it's the mother that's dropping the ball in a large way. Today women are sometimes caught up in so many things that they just want to kind of get the kid out their. It's so easy to stick it in front of a TV, stick it in front of a video, stick it in front of a cartoon, and just kind of have the kids off your hands, so you can do what? Facebook, you know, surf the net, watch TV, watch soap operas, you know, whatever people do instead of what they should be doing, which is spending time with their children, okay.
A lot of times it's like, "Man, I can get anything done with these kids," but it's like those kids are what you're supposed to be getting done. That's your main job. What do you mean get things done? You're getting things done by raising kids, ladies. I mean, that's your job. No, obviously, there's cooking, and cleaning, and other household matters that need to be attended to and sometimes they need to do stuff on their own, play on their own, work on their own, but when they're just constantly on their own so you can play, or you can sit around, or you can do whatever, you need to reevaluate your priorities there. The child left to himself causes his mother shame.
As fathers we need to also play a role in out children's lives, too, and spend time with them. When we have free time, let's try to bring our kids along with us on whatever we do. That's why I'm glad my kids like to run, because then I go running with them and it's some time we can spend together. We can go hiking together.
If I ever have a chance where I can bring my kids to work with me, I would try to use those opportunities. Bring my sons to work with me, because you know, when I think about my parents, if I have fond memories of my mom and dad, usually I'm thinking about time that we spent together. When I think about my dad, I think about times that we went dirt bike riding together, times that we would ride bicycles around the neighborhood, times that we would go water skiing and we'd ride Seadoos at the river. My dad would take me places and do stuff with me. Those were quality times with me and my dad. I remember spending time with my mom and going out and doing things with my mom, and just spending hours talking to my mom. There's no replacement for that quality time with your children.
You need to just understand that your children are an investment. Don't get so busy with all your other work, or even busy serving God when you don't realize that you're raising the next generation of servants of God. You need to spend time and energy investing in your children, talking to them, spending time with them, going places with them. Doing things. It doesn't have to be a big fancy, expensive thing. It could be as simple as just riding a bicycle around the neighborhood, but they remember that. I could be a simple picnic, or going out and doing something, but they're going to remember those things.
Another thing, I think, is to make sure that your children understand that you love them, expressing love to your children. It's not enough to just be this disciplinarian, but you're not showing love to your children, okay. The Bible says, "Fathers provoke not your children to anger lest they be discouraged." You don't want to discourage your children by just being too harsh with them and just provoking them to anger and not showing them love, right. You have to balance the coin. Yes, discipline, yes, rebuke, but also you need to show them love and affection, and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and show them that you love them. Spend time with them. Care about them. Praise them for their achievements. There are a lot of things that go into good parenting, and they're all in the Bible. The Bible is the final authority on this subject.
If you want to know about rearing children, ask someone who has successfully reared children, and I'm not talking about the world's method of success. I'm talking about a child that's successful by God's standards. Why don't you ask them what they did. You know, I never ask people who failed what did you do wrong, because usually they don't know. If they would have known, they would have fixed it. People who did it wrong always love to give advice, "Don't make the mistake I made." A lot of times they're wrong about what the mistake they made even was. It's way smarter to talk to people who've succeeded, and ask them, "What did you do right? What did you do to succeed. Find people who have children that are the way that you want your children to be and ask them. Find people who have adult children that are living for God and observe what they did, and get advice from them. Don't get advice from people who failed.
The world will pull out all these studies against spanking, right, and they'll say, "Oh, well look at this study against spanking, you know, because look at all these successful children who never got spanked," but what's the world define as success? I mean, you could be some filthy sodomite, but as long as you didn't get arrested and as long as you are marking a certain amount of money, they're like, "You're a success." I mean, right? What's the world? They suppose that gain is godliness.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: These statistics of, "Oh, look at all these kids who turned out right and they were never spanked," but right to them is some lesbian who's face looks like she fell out a fishing tackle box, but because she got a bachelor in arts in lesbian poetry and has never been in prison, she's a great success, you know. What do you define? The person who is a failure is because they've ever been arrested or something, you know. I've been arrested, for crying out loud. Half our church has been arrested. Hello. You're not even a full-fledged member of the church if you haven't been arrested yet. No, I'm just kidding.
The point is, the world defines success in a weird way, okay, and so, therefore, you can't go by their false studies and their statistics of, "Well, you know, graduates from Harvard don't spank." Well, of course not, because they've just been brainwashed in a atheistic institution. Of course they're not going to follow God's law. They don't spank their one child, you know, Ferguson, or whatever, their little yuppie child that goes from his tennis lesson to his violin lesson to his, you, know Latin classes, or whatever. Little Lord Fauntleroy, okay. "we never spank him." Okay, but when he grows up and he's a sodomite. When he grows up and he's a queer little sissy. We don't consider that success. We actually like blue collar people who didn't necessarily go to college. We actually like people that give you a firm handshake.
We actually don't think that somebody's a horrible person because they got arrested, or whatever, as long as it was for a good reason that they got arrested. I mean, half the apostles got arrested. They all turned out wrong according to the world. Sorry, all the apostles got arrested, excuse me. The point is that when we talk about success. I'm talking about people who raise godly Christians. Find out what their parenting is and I guarantee you it's going to be biblical parenting. I'm not talking about one child that turned out right. I'm talking about a whole bunch of children that turned out right, there's got to be a common denominator there, right. When you look at kids that are acting right, what are they doing. Don't listen to the world, and don't say, "Well, I saw on Facebook, they're succeeding." No, no, no, I'm talking real life people. People that you actually know, okay. That's what you should go by.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father we thank you so much for your word, Lord. Thank you for children that can really delight our souls, Lord. Please help us not to be bitter. You know, I see people sometimes, even amongst your people, Lord, that just seem bitter toward their children, and just angry a lot, Lord. Help us to love our children and to not be so bitter and angry, Lord. Help us to just love our children and to understand what a blessing they are. Help us to discipline them when they need it, Lord, so that they can delight us and we can have a good loving relationship with our children, Lord. Give us wisdom from your Word. Help us as we read your Word to spot the things that you have there for us about this subject.
God, just protect our children and help them all to grow up and to be godly Christians. Help every child in this room to grow up and to be someone that would be an honor to their parents, not because of money and college degrees, but actually because of just godliness and righteousness, they can make their parents proud. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
