How to Raise Children - Leo Eby

Well, good morning. Morning. I, uh, I consider it a privilege to be here, but, um, at the same time, uh, I'm a little trepidatious about my subject.

Uh, so as introductory, I think most of you know who I am. My, my name is Leo Eby, and my wife Judith, and I have, I think, four of my children and two, two friends with them here today.

And, uh, we have two grandchildren and two more on the way, but just because of that, we have eight children. Uh, that, that doesn't qualify me to speak on this subject. Doesn't qualify me at all. If there's any qualities that I guess would come when speaking on the subject, it's because I have experienced the, the, the work and the suffering of becoming one adopted into the family of God.

That's the only qualifications that I can think of that would actually give me something to share with this morning.

And as far as my version of how I got this topic, I gotta tell my side of it. Okay? We carpooled in Frederick on the way to Utah with Patrick Matthews and Daniel Willis and, I think, Delbert Weaver and my brother. And I have no idea how this subject came up. He says I was given a child raising invite. I don't remember that part.

And he said to me, he said, "Won't you come over to Chambersburg sometime and speak on child raising?" I said, "Absolutely not. I'm not coming to Chambersburg to speak on child raising, child rearing." He said, "Why not?" I forget. I gave him a list of reasons. I said, "If you need somebody, call, call Steve Ebersoh." I, I, I'm not, I'm not speaking on that subject. He raised 14 of them.

And I think in that trip, that subject came up at least once or twice more. And I emphatically told him, "This is not my thing. I'm not doing it." So when I got a call from David a couple of months ago, I was a little bit exasperated. I was like, "How in the world?" Well, then I sat up straight because I had the feeling that God was speaking to me and that I better pay attention. And I don't know if it's because you need the subject or because I needed the subject.

So I'm gonna assume that God had spoke to me through the voice of some brothers so that I dig into the subject and you're just to listen in. 'Cause I am no prof, uh, consider I don't consider myself a professional. I've never spoken this subject before. Um, and, and in all reality, my perspective is limited to what I understand from the scriptures and my experience growing up with my parents and the experience, what I have learned observing other people's families and the people I grew up with. So that's actually a narrow slice of observation.

So with that in place, uh, I'll get into the subject, but I, I did ask for a whiteboard 'cause I wanna make a little illustration that I have come up with just for help me understand the subject better myself. If there's anybody in this room that's not a child, raise your hand.

Anybody here that's not a child?

I don't see no hands. Furthermore, did anybody ask your opinion before you were brought into this world? No. So we're sort of, we are sort of here without our permission, but we're created for a purpose. And that purpose is what we as human beings are struggling to find out and to figure out what our purpose for is in this world. And so when I begin to ask myself the question, "So what does the Bible say about child rearing?" one of the first things that came to my mind was, "Hmm, our Father is in the child rearing business."

Did you ever hear of the boy in the scriptures named the holy child of God, the holy child Jesus? Did you know that God raised up a child? He was known as the son of Mary and the son of Joseph, the son of God, the son of man. Have you ever heard, uh, a person refer to Jesus in their prayer as the holy child? "In the name of thy holy child Jesus." Have you ever heard somebody say that?

I don't think I did, uh, in actually that reference. But in Acts chapter 4, verse 27, listen to this. This is very early in the church history. This is, they were assembled together, and this is the prayer that they prayed, "For truly against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel had gathered together to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

And now, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word by stretching forth thine hand to heal, that signs and wonders may be done by thy name of thy holy child Jesus." I'm impressed with that. I think I'm gonna start using that term in my prayer more or try to adopt that phraseology and maybe use that occasionally as, "In the name of thy holy child Jesus." We don't know much about Jesus' childhood days and, um, we don't know much about his education, but we do know the scripture says that he increased in favor and in wisdom.

We know that he had feelings and that he learned obedience by suffering. And by the way, Jason, I listened to your, your, uh, thing last Sunday, and a lot of what was said this morning and last Sunday, um, actually fits in closer to child rearing than you first think it might. We, Jesus learned obedience by suffering through suffering. Now, that's not my subject this morning, so I'm not gonna take it very far, but that is an important concept about child rearing. There's something about suffering as it relates to how we learn obedience.

Jesus, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong cryings and tears unto him, that it was able to save him from death and was heard and that he feared. Though he were a son, yet he learned obedience for by the things which he suffered and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation of all that obey him.

