The Birthright of Our Children Part 1

Well, good morning, blessings. Good to be here. This morning, for a message, I'm going to take a little detour from we've been studying in the Book of Revelation. Going to take a little detour from that. I feel like God has been laying a subject on my heart for quite a while, and I've been very hesitant to share on this subject for several reasons.

It's the subject of child training, and simply because of some suggestions and some burdens I have for the future generation, it just seemed like God was saying someone here suggested we don't have much teaching on it. Do I feel qualified to give that? Not necessarily. I can make a lot of disclaimers.

This morning, I stand here, and I know that I take a certain risk here because this is a controversial subject in our day today. Very much so. So in many ways, I do feel disqualified, even though my wife and I have trained five children. She was 19. I was 21 when we got married, and the first year we had our first baby, unprepared, recklessly sort of went into this and made many mistakes, I'm sure, in all of that. And yet, God is bigger than that. And one of my almost daily prayers is to God for my children and the future of their life that where I failed them as a father, I pray that God would make up the difference.

And I trust that some way or the other, He knew the heart of my wife and I. We both had high goals and high standards set. Even as young, reckless parents, we wanted the best for the future of our family.

The title of this message, if it needs a title, would be The Birthright of Our Children, and I'll talk about that a little bit later. We have also found over the years when we were young and we were right in the middle of rearing these energetic little people that we were pretty teachable on the subject because we felt we had so little answers. There was a lot of books and so on written on child training, but to meet people that had children, that had the experience, it seemed like so many parents were very hesitant to give good, solid advice. And I think it's partly because they felt disqualified. Probably the most readily advice we received would have been from those who had no children.

And that was a little bit this is a little sarcastic.

So with that being said, to start with, I would like for us to see to start with, I want to say to you parents this morning, this message is not to correct anyone, to set anyone straight. It is more a message of encouragement.

I'm delighted to be in a place where there's children, and I'm like we were praying most of the time through prayer. I think I heard a little one just hollering away somewhere in a corner. I love to hear that. Children, I'm saying, I love to hear that because I think we have to give room that when there's children, there's going to be some noise. There's going to be some activities. There's going to be some fun. There's going to be some play. There's going to be some cry. With all that put in, we're not excusing misbehavior at all, but we are just simply saying where there's children, where's the family, there's going to be some of that.

There's going to be children's toys on the floor that we trip over and sometimes hurt our toes while doing so. It's a part of bringing up a family, and I think we're just going to have to be okay with some of that, and we're going to have to also invite some of that. I've been at places where there were no children, only adults. Those are pretty gloomy, depressing places.

I love to be where there's children, and in our own family with the next generation coming on, little grandchildren have just added a whole new dimension to our family. And I want to leave that as a word of encouragement to you young parents that have just brought babies into this world in the last five years and so on. God bless you, and I'm going to stand behind you as an encouragement this morning, I hope. So yesterday, we met a couple that's older than we are, I would say so, and they have adult children, and I think they said at least one or so was married. So I said, "Well, you probably have grandchildren." "No, we're just waiting and hoping.

All they have so far is a dog or two." And I'm like, "Isn't that sort of the way things are going? We hold back. Children are hard work. They're a pain. They drive me crazy. A dog we can relate to."

I want to stand behind you, parents. You have a lot against you in our day today, and let's get it up front. It is hard work. I've been there. It is hard work. God bless you.

Let's look at the two sides of your child. So on one side, they come into this world. The Bible says that foolishness is bound in the heart of your child. That word bound is a strong word, and the Bible would bring that out in several different ways. On the other side, there's something so beautiful about your little child being born into this world.

They are so bright-eyed. They have such an appealing countenance and presence. I remember when we had newborns, and I'd walk into the room where the baby was, the whole room had a smell like a baby. Beautiful. I just love the smell of a newborn baby. I think that is God's way of saying there is a touch, even though this child has something way down in that is bound to be foolish. The side of God, the ingredient that God put in that child, it even came with a sweet smell. Beautiful. And Jesus said, "Let the little children come unto me and forsake them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." So Jesus brought them to us with a clean slate.

