AI-GENERATED SUMMARY

This sermon expounds on Hebrews 12 to establish God’s discipline of His sons as the model for parental discipline, emphasizing that while corporal punishment is not the only method, it is biblically required for a child’s spiritual deliverance and health5,6. Tuuri outlines seven forms of discipline: verbal instruction, rewards/punishments, physical restraint, rebuke, withdrawal of presence, corporal punishment, and disinheritance, warning that the rod is necessary but not an automatic guarantee of salvation7,2,8. He addresses the conflict between biblical mandates and new Oregon state administrative rules that define spanking as child abuse, arguing that the state hates children by attempting to remove the symbol of God’s justice from the home9,10. The message concludes with a call to civil disobedience, asserting that parents must obey God’s command to use the rod rather than the state’s prohibition9,11.

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Two weeks ago, we talked about Romans 13. And that was a deviation from our normal course of messages. Right now, we’re going through the confessional statement. But this week, I’m going to follow up with another deviation based upon Romans 13 and a current situation here in the state of Oregon, which we believe as a church we have to address.

Today, what we’ll be doing is we’ll be reviewing Romans 13 briefly. Then we’ll turn to our passage in Hebrews 12 and look at what God is teaching us there. Third, we’ll then turn to some new laws relative to the area that we learned from Hebrews 12. And fourth, we’ll make application to our specific case here at Reformation Covenant Church and in our families.

So, we’ll begin with Romans 13, go to Hebrews 12, look at some new laws in the state, then make application.

Now, in Romans 13, and by the way, I’ll apologize now for going through this rather hurriedly. I hope the tape turns out because I’m going to have to go very quickly because we only have a limited amount of time and yet I think it’s important that we address all the areas that we’ve set before us this morning.

So, if it happens rather quickly, please take good notes, take down the verses, take down the main points, and hopefully you’ll be able to get a copy of the tape later to study through in your families.

I’ll review Romans 13 again briefly. We talked in Romans 13:1-7. And what we said out of Romans 13:1-7 is that obedience to the civil magistrate is normative in the life of the believer. It is normally what’s to be done. We’re to obey the government.

We said that the reason why we’re to obey the government is given in Romans 13. There are two reasons: for wrath and also for conscience sake. The wrath there indicates both the wrath of God himself because God has ordained the civil magistrates that rule over us and we also were to fear his wrath therefore coming through the civil magistrate and we’re also to fear the fact that the civil magistrate carries the sword. He has corporal punishment as it were and he can act against people in terms of the death penalty. He also in our laws has various other remedies.

So we can fear God’s wrath if we disobey. We also should fear the magistrate’s wrath. And yet Romans 13 clearly tells us also that another reason for obedience is for conscience’s sake. And that’s very important.

We talked about the reason why it is for conscience sake to be in obedience to the civil authorities is that the civil authorities are ordained by God. Paul in the epistle to the Romans argues from universal to particular. He starts at the beginning of Romans 13 talking about the fact that all powers, all levels of authority in our world are ordained by God. They’re part of his overall order and plan for the universe. From that he argues then that obedience to the specific, the particular, the civil government in Romans 13 based upon that universal of God’s ordination of all authority, then we realize that we’re to obey the particulars also—the civil magistrate—because God has put them in the position he’s put them in.

God has decreed and set them in place. Their authority is not, as it were, proceeding out of the character of God himself. But God rather decrees that they’re to be in these positions of authority. And in his providence, we have these various levels of authority. And to rebel against any one of them is to rebel against the God who places them there, who ordains them.

Now, this passage in Romans 13 spells the death knell to any thought of Christian rebellion or Christian revolution. That should be rather obvious that again we’re stressing here the necessity of Christians in normal circumstances under most common circumstances to act in obedience to the laws of the land for these reasons. It therefore is a strong statement against the tendency of the Christian church and particularly in our day and age—as antinomian as it is, as anti-law as it is—to rebel against all authority that God has placed over them. That’s a very great tendency.

A few months ago I rented the movie “A Man for All Seasons” talking about Sir Thomas More and in that movie, there was a very good scene, one of the most passionate scenes of the movie, I felt, where Thomas More has a prospective son-in-law, I believe it was—it’s been several months now since I watched it—I believe a prospective son-in-law, and he was, as you know, undergoing persecution from the state for holding a religious conviction. And his son-in-law got real frustrated with the laws of the land that were bringing Thomas More, were restraining Thomas More from actually getting out of the situation. And the son-in-law said, “Let’s just rip down the wall, the law. Let’s just ignore the law that’s been placed here if it’s going to get in our way of doing what God wants us to do.”