This verse, verse 7, always touched my heart. The fact that it was reported of Jesus that in the days of his flesh, he reached out to his Father with strong crying and, and, and tears. Jesus wasn't an emotional person. He had feelings just like we do. He felt like crying sometimes, and he felt like crying out to his Father. In Luke chapter 2, we have the story of Jesus in the temple, and we know the story that his parents went annually up to Jerusalem for the feast.

And when they went to return home, they were three days' journey, was it, in on the way home, and they started looking around as Jesus wasn't with them. They assumed he was with his friends, and when they took a further examination, they could not find him.

So they turned around and went back, and they continued to search. And where did they find this holy child Jesus? He was in the temple, and it says that he found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors, and it says he's both hearing them and asking them questions, and that all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they saw him, they were amazed, and his mother said unto him, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy Father and I have sought thee sorrying." And he said unto them, "How is it that ye sought me? Wish ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"

And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them, and he went down with them, and he came to Nazareth and was subject. He was subject unto them, but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. We have the creator God in his childhood being subject to his parents.

I was also gonna say that if at any time while I'm speaking, something doesn't make sense to you or doesn't you have a question, just stop me. Just say, "Hey, whoa, what was that you said?" And I'll try to re-clarify.

So don't, don't be afraid to, to stop me or point blank, uh, if you have a question about what I said. We also have the record that the child grew, this holy child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him, and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men. Colossians 2:3 says, "In him are hid all treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Jesus has the sources of all wisdom and knowledge. 1 Corinthians 3, uh, 1:30. But of him, God, are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31, Jesus says this account.

He says, "The queen of the south shall rise up in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold, a greater than Solomon is here." This is Jesus' own testimony of himself.

Jesus, this son, this holy son of God, uh, he's our creator, uh, for by him all things are created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things are created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

We may think that the Bible has doesn't have a lot in it about child training when, in fact, the whole book is a child training manual from cover to cover, cover to bring many sons into full spiritual maturity and into the glory of God.

This morning, we're gonna be talking about discipline a lot. When we think of the word discipline, uh, our minds tend to go to the severity and the punishment aspect of discipline. But there's another meaning for discipline that I, that I really like, and it means to specialize in an area or a branch of study or knowledge.

And I want you to hang on to that aspect of discipline, that meaning of discipline. In other words, if somebody has a discipline in a certain, um, certain, uh, skill or something, he, he has that discipline, uh, in his life. The child of God, uh, let me say it this way. Do you know what a special one of the term that somebody gave me for a specialist that I really liked? A specialist is someone that focuses more and more on less and less.

That's not original with me. I that was I got that off another person.

And the child of God, this holy child of God was a specialist. Of all the things that Jesus could have entertained his listeners with and the multitudes of people on the on the mountain, of all the things he could have talked about, he could have talked about mathematics. He could have talked about the universe. He could have talked about the how the order of the sun and the moon and the stars and the planets.

And he could have talked about the, uh, our anatomy and how we're made. After all, he was our creator, right? He could have spellbound his people with mathematics. He could have spellbound people with the list just goes on and on.

But he spoke primarily about the kingdom of God.

He was a specialist in things concerning the kingdom of God. He said, "I, I, the things that I speak and the things that I do, I have received from my Father." So our goal is, as, as parents, is that we want to raise up children who are specialists, specialists in things concerning the kingdom of God. And the only way you can become a specialist is to focus more and more on less and less.

That means if you're gonna become a specialist in the kingdom of God, you're gonna have to let some of the distractions in your life fall off so that you can focus on the kingdom of God.

And so if, if we are, if we have a burden as Christian parents that we want to raise children, our goal is gonna have to be, we want to raise children that can talk and walk the kingdom of God.

Fortunately, I grew up in a home where there was lots of conversation about spiritual things. So about 10 years, 9, 10 years ago, I traveled with a, uh, uh, a man to Europe on a business meeting, uh, business trip, and he was, he had an anti-Baptist background, but I discovered he said, we had lots of good discussion on spiritual things while we were traveling.

And I discovered, he said, you know, in my home, we didn't have any discussions like this.

And then I, I began to realize how fortunate I was to grow up in a home where that subject was, was addressed and talked about freely, not only just about among us as family, but also with our neighbors and the people we got acquainted with. For him, spiritual things were discussed when you went to church, but when you come home, everything else was discussed.