We read this morning that little children, I write to you because your sins are forgiven. Isn't that beautiful? They come with a brand new slate. They're completely free because of when Jesus died on the cross, the Bible says that by the stripes, you were healed. That means our children.

They were completely clear and free, and that's how God brings them to you. Now, let's think a little bit about their birthright.

Jesus gave them when he was on this earth and there's children around, he blessed them, and he invited them to become a part of his life while he's here. He surrounded himself with children. Now, that is a right that every child should have that comes into this world. They should have the right to the blessing of God. If they have that right at birth, that means they also have the right of the parental blessing when they come into this world. They should be received with blessing and with protection. They have that right. Every child has the right to be born to godly parents. Think of it.

Every child has that right according to God.

They have the right to be born into a godly environment. They come with that right put right onto them because you remember what Jesus said to I think it was that to the disciples when they wanted to send them away. He rebuked them, and he gave them a lesson on children. He said, "If any one of you offend one of these little ones," what did Jesus say?

"It'd be better that you have a millstone hanged about your neck and drowned in the midst of the depth of the sea." That's pretty severe.

By that statement, Jesus is saying this child has the right to purity, complete purity, no offenses, coming into this world, a godly environment. And now we think of the bad people that are corrupting children, but could it be parents? Could it be if we parents expose them right away to an ungodly environment? Remember, they have a clean slate, and we expose them to ungodly music. We expose them to filthy language. We expose them to all sorts of immodesty and whatever else.

Could we be possibly guilty of offending our own little ones? They have a birthright to a godly environment, in a godly home, in a godly church setting. We have the responsibility as parents to take our children and surround them with godly people, godly friends.

They have that right.

They have the right to be born in a family that is made up of love, forgiveness, communication. You make all the list that a godly home should look and feel like. They have that right. Parents, let's think of it this way. What if we would make our children our first priority in this life? Just what if we would?

And I did a little math. This is a little math lesson, and I'm floored by it. I read this somewhere that if we take a set of parents and they only have two children, and they do this for 10 generations, their two children have two children, two children for 10 generations, according to the math, we have a little over 2,000 descendants in 10 generations.

Now, if we increase that number to one more child, we say we have three children instead of two children, and we do that for 10 generations. Do you know where that number goes?

Math tells us that number goes to over 88,000. Now, what if we would do what my parents did, and they had 15 children, and for 10 generations, all their children's children would have 15 children? Do you know what? I didn't do the math, but I bet you we'd have a nation.

We would have a nation. Think of it. That is sobering. It is sort of scary to think if we would make our children our mission field, and every parent would take this very seriously, it would take on a little new responsibility, wouldn't it, when it comes to bringing children into this world? And I was reading in a book recently, and I found a part in here that I thought I'd just read. Now, it's put out pretty strong and blunt, but I think there's a lot of truth to this. The writer says, "There was a time many years ago when community life, church, school, the extended family, friends, and neighbors all pointed children in the right direction, a godly direction.

Sometimes when parents failed to be good trainers and examples, their deficiency was rectified by grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, the government school, and the local church around which all social life revolved, but no more. The average church today will send your children to hell as fast as the local DVD rental store.

Community life has gone the way of the old familiar front porch and grandma sitting there shelling beans. Today, you even have to be on guard with your uncles and cousins who may attempt to molest your children. Our present culture is scary enough to send a family packing to the Amazon, taking their chances with drug lords, malaria, and socialist dictators."

Wow, that's a you think there's some truth to that? If that is true, even in part, that means we parents have a serious responsibility, don't we?

And I look at that, and by talking with people that are not of our faith, people that are of the greater society, I did some work for a former school bus driver. He switched his career from being a school bus driver to a farmer, and I rapped hay bales for him, and he gave his experiences on the school bus. He said, "I just couldn't handle this. It made me so mad." So I'm driving the school bus, and a kid sticks his head out the window and spits on a pedestrian.