And Sir Thomas More turned on him and said, “You do that. You rip down all those laws. You go throughout this country and rip down the laws that God has ordained. And when you reach the end of the empire, the realm as it were, and you turn around and Satan is at your back, what will you have to resist him with? What buffers will there be left for you as you seek to resist the powers of Satan as he seeks to overcome you?”

The point that movie made and Sir Thomas More understood is that God has ordained these authorities for our good and if we strip out those levels of authority through rebellion or revolution we then leave ourselves open to anarchy and to the wiles of the devil. It’s a very strong statement against Christian revolution.

Additionally though, both Romans 13 and the correct understanding of Sir Thomas More’s position recognizes that this passage—Romans 13—is also the death knell to tyranny. It after all says the civil magistrate is ordained of God. He’s a minister of God. A deacon is what the word means. A deacon of God. A servant of God and he’s a minister. That word comes from the same word as our word liturgy. He serves God.

So the civil magistrate is seen as ordained by God for God’s purposes and therefore tyranny is unlawful for him. He must, if he’s to do his job correctly, abide by the laws of God and apply them in our society. So while this passage is a death knell to revolution, it’s also the death knell to tyranny.

Particularly that’s true because as I said the argumentation is from the general to the particular, from all authorities that God has ordained to the specific civil magistrate. An implication of that, a very clear implication of that, is that if the civil magistrate would cause you to disobey a command, a clear command of God that is taught by the rest of his created order and from his revealed truth, then that civil magistrate’s law must be resisted. You see, the civil magistrate isn’t here and everything else underneath it. God is here, and the civil magistrate is one level of authority.

And therefore, if he tries to get us to do something that is unlawful according to God’s word, we must resist him. It’s not that we can resist him. We must resist him at that point. And so if he tried to compel us, for instance, to kill the firstborn of our children, as has happened in history, we would have to resist that and it would be a godly resistance. Sir Thomas More understood that principle. He didn’t understand a lot of things, but he understood that principle and he went to the death fighting for a principle of God’s word. He could not obey man. He had to obey God.

Now these things are reminded of one good illustration of all this is in the book of Daniel. Daniel was in a situation where, later in the reign of Darius, he had to—let’s see, I’ll back up. In Daniel 6:5 it said that the men who were trying to get a cause against Daniel knew that in order to make him do something which the king would not like, they’d have to get him to—they’d have to threaten the law of his God. They knew they’d have to pass some sort of statute which would compel him to break the law of his God because they knew that Daniel, having a good understanding of biblical civil government, could not obey the king rather than God. They knew Daniel would obey God.

And so they got the king to put in a proclamation that no other god could be prayed to. Well, Daniel doesn’t then seek to realize he was under obligation to not obey that law. He still had to pray to God. Not only that, but what it says what Daniel did at that point in time when the decree was issued—he went up to his window as his habit was. His windows were open to Jerusalem and he prayed three times a day.

Now, there’s nothing we need—we don’t need to do that three times a day specifically—but that was his habit. And he didn’t change his habit even though he knew that with his windows open and him praying to God as he always had done, he knew that he would be convicted, he would be arrested for violating the king’s decree. Daniel teaches us, as does Romans 13, that although the civil magistrate is to normatively be obeyed for wrath’s sake and for conscience sake, yet when that civil magistrate would cause us to disobey a law of God or a command of God, we cannot obey men. We must obey God and not obey men.

Now, I bring that up because we’re going to talk about that. That’s going to have implications for what we say today. And I think that if you look around us, you look at some of the laws that have been passed in this country in the last few years, you’ll see one of very similar situation in some respects to the book of Daniel, but we’ll get more back to that a little bit later.

Now, we want to turn to our passage that we read from Hebrews 12:1-14 and go through them briefly. If you’re taking notes, I have six basic portions that I divide these sections up into.

In verse 1, we have the central text that’s being taught here where God tells us, “Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” That’s the command as it were for the rest of the passage. That’s what he’s telling us to do. So it begins with verse 1, a command from God to persevere in the faith.

Now remember that Hebrews 12 follows after Hebrews 11 and 10. And we talked about 10 several times in the last few weeks. And the necessity of not falling back from New Testament worship mandates into old covenant worship forms. They were to persevere in the faith as it were and not forsake the faith even though they would receive persecution for the faith. So that command is repeated here in Hebrews 12:1. Let us run the race. Let’s do good. Let’s persevere.

Verses 2 through 11 give some reasons or some encouragements to obey that command to persevere.