All right, let's get into a little bit more practical things about child rearing. Child rearing, the interesting thing about child rearing is, is that we're actually children raising children.

I hopefully that's not a brand new idea to you, but we are children raising children. Not only that, we need to become children in order to raise children. Does that make sense? In other words, putting it in another way of saying it is that we need to become teachable as a child in order to be prepared to raise a family or children.

We have to have a teachable spirit.

And a lot of times we blow right into married life and raising family without stopping and thinking that we need to humble ourselves because we have things to learn. Our children that we have here among, it's, it's like, hopefully you understand what a blessing it is to have children sitting beside you in, in your seats because not every church service that's happening in the world today or even in America for that matter have children sitting among them.

This is a blessing. It's a blessing to have children with us as we walk and talk the kingdom of God.

The children that we have, if you've been blessed with children, they're, they're not our possessions. They're, they're gifts to us. They're loaned to us. Even though they bear our DNA, they're not ours to exploit.

These are gifts from God. Psalm 127:3, "Load, children are in the heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward."

Again, emphasizing the fact that we didn't purchase our children. They come, they were given to us. And I like to think of the, of it at this way is that God handpicked them for us because again, how much say did you have in the matter about what children came into your home, whether they were boys or whether they were girls or how many you had or whether you had any at all? Some of these things, I shouldn't say some of these things, these things are determined by the creator God, Jesus, the holy child himself.

I wanna raise a question. Do we need children or do we want children?

What do you think? We want to answer this question a little bit, but we're gonna continue on. Raising a child is a little bit like sawing a log into lumber. I can have a theory about what is the best way to saw a log into lumber for best yield and value. I can have multiple theories, but at the end of the day, I can only saw that log up once.

I can only use that theory on that log one time. Children are a little bit like that. Raising a family is a little bit like that. Although I actually think it's a little bit more forgiving than sawing a log into lumber because we don't raise our child or our children or our family all in one day. We have some opportunity to tweak our methods a little bit. Or you could compare raising a child or children to like, uh, a person, an archer shooting an arrow from above.

Once that, once that release is let go, the arrow leaves, it's gone.

It's gone right where it was pointed at when it was released, and it may or may not hit the target. And again, fortunately for us, child rearing is a little bit more forgiving than letting an arrow release from above. Jesus gives this proverb in Luke 7:35, "But wisdom is justified of her children." Do you ever remember reading across that?

What did Jesus mean by that? Wisdom is justified by her children. Well, when you raise children, you can keep a lot of things secret before you have children. But when you start bringing children into your home, you start to live in a glass house.

And things you say that you thought nobody heard, they're saying it at school.

Attitudes that you thought you had to yourself, they're sharing the same attitude somewhere else on the same subject. If you have an opinion about a tractor or a truck or a politics or whatever, you're gonna find them saying the same thing.

So that's what I mean by the fact that wisdom is justified of her children. They expose who we really are. Do you ever hear the saying, "Proof is in the pudding"? Same thing. The proof's in the pudding.

Have you ever asked yourself this question? How does child rearing principles that include corporal punishment fit with the kingdom of peace and nonviolent principles? After all, Jesus never said, "It hath been said unto you, 'Spare the rod and spoil the child.' But I say unto you, 'Put away the rod and exercise forbearance with his mischief, and when you are old, he will take care of you.'" No, he didn't say that.

Furthermore, my father told me that when he applied for CO status back in the Vietnam War, and I think it was in 1967, there was a question like this on the somewhere in the form, "Do you ever use force for anything?"

After all, he's applying for a CO status, which is based on his religious convictions of Jesus' teaching on nonviolence, not using force to accomplish your purposes. So how do you think that answer question should be answered?

Do we use force for anything? My father said that when he filled it out, he said, "With the exception of child training and restraining mentally ill people to keep them from harming themselves and others." Nonresistance is refraining from doing violence out of malice towards one another. Restraining and using corporal punishment on our children is not an act of malice.

That's why our motives need to be examined. If our spirit is out of the control, stop.