The pedestrian was a lady, and she got all upset and said she was going to sue somebody, the school, the driver, somebody. And this thing went to court, and they had an awful fuss. There's parents, there's schools, and so on that are standing behind the kid and saying, "Don't touch my kid."

He said, "Too many stories like that." He said, "We cannot bring order in the school buses anymore. The cameras are in the bus. They're not turned on the children. They're turned on the driver, and we're being watched. Don't touch our children."

When I hear stories like that, I'm like, "How is this all going to work out in the future?" I'm not that old, but in my short lifetime, we go back. The writing of this writer, the truth of it, is really sticking out. When I was young, there were given outside authorities outside of our home, and my father gave quite a number of people the permission to take me when I'm out of his sight and to warm up my little hind end, and it happened a few times. And I tell you what, I respected that authority equal to my father because my father stood behind that. The old saying is, "It takes a village to raise a kid."

It's sort of true, and our parents back in that generation had the village behind them. And my heart goes out to you young parents today. You don't really have the village. You're sort of on your own, so you need a good church. You need to surround yourself with people that care where the direction of your children are going.

The Bible says, "Train up a child the way he should go when he is old, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Do you know that's a promise that God gave? I looked at that scripture many times, and I look at it, and I see there in a new way today in the study, it's a commandment with a promise. The commandment of God is to the parents that we are to train them up. I like the wording there, to train them up. That means to help them, to send them in a direction that is a good direction.

And then he gives a promise when they are old. We've all been at rest homes, and we've talked with old people. What is the next step when they're old? An old person is really hard to change. I mean, they're sort of stuck there. It's really scary to think about it where an old person is stuck and where he is sitting or standing.

All goes back, in a large way, goes back to who his parents were and how they trained him.

A parallel scripture in the New Testament would be Ephesians 6:4 where God says, "You fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up." There's that language again, "Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

So that is a commandment. The first one I read is a commandment with a promise. The second one in the New Testament is a commandment with a warning.

The warning is, "Provoke not your children to wrath."

Let's think a little bit about the difference between training and teaching.

There is a difference. I think they go together, but we have a lot of children that are taught well that have never really been trained. Do we get it?

I see a lot of horses out there running up and down the road that are taught a lot of things, but they've never completely been trained.

And hopefully, I can explain that a little deeper later, what I mean by that.

And I guess if I would say the most difficult time, I think where we fail as parents so often, I confess I know I've failed in these areas, is those first years of their life when they're so sweet and they're so cuddly and they're our little friend, and how would I dare discipline them? It's those first years are the most from studies. Now, they've studied this, and they've concluded that the first seven years of a child are the determining years of the rest of his life.

It wasn't at the Catholic pulp that said, "Give us your child until he's seven, and we will have him the rest of his life."

Wow, that's sobering, isn't it? Now, seven, they're just big guys in a way, but babies in another way.

Seven-year-olds don't like to hear that this morning, do we? But those first years are the crucial years. And I think after those years, if we are struggling with mid-year teenagers that are being bad and undisciplined and whatever, I think it sort of goes back to those first years.

And now, we are beginning to reap the consequences of failure of the training. We've taught them well, but have we trained them well?

The Bible says, "Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying." So that points out to us that you get one crack at it, and that is when he's young, and that's when there's hope.

It's suggesting here that the day will come where hope is gone.

I'll read another passage here from scripture. This is found in Proverbs, among many scripture that are along this line. But this one sounds rough, and I think this is why so many parents really back off of this method. But God says, "Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.

Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shall deliver his soul from hell." That's not my book. It's not my writing. That is from the God of the universe that tells us that strong language.

I think the psalmist in Psalm 127:4 gives us a really good word picture of this training up. It says, "As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of youth." What is a man that is mighty with arrows in his hand? What comes to my mind? That is a beautiful picture for those of you who love bow and arrows.