Verses 2-4 gives us an example of Jesus Christ himself, an example of our Lord in terms of our perseverance. And he says in verses 2 through 4, “Look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” So he’s telling him, persevere. And now to encourage you and to inspire you to persevere, look at the example of Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. And look at how Jesus Christ persevered and went to the cross.

He says there that Jesus endured for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. That should be an example to us. We should understand that we endure sufferings because God has a purpose for it. Jesus Christ endured sufferings because God had a purpose for it in his eternal decree to provide salvation for his covenant people. So Jesus Christ is an example and an inspiration to us of his suffering at the hands of ungodly men.

Verse 3, “Let us consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.” Again, it’s inspiring the believer to look at the example of Jesus Christ his inspiration in time of trouble.

Verse 4, “Ye have not resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” The point was Jesus did. That’s why he says that in verse 4, he’s still using the example of Christ our Lord. Christ resisted to the point of blood. Obviously, he died on the cross for our sins and shed his blood at the cross. But I believe this is also a reference to Jesus sweating drops of blood as it were in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus in his obedience to the father’s will resisted the temptation that came upon him in Gethsemane to sin and he resisted that sin to the point of shedding drops of blood as it were from in terms of sweat.

So we haven’t done that yet. He’s saying endure. Look at the example of Christ. You’ll never be called really to go what he goes through. He’ll always be a shining example and inspiration to us. Remember that Jesus is our high priest who vicariously has suffered the sins of the people. He has not sinned himself. He’s taken them upon himself though. He’s a sympathetic high priest.

So the example of our Lord. First of all then, in verses 5 and 6, in explaining why we’re to persevere even in spite of chastisement, verses 5 and 6, God tells us that chastisement is a proof of God’s love. “Ye have forgotten the exhortation and he quotes here from Proverbs 3:11, “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 scourgeeth every son whom he receiveth.”

He reminds them then not only do we have a great example of Jesus Christ, but we should recognize that our chastisement is a proof of God’s love for us. And he quotes from Solomon in the Proverbs, the wisest man to walk the earth until Jesus Christ came. He quotes from Solomon that chastisement is a proof of God’s love for us.

In verses 7 and 8, he gives another reason to persevere and to press on and to be persevering under chastisement.

In verses 7 and 8, he tells us that chastisement is a proof of our legitimate sonship. “If you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father chastineth not? But if you be without chastisement whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons?”

So he says you have an example of Jesus Christ to persevere. Chastisement when you see it coming and suffering from God coming, you realize that it’s a proof of God’s love for you. And then you should also realize for verses 7 and 8 that chastisement is a proof of your sonship with God.

In verses 9 through 11, we find that God also further encourages us to persevere under suffering when he says that chastisement is necessary for holiness and righteousness.

Verses 9-11. “Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence. And we did that correctly, don’t we? Reverence. Our fathers corrected us when they spanked us when they discipline us. 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 seemth to be joyous but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward he yieldth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”

So what he’s telling us here is that not only do we have the example of Jesus Christ, the high great high priest, not only is chastisement a proof of God’s love, not only is it a proof of our legitimate sonship, but chastisement is necessary for holiness and righteousness before God.

Now, in verse 11, “those that are exercised thereof”—that might be a word that you’re not necessarily familiar with. It simply means to be trained or disciplined by it. It has a reference to the participants in the games at the time who would exercise in the games as it were and be disciplined to that task.

And then finally in verses 12-14 the admonition is repeated. Very frequent pattern in Scripture: admonition, reasons for the admonition, the admonition is then repeated. And in verses 12-14 he says, “Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees.”

Now that you’ve been encouraged the fact that we have a great high priest, Jesus Christ in your sufferings and he suffered more than you’ll ever suffer. Now that you’re encouraged that when you have sufferings, it’s a proof of God’s love for you. Now that you’ve been encouraged and inspired with the fact that chastisement indicates we’re true sons of Jesus Christ or the Father and now that you’ve been encouraged the fact that chastisement or discipline will produce righteousness and holiness in our lives and it is necessary for that—now then gird yourself up, lift up your feeble hands and the feeble knees, lift up the hands which hang down, encourage yourself in the faith to go ahead and persevere and run the race, don’t quit, don’t stop, don’t droop, get up and run harder because of all these examples of the positive benefit of God’s chastisement of his people.

Now, we went through that very quickly, but hopefully you got the overview and you have the verses there and you have the pattern that you can study out for yourself:

Verse 1: command.
Verses 2-4: the example of our Lord.
Verses 5 and 6: chastisement is a proof of love.
Verses 7 and 8: chastisement’s relationship to sonship.
Verses 9-11: chastisement is necessary for holiness and righteousness.
Verses 12-14: the admonition is repeated.