That's easier said than done. That's easier said than done. If you want a text for the subject this morning, I'm gonna use Galatians 4:1-8. Uh, maybe, maybe you were thinking that I should have went to Proverbs to get my, my text for this morning. And I'm actually not gonna spend a lot of time in Proverbs, but there's a, a lot of advice in the book of Proverbs for child rearing. I'm sure most of you are familiar with that. And so I'm not gonna spend a lot of time in Proverbs this morning. Maybe that's where you thought I should have went. But I, I, I wanna take this subject, uh, because of my end goal of making specialists out of our children, I wanna take it just a little bit more in a different direction.

But Galatians 4:1-8 in King James, King James says, "Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all, but is under tutors and governors unto the time appointed of the Father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage unto the elements of this, of the world. But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law." We're talking about this holy child, Jesus.

This is the scripture's witness of that, to redeem them that were under the law, that they, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, "Abba Father, wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son, and if a son, then heir of God through Christ." I spent a lot of time, uh, I, I received a lot of inspiration and, uh, instruction from this when I was studying for the subject. And I wanna, I wanna read this in the New Living, uh, in the same, the same verses. And remember, uh, well, I'm gonna start with the last verse of chapter 3, "And now that you belong to Christ, you are true children of Abraham.

You are his heirs, and God's promise to Abraham belongs to you." Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up.

Even though they actually own everything their father had, they have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father has set. And that's the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children. We were slaves to the basic principles of this world. But when the right time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us. We were slaves to the law so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, "Abba Father." I like this set of verses because it's actually some parallelism going on here.

First of all, he's trying to explain to us, help us understand how that we become legitimate heirs with the, with the, with God, which is Christ. And at the same time, he blends in the, the holy child Jesus' experience and how he fits into this picture. And because there's something to learn from this holy child Jesus.

And Ephesians 5:1 says, "Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and gave himself forth that he might be a, a, a offering, something offering to God." So this holy child Jesus becomes an example to us.

Now, I'd like to, uh, I'm glad there's a whiteboard here because I'd like to, to illustrate something the best I can here, just so for the sake of understanding. So I'm gonna try to illustrate, uh, why, uh, we as, uh, kingdom-minded parents are using this strategy that the Old Testament gives, uh, for raising our children.

First of all, I'm gonna draw a line across the board. Hopefully you can see this. Maybe I'll draw it this height. That represents our human history, God's story. Right about here, I'm gonna draw a line like this. And that represents the advent of Christ. You remember what the scripture says? In the fullness of time, God brought forth, sent forth his son. And I think the Greek word has the, the implication God dispatched his son. So we have the advent of Christ. This was the fullness of times. Christ was made of a woman, made under the law. We also have, back here in history, we have the, what we call the Decalogue, the, the covenant that God made on Mount Sinai with the children of Israel.

This was, Galatians tells us that this was a, became a schoolmaster for humanity. This covenant God made with, uh, the seed of Abraham. But Romans 3:19 says that this covenant brought an accountability into the world, not just only for the Jewish people, but also it brought the whole world guilty before God. It brought knowledge and accountability. This represents the death and resurrection of Christ.

Galatians 5:5 says, "If you live in the spirit, then walk in the spirit." Our children are in this space right here. This is a schoolmaster to bring our, these concepts, these, these, uh, rudimentary concepts are, are things to bring our children as a schoolmaster to Christ. And the purpose of this is, is to bring many sons and daughters into spiritual maturity.

I know my handwriting's terrible, but hopefully that can help you understand just a little bit as I understand it. And if anybody thinks differently, you're, you're welcome to, uh, to challenge me on it. What I find interesting about this is that as parents that understand this kingdom of God, we actually are using dictates and concepts of this law in order to bring our children into subjection so that they can learn how to bring their flesh into subjection and so that they can also experience the transformation of being entering into the kingdom of God through the new birth. And we wanna get that a little bit more here in a little bit.

Another subject, uh, point that I'd like to talk about briefly is, is that at least I find this interesting is that first of all, marriage, in my opinion, is one of the most underrated, um, phenomenons in this world.

And it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's an act of God. It's a, it's a creation marvel where we actually are, we actually get to enter in the, the, the, uh, creative aspects of, of God. We become fellow laborers in this aspect. And think about this for a minute. Galatians, uh, 6:7-8 says, "Be not deceived. God is not mocked for whatsoever man soweth, that shall he reap.

For if we sow to the flesh, we shall of the flesh reap corruption. But if we sow to the spirit, we shall of the spirit reap life everlasting." This is a principle that we can't toy with God about. We can't tease him about this. We can't mock him about this, or we will be the worst off for it.