When I was young, we couldn't afford going and buying a bow and arrow. We had to make them, and we built many bow and arrows, and we actually went hunting with them at times. We weren't very successful. We could hit a target, but oftentimes, there was just not enough of whoopsh behind it to penetrate. That was one problem we did have, but we got pretty good at getting the arrow to go where we wanted it to go.

The psalmist tells us, "As the arrows behind a mighty man" so I'm getting this picture of this mighty man that has the bow pulled, and he's mighty enough to pull it. The harder you pull it, the farther it's going to go, and it's going to shoot way out there.

In our building of bow and arrows, we've learned that the bow, the kind of wood we use for the bow, was important, very important, the one that bends without breaking. I mean, you just pull the string and put a bow in it, hickory. Hickory is a good wood for that, and the string had to be just right. But we've also found probably one of the most important parts is the arrow itself.

Spend a lot of time in an arrow. If an arrow had just a little bow in it again, this was a twig out of the woods. We had to get it really straight. A little bow in it, it would take a different direction. If it was too heavy in the front or the back, it would go up or down. It had to be just precisely crafted to that spot, the tip of it, to go to the direction we wanted it to go.

And let's think this morning of the picture that the psalmist gives us. As these arrows, so are children in the hands of a mighty man. And God is looking to us as parents to craft, to handcraft, if you will, to shape them, to mold them, to teach them, to nurture them, to bring them up, that when the day comes where you're finally going to let go of that string, they're going to go in the direction that you aimed them.

So the importance of the arrow, the shaping, the training, the molding, the building, the next step is the aiming. Every good parent does need a target set, an aim, a direction that we want it to go. This is not taking away the choices that our children have in their later years.

The truth is, we shoot a bow and arrow, and we shoot it in a direction we aim for, even though there's distractions. There's a crosswind, and there's other things that are there to distract our arrow to get to the point where we aim it.

So is it with our children. We aim, and we shoot to the target. There's opposition. There's temptations, and then they have their own choices to make. But the Bible teaches us that if we have a momentum, if our children have a momentum in the right direction, the choices they make are going to have their roots from the direction they came from. They know their history, and they know where they've been aimed to. So the crosswinds, the distractions, the temptations, and the choices they have to make, the direction they were shot or let go or dismissed is going to be the general direction that they're going to go unless they really make poor choices.

And some children do that.

They will not make the poor choices completely aside from the direction, the shaping, the molding. All that is going to be facing our children when they make their choices. In fact, we make our choices based on that foundation, do we not? Very much so.

What is our aim? Very important when we're going to shoot and bow and arrow, the arrow. What is the aim? Where should it go? Should it go to the north? Should it go to the south? Should it go up? Should it go down? I think every parent needs to have a direction they want to send out their offspring.

It's interesting.

As I was preparing for this, there's a verse that came to my mind that was quoted here, I think, several times this morning. I don't know why God does that, but Irvin Nestley, I think, Brother Irvin here, he just stole this verse from me this morning.

It's in 1 Peter 2:17, I believe. It says, "Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king." And I was thinking of a direction. What in a precise way that verse came to mind? The people came to Jesus one day. Just tell us in a nutshell. What is it? I mean, what's the greatest commandment? Jesus just simply said, "Love the Lord God with all your soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself," finished.

But then he says, "Upon all these things hang the law and the prophets." Basically, he was not giving just a short little verse, but he was giving them the whole picture. And when I think of this, I think in child aiming, if we would have something like this in place, it would cover almost all areas of life. Honor in our modern word what's another word for honor that we use? Respect, would that sort of fit? So respect, honor.

Respect all men.

Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. That is a big one. I mean, if we teach and train our children to love the brotherhood now, the brotherhood could be our neighbor. It could be our siblings. It could be those we work with in a larger sense.

If we get respect down, if we get love down, love your fellow man, and if we get fear of God is in there. Oh, if we miss that part with our children in our training, I tell you, we're going to be pretty much done.