Now underlying all this of course is the presupposition of man’s sinfulness. After all it begins in verse 1 by saying “Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us.” So the understanding, the presupposition behind all this teaching is that we are sinners and we are prone to wander and we’re going to be prone to disobeying God and to be rebellious against him. That underlies it all.

And that’s why of course correction is necessary for our righteousness and holiness because apart from God’s corrective action toward us, we’ll continue in our sin and not come into sanctification in terms of righteousness and holiness.

The underlying assumption to all this then is our sin.

Now I want to make some applications. What are some applications for us in our household? You’ve got to understand here and now—this may not be so readily apparent or I may not communicate it well, so try to listen hard. We believe that man is analogic. Man is understood in relationship to God. We’ve said that many times from up here. It is important to understand that the family is analogic also and can only be understood as it teaches us about God as it demonstrates something of God’s character and God’s ordination in our lives. The family is not to be seen evolutionarily.

Now I think, and I’m open to correction on this, but I think that if we look at the family and if we look at the verses we just read and say that God attempts to use some kind of common ground with mankind to communicate truths about himself, some pre-existent common ground, I think that is incipitently evolutionary in basis. In other words, the family didn’t get here through some process apart from God’s ordination and providence and decree. Okay? And so God doesn’t need to try to establish common ground with his creatures. He has common ground because the family is ordained of him.

God doesn’t use the family as a convenient teaching device like saying, “Oh yeah, they have a family. I can teach them about my sonship, their sonship to me because they have families. They can relate to that.” That’s not what it’s like. The family shows us God’s relationship to us in terms of his fatherhood of us because he always ordained it to mean that to us. You catch the difference? Very important to keep that in mind.

These passages then are very important in that we can take from these passages and understand things about ourselves, about our parents, about children, and about the proper method of disciplining our children based upon these passages. He’s given us the families to represent some truths about him that he has now told us about in Hebrews 12.

Okay. By way of application, we can say very clearly that if we love our children, we will discipline them. Obvious from verses 5 and 6.

Secondly, we can say very clearly that if we are truly fathers to our children, okay? If we’re truly fathers in the fullest biblical sense, we will discipline them. Verses 7 and 8.

I’ve mentioned many times that David in some of his confessional psalms prays that God would wash him and he’d be whiter than snow. And the word for wash there’s the word for beat. When he would take a piece of clothing out, take it on a rock and beat it to get it clean. Jesus pray—or excuse me, David prayed for God’s beating him in terms of corrective activity because he recognized that if God continued to discipline him and beat him, he was a true son and God was still his father. If we’re truly fathers to our children and if we love our children, we’ll discipline them.

Third, discipline will be necessary for our children if we want them to grow in grace. These verses taught us that God chastises people for the purpose of bringing them to a fuller holiness and righteousness before him. If we want our children to grow in grace—which is to say to grow in righteousness and holiness, knowledge and dominion to God—then we must discipline them.

Now, by the way, that also there’s an implication of that: our discipline of our children should be goal oriented as it were. Jesus suffered the cross for the joy set before him, for the purpose of doing what God wanted him to do. He had a goal in mind. And when we train our children, discipline our children, we should remind them of the goal of righteousness and holiness that God has set before them. There should be a goal orientation. It’s not just a matter of submit. We should teach our children that righteousness and holiness and growth in grace is blessing and that’s why we discipline them. Okay?

So discipline is necessary, absolutely necessary if our children are to grow in grace.

Fourth, the discipline of our children should be accompanied by encouragement. As I said, it’s not just a matter of telling our children, submit to my authority. Period. Now, it is sometimes obviously, but look at what God does in the book of Hebrews. We’ve looked at a couple of chapters for several weeks—Hebrews 10 and Hebrews 12. And they’re related, of course, to a central area of forsaking the faith that was going on at the time of this writing of this epistle. And God spends a great deal of time telling them why he’s telling them these things, giving reasons why they should obey him, giving reasons and encouragements, exhortations, the inspirational example of Jesus Christ, his love, his sonship, all these things he’s giving them to encourage them to obedience.

God doesn’t just say submit. That’s the way it is. He encourages us to obedience and we should with our children as well. The discipline of our children should be accompanied by encouragement.

Fifth, the discipline will not be effectual for all. Well, there are some people who believe it is. So, I’m going to take just a couple of minutes to show why I believe this is taught in this passage.

In verse 8, “But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons.” And I reminded you in terms of application to David—he feared that day when he would be seen as a bastard of God and not a true son. And when God wouldn’t be demonstrated as