The good news is, is that if we sow to the spirit, it can overcome what we sowed into flesh. What I find interesting about this is that before a man and woman come together as husband and wife, we have already sowed to the flesh and hopefully sowed to the spirit before we actually become married partners. So in my, in our case, uh, before my wife and I were married, I'd already set a course of sowing to the flesh and sowing to the spirit.

There was already some things set in course in my life. My wife, the same way. Now our lives are joined together. We are now one flesh. Now we need to, we actually begin to share in the reaping of either what we sowed into flesh or what we sowed into spirit.

And now together we are sowing to the flesh or to the spirit.

Now let's add children to this picture.

And our children bear our DNA, and it doesn't take you very long to see the same strengths and weaknesses come out in your children that you had to deal with. Now we're asked to be parents, good parents to these children.

And one of the things, the phenomenons that I, it's hard for me to explain is, is that sometimes our children become victims or partakers, you might say, of some of the previous sowing that we've already done.

Take the story of Noah for one, for instance, a very godly good man. He saved the world by his faithfulness. And when he came out of the ark, he became drunk through the process of being, uh, of raising a vineyard. And one of his sons, it became his failure, became a stumbling block to his son.

And because of his, that his son bear a curse the rest of his life. Think of the story of David, a very godly man, a man that's held up in the scriptures as an example. He sinned with Bathsheba, and his whole household nearly fell apart after that. There are some serious implications to what we sow. The story of Manoah and his wife are the only story that I can find in the scriptures where the parents actually asked the Lord directly. They said when the, when the messenger came to Manoah's wife, she was without her husband, and, and the messenger said, "You're gonna conceive and you're gonna have a son." And she said, "Well, how are we gonna raise the child?"

And the, the messenger left next time. Uh, she told her husband, they prayed for another, uh, um, the messenger to come back. And when he came back again, Manoah asked the messenger, "How should we, um, how should we raise this child and how should we do unto him? How should we order the child and how should we do unto him?" And the answer came back to him, "Beware that the woman follows the instruction given to her, and the child should be a Nazarite from birth, and no razor shall come upon his head." How practical was that? If I was Manoah, I would have said, "Huh?"

After all, back in the creation, when God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and to multiply, he didn't even give them a list of child raising instructions. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go. When he's old, he will not depart from it." A very familiar verse. God said of Abraham, "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord and to do justice and judgment that the Lord God, Lord may bring upon Abraham that which hath been spoken of him." Deuteronomy chapter 6, "That thou mayest fear the Lord thy God to keep his commandments and statutes and commandments, what I commanded thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's sons all the days of thy life, and that thy days may be prolonged."

Verse 7, "And thou shalt teach them diligently unto your children, and thou shalt talk of them." Remember we talk about, talk about spiritual things. "When thou sitest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou lies down, and when thou risest up, and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and thou shalt have befrontness between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house and on thy gates." Verse 20, "And when thy son asketh thee the time to come, what meaneth these testimonies and statutes and judgments with the Lord thy God have commanded you? Then shalt thou say unto thy son, 'We were.'" And, and, um, I think I'm gonna stop reading there, but he said, "Tell them the story of how God delivered you out of the land of Egypt and brought you into this land, and how he brought you across the Red Sea.

Tell the stories." And so this is what I get out of this, is that we are to tell our children stories about God's deliverance personally as the people of God, what his plan are. And I can say for myself that I learned more listening to my parents and talk among themselves and with others. I've learned more in listening in on adult conversations than I did in Sunday school class. Do not neglect the opportunity to speak and teach in the home. Testimonies, stories. Tell our children what God has done for us. Tell your children's stories. Tell your children's stories. Tell your children's stories.

It is our job as fathers to prepare our families to meet God. Period. That means I'm, I have a responsibility as a father to prepare my wife and my children to meet God at any time. Tell your children practical stories.

My father told me this story over and over again about the story of Cain and Abel. He said, "If you boys don't stop fighting, one of you is gonna be a Cain." My grandfather used to tell me when he would see a hay fork laying that wasn't propped up or hanging, he would say, "You know, when I was a little boy, I left that hay fork laying on the ground, and my father kicked his foot into that fork, and it became infected, and he almost died." That story sticks to me. So now when I see a fork that's not propped up in the corner or hanging up, I think of the story that grandpap told me.