The fear of God, think of it. And then there is honor, or should we say respect for the king? It's pretty much covered in that basis, isn't it? So those are four things. Let's say those four things are going to be our aim for our little children. I'm talking little children this morning.

Respect, a healthy fear of God, love for our surrounding, brotherhood, a neighbor, siblings. We get that across to them. That is a high standard. That is taken at higher.

God, in Romans 4:8-29, he gives sort of a prototype of the finished product that he's looking for, that we are conformed to the image of his son, the end product. That goes deeper than a lot of parents really focus in on obedience. And I know obedience is all a part of this.

But if obedience is all we expect, if that's all we aim for and I've heard parents say already when their children even were being bad, "Well, I never told them they couldn't do that. They aren't disobeying me." But they're being bad, but they're not disobeying me. Listen, if obedience is the only thing we shoot for, guess what we're going to have? We're going to have wheelbarrow children. A wheelbarrow is something you push everywhere you go, and the minute you set it, leave it set, it's going to be right there when you come for it.

God aims higher than that, and I think we parents need to aim higher than that. When I see a horse going down the road, and all he is is obedient, you can pick him out. If a horse is just going down the road, and he hates what he's doing, and he's just plopping along, it says, "That's an obedient horse, but he's not a trained horse. He's not trained to enjoy what he's doing."

You get it? When a horse is trained somehow, my dad always had this thing, and he was my dad was a pro at training and breaking horses.

And one thing my dad always said about breaking horses now, when we train children, we train children, but when we train horses, we break horses. That's the terminology, but it's much the same. I find working with animals and working with people and children is much the same, much the same.

My dad always said, "When we break a horse, we're not breaking his tail. We're not breaking his back. We're not breaking his leg. The only thing we go for is breaking his will." You get it? When we get a horse's will, and the horse is completely broken to the will of his master, and his will becomes the master's will, guess what? You're going to have a horse that goes way beyond obedience.

He's going to go down the road. He's going to have his head up where it belongs, and he's going to be high stepping, and he just portrays that he just enjoys what he's doing. And they do. I'm convinced a horse enjoys to be ridden by his master if he has been trained properly.

And I think the same thing is true with our children.

If we can get the will of our children broken to the will of their master, they're going to go way beyond obedience. Now, the question, one of the hard questions is, does every child need trained?

How would we answer that question? Because I've heard parents, and I've probably said it myself, "Well, in this case, this child is not fully responsible. This child is sick. This child is teething." I think Sister Christina could tell us. I've heard her say this week, if I have this right, this difficult young man she was working with in the last month or so that just wore her out. I could tell she's wore out with the whole thing.

And I heard her say, "If he was only trained, it would have been a whole different story." He's a limited boy. He had it was a Down's, right? He's a Down syndrome boy. He has limitations. But according to Sister Christina working with him, he still knew enough. He was still with it enough that he could have been trained.

Being a Down syndrome child does not give that child the right to go through life and not be trained and disciplined.

Remember, the bound foolishness doesn't only come with perfectly healthy children. It comes with handicapped children. It comes with, I think, every child in one measure, one way or the other. I say this to say that in their limitations, while they're teething, maybe your child is teething, and there's parents' hearts just mellow and say, "Well, we sympathize, and we he can get away with things when he's teething and so on," or sick. But teething or being sick or being a Down syndrome gives our children no right to take advantage of that and play it out, and they will. They will. They will use that against you.

Remember, the Bible tells us that there is one thing that a person and I don't think this is only for perfectly healthy people. There's one thing a man has never yet done, is hated his own flesh, but he nourisheth it and cherisheth it as Christ the church. That's embarrassing.

When I read that verse, I'm embarrassed. That's a commentary about me, and it's a commentary about you and about our children. But it's so embarrassing to think that we put as much effort in getting our own will as God put into the church.