My father told me over and over about the little boy who wanted a pocket knife so bad. And when he got the pocket knife, he opened it up, and he took off running, and he stumbled, and the knife plunged into him, and he died.

My dad was trying to teach me something to stop and think. Stop and think for my own welfare. My father told me the story of the, of the little boy that was playing on the railroad track, and he was working in the field beside it. And the train was coming down the track, and the little boy wasn't paying attention. And he said, "Little boy, duck." And the train went over his head. I can't prove that story, but he told me that story.

He was trying to teach me prompt obedience. One of my favorite Bible stories is in 1 Samuel chapter 3. I'm not gonna go there today to save time, but in my opinion, 1 Samuel chapter 3 is a very touching story.

It's you have the story of Samuel being brought to the temple into care of Eli, and his mother left him there and went home. And he was brought up under in the temple under the, the work of Eli. And you know the story how God came to, uh, Samuel one night and said, "Samuel, Samuel." And he jumps up and he runs towards Eli.

At the, the point of the story is that if you take time to read it, it says, "And the Lord revealed himself by the word of the Lord to Samuel." Ephesians 6:1-4, one of, we have a few instructions in the New Testament for children and parents.

Children, obey your parents, for this is right. Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth. And ye children, provoke not your fathers to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Did I say it right? Now, what did I say wrong? It has to be a mistranslation there.

It says, "And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Jesus is the implication.

Colossians 3:20, "A children, obey your parents, for this is well pleasing in the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged." After all, haven't you heard it said that our children finish raising us? The command to honor our and obey our parents actually comes to us as parents before it becomes practical for our children.

When you read these scriptures, children, obey your parents, children, honor thy father and your mother, that's applicable to me, to you, before it is even to your children. If we haven't figured out how out to do this, don't expect our children to reciprocate the same to us.

In a perfect world, this should not be a, a complex command, but in an imperfect world, which we live, this can be complex. How best to honor our parents and to obey them? This can be very complex sometimes. What is the best way to honor our parents?

And if we're getting ready to raise a household, we need to answer that question ourselves before we have children that need to learn to honor and obey us. An example of this kind of thing is what I'm talking about is the story of Gideon.

Do you remember what Gideon was asked to do?

The Lord gave to Gideon a specific command, and he was to go to his father's household by night and tear down his father's idols. Did Gideon honor his parents?

What do you think? Yes, he honored his parents. Why? Because he esteemed the word of the Lord higher than even his father's. Now, his father, well, in that, in this case, his father actually gave a pretty mature response to that.

But it was a direct confrontation to his father's house, which was full of idols. And sometimes in honoring our parents, we actually have to make some choices that our parents may or may not understand. And this is gonna vary by each individual experience.

But sometimes we're called to tear down the idols in our father's house. And that is honoring your parents. It's a very similar thing to what Jesus said. If any man come to me and hate not his father and his mother and his wife and children, brethren and sisters, yea, in his own life also, they cannot be my disciple.

Again, same principle. Our first allegiance is to the holy child, Jesus. Let's answer that question I raised a while ago. Do we want children or do we need children?

Anybody want to take a stab at that?

Both. Both. Good answer. Very good answer. Hopefully, we want children. But it's, it's also important that we understand that we need children. And let me explain that one. In order for children to must have a healthy, children must have a healthy sense of being necessary and needed for there to be a good love relationship with them. We need them for survival. Did you know that?

In this, in this current age, we may not think that we need children's survival, but for if no other reason, to keep the human race going. There was a day when survival and children were essential to survive. I'm not talking about getting, uh, luxuries. I'm talking about getting by. There's nothing like the spirit of survival that knits a family together and makes an unbreakable bond of love.

Affluence militates against a healthy spirit of survival and feeling I'm needed or that I'm necessary. Or a child needs to have the understanding that he's part of God's plan. I'm part of God's puzzle. When we grasp this fact, we need that we need each other. We can absorb the shortcomings and failings of each other. And families can knit together, and churches can knit together, and countries can knit together. When we understand that we actually need each other and that we're necessary and that we're part of the puzzle. We often think of God being an autonomous and doesn't need a thing. True.

But we can also say that Jesus needs us for, for his purpose. Obviously, we were created without our opinion being asked. This is no license to exploit children. Children must feel needed and necessary, along with being desired and wanted for a healthy foundation for love. When a child senses that he is an important part of God's puzzle and that he's a necessary component in this world, then he can process, he can process his relationship with his parents and ultimately with God as well, much better.

I have a story to tell. There was a, there was a, a, uh, rabbi got a call from a distraught mother one day, and she said, "Rabbi, my 14-year-old son tried to take his life, and he is currently in the St. Paul's, uh, State, um, mental institution. Would you please go visit my son?"

He said, the rabbi didn't know the family, but he said, "Well, sure, I'll do that." So the rabbi went to St. Paul's and went to the, the State, uh, institution. And it was one of those places where it was heavily guarded. And when you went through one door, it locked before another door opened, and you locked, you went in. And nurses carried gloves and, and, uh, handcuffs. And that was the kind of environment that this 14-year-old boy was in. So he went into the hospital, and he found this 14-year-old boy.

And when he approached him and went into the room, the 14-year-old boy was cocked back in his bed, and he had a comic book, and he was reading just like he was at summer camp. He thought the rabbi was quite taken back.

So he says to the boy, "How are you doing?" No response. Just shrugged him off.

He tried several attempts to get a conversation going with the boy, and the boy just kept shrugging him off. Finally, he said to the boy, he said, "Your mother asked me to come see you and see how you're doing. What should I tell her?" And he just shrugged his shoulder again.

Just ignored him. So the rabbi was trying to decide what to do, and he said, uh, finally, the boy said to him, he said, "You might as well leave." He said the hospital chaplain was here a while ago. He said, "You might as well leave."

And the rabbi said, "Well, you got my curiosity up here. What did the chaplain tell you?" "Something stupid." "Oh, really? What did he tell you?" "He told me God loves me. I shouldn't kill myself." "And that's stupid?" "Yeah, that's stupid," he said.

Hmm. Rabbi said, "I guess I'd have to agree." He said, "Obviously, God created you. You're here for a purpose.

But how God can love a spoiled brat like you, I don't know."

Well, by now, he had the little boy's attention.

He said, "Well, suppose I don't want to do what God wants me to do?" "Well," he said, "that's, that's what we call freedom of choice. You can opt out.

But you're part of God's puzzle. You're here for a purpose." And this boy didn't come from a home that was neglected. He wasn't in poverty. He had everything he could wish for. But for some reason, the young man didn't feel necessary or needed.

He found no purpose in life. I got off an airplane in, in, in Washington, DC one time and met an older man with a young boy. But I, I think he was in his 60s, and he had a young boy about eight or nine years old. And he actually had my namesake. His name was Leo.

So I struck up a conversation with this little boy. Obviously, he was a gifted little boy. And he was running around with a smartphone. I think he was maybe seven, eight, or nine. And his, his dad was showing a lot of pride in his son.

But I didn't see no mother. And so as we learned to know him a little bit more, he said, finally, the father said to me, "He's my OMG child."

Meaning, "Oh my God." I'm gonna let you figure out what he meant by that, okay?

But I'm afraid that when that child grows up, he's not gonna feel necessary in this world. He's gonna wonder what his place is in the world and why he's here. And even though he's not missing a meal, he has all the clothes he could wish for. He has everything a child could wish for. He's gonna wonder what the purpose of living is gonna be all about.

And love isn't gonna save him until he can, until somehow he can understand what the purpose of him. A large portion of child training is just plain domestic things. Without, it doesn't even take much attentional thought. When you, when you train an ox or a horse, a lot of the training and the domestication happens right in the barn when you're feeding and grooming the animal and handling them before they even in the workplace.

When you groom a horse or you groom the ox and you feed him and you take him to water and you handle them and you take care of their problems, a lot of the training is going on right now. Now, when you put a harness on them, they're ready to go to work. I had a mule one time. Oh, it's important that a child has a no in them.

They know what no means. I had a mule one time that did not have a whoa, which is equivalent to a no. And I waited too long to start breaking this mule. She was a beautiful mule. She was the best looking mule that I had.

But she was a little bit spoiled, and I didn't get started young enough with this, this mule. It didn't take me long, long enough to realize that this mule didn't exactly know what a whoa means. Oh, sometimes she cooperated, but sometimes when I think she really needed to whoa, she wouldn't.

So I had to take a little bit more drastic steps, and I had to install what they call a running W on her front feet. And we went out in the field, and if she didn't stop, I pulled on that rope, which buckled her front knees, and she, she went down on the ground.