Think of it. I'm embarrassed. But that's what they come with, the Bible tells us. There was a survey done in a book I read recently of misbehaved this was young teenagers that were just at that age where the parents were starting to let go of the arrow, and they went out and just did really bad things, I mean, really bad. And we all say, "Well, they're just being rebellious or the other thing or whatever." So they did a survey. They put out a questionnaire, and there were three questions, and they were supposed to answer to the question which fits them best.

Question number one, are you doing these bad things just to be disrespectful to your parents? No. There was just a small percent of really bad teenagers that said yes, but a very small percent. And another question was, are you doing these things just to be rebellious?

No, not necessarily. Small percentage said yes. And then the third question was, are you doing all these bad things because you just want to do what you want to do? And that one carried. And that's what the Bible teaches us.

That is why we are bad because we want to do what we want to do. That's the strongest desire in the human heart, is to get my own way. It's addicting. In fact, the writer in the book said it is so addicting that when a person goes after gratifying instant gratification of their own fleshly desires, and they cultivate that, that it's an addiction that actually gives them a high. And he's saying, according to their survey, that's why these bad people are out there, is because they want to do what they want to do.

The next question, so would we agree to this first question that every child needs to be trained? I think we would say yes. The next question I have, and you can answer that in your own heart, can every child be trained?

We have some really difficult ones, don't we? We call it, "Oh, it's a strong-willed child," and we just can't do it. It's bigger than us, and we back off because, after all, he has a temper problem, and he's just extra strong-willed, so we sort of bail out just a little bit. I've heard parents talk that way.

The question is, can every child be trained no matter how stubborn they come, no matter how strong-willed they are? A learning disability, that's another one that parents use. Can a child that has a learning disability be properly trained?

This story comes from a man that said, "I've talked with the man." He said, "I saw it with my own eyes." But if any of you know anything about pigs, I worked for a farmer that had pigs out on an open lot, and part of my work was to feed those pigs once a day.

And they were adult pigs. I mean, they should have known better, but pigs don't. I mean, it was a muddy place. There was a trough big enough that they can all eat out of at the same time if they act like beings.

But before I'm even at the fence, they're already squealing, and they're making the mud fly, and they're pushing each other around. And you know what? By the time I get there with a pale of feed, there's no way I can get it in the trough because they just got the whole trough covered with their bodies and pushing and squealing and biting. And a lot of times, I just ended up taking the bucket and dumping it in there, and where it lands, it lands, and they're eating feed off of each other's backs and out of the mud. And that's pigs. It just is.

That's why we say you eat like a pig. They don't care. They'll eat it right out of the mud. To them, it's no difference, is it in the trough or in the mud. We'll still get it.

Well, this man said, "Do you want to see my trained pigs?" And he had a situation just like that. So he walks out to these pigs, and I think he was half proud of it. I would have been too. But he said, "I have these pigs trained.

There's no need for this screaming and hollering and squealing when I feed the pigs." And he had a whip in his hand, and he comes with the bucket, and they're all acting like pigs, and they're squealing and pushing. And he cracks the whip, and he says, "Line up," and they all line up. Pigs, this is pigs. They have a learning disability, right? They're stubborn as all get out. You try to make them go forward, they go backwards.

And then the next thing he did, he said, "Now pray your prayers." And he said, they all knelt down beside each other, all lined up, and they prayed their prayers. And while they're praying their prayers, he's putting the feed in their trough in front of them.

And then he cracks the whip again and said, "Go for it," and they went back to being pigs again. And I'm saying, if a pig can be trained to line up and wait on their turn and pray their prayers on their knees in the mud, I don't think there's a child that cannot be trained.

You get the point? The next question is, how are we training? Consistency is the first thing that comes to my mind. Another story, and excuse me, I mean, I know people say you talk too much about yourself and all. Listen, I make these stories to make a point. But at home, on the farm, we had probably five farm cats that most of them were our pets, and we could hold them and cuddle them. And we had two or three dogs almost all the time that were just running loose on the farm.

And there was an off-limit that my mom had, that these animals don't come in the house. They can be on the porch. They can be on the yard. They can be in your lap, but they don't come to the house.

But here somebody gave us this cute little cuddly puppy that had a deformed foot, and we named him Tiny. And we had a special place in our heart for Tiny. So Tiny would row around, and we plead with Mom, "Oh, could Tiny come in the house?" "Nope, no dogs in the house." "Okay." Well, where it really broke our hearts and also my mom's heart, we found out little Tiny is very scared of thunderstorms.

So when there's a really bad thunderstorm, we persuaded Mom, and we begged and we pleaded, "Can we take Tiny into the house?" And Mom would give in. "Okay, just on thunderstorms." And we'd take Tiny, and we'd cuddle with him on the couch, and oh, he just loves every minute of it. And you know what?

The next day, Tiny wants to come in again, and Dad's there, and he says, "No way. You're not coming in the house." And Dad was pretty brutal at times, and he would kick and slam doors on him and pinch him in the door and all kinds of methods. But Tiny kept trying to come in again and again and again.

It was probably 1% of the time there was a thunderstorm that we would cave in, but there were other times. Tiny would sneak in, and he knew he didn't belong in there, and he'd run under the couch and hide for quite a while. And then after a while, when everybody's settled down, and he just about got caught in the door by Dad on the way in.

There was a real battle at the doorway, but he made it in. He just snuck his way in. It didn't matter to him if he got tied in the door a few times. It was worth the pain to get in because a few times when we say, "Oh, Tiny," he'd come sneaking out under the couch. We say, "Oh, Tiny, Mom, can I hold Tiny for a while?" "Well, Mom," a tender heart would say, "I guess for a little bit, five minutes or so."

Tiny, for years, was our greatest battle at the doorway. All the rest of the cats and dogs, consistency. That's the point. They would sit there on the porch, and they'd look in, and it was off-limits, and they would never try us. The Bible talks about the rest of a parent, and I think consistency. If we have off-limits with our child, let's be consistent, or they're going to just beg and tamper. And even if it hurts, they're still willing to take the risk because one time out of ten, I get cuddled in the house on the couch. Consistency.

Child training, where? At home is the best place to train our children. If we bring our children to church, and there's a scene in church we had a couple here years ago that had two children that just really gave their parents a hassle in church. Their voices were loud. They were a distraction. The parents would take them, and they would deal with them. And one day, those parents, about in the middle of the church service, they just had enough, and they went home, and they didn't come back for that day, that service.

And the next week, those children came to church, and there was a complete difference. Those little children, these were little children. They sat in church like real men. And I asked the father, "What happened? I'm curious what you did." He said, "My wife and I went home," and he didn't tell me what they did, but he told me they got completely converted.

I don't know what that all meant, but something changed at home. I'm saying this to say when at church or when we're away, whether it's mealtimes with friends or yes, and there's all the conflict has to go on while we're in a public setting, you know what? It does something to our fellowship, doesn't it?

It causes a scene, and it's not necessary. That's all I'm saying. It's again like the horse. If he's on the highway, and the driver, the master, has to drive that horse with a whip, and he comes to a stop sign, and the horse rears up, a tractor comes, a truck comes, and the horse runs off the road into the ditch, which I've seen a couple of weeks ago, and the guy sitting in the field fussing with his horse for a long time until he finally persuaded him to move again. I'm like, "Take your horse home and train him. Don't do it in the traffic. It's too dangerous. It causes a scene. There were cars waiting and all that goes with that."

And another thing, if a public place, whether it's eating a meal with a family or at church, is the only time your children have to sit still and wait on their turn, you are training them to hate church services because that's where they get whooped on their pamper and jolted around and so on. You know what I'm saying? They're going to learn to hate it.

Well, I think I'm going to quit there. I'm only partly through this sermon, and time is here to stop. So with that, maybe another day I'll pick up on it and sort of take it from there. Thank you. Are there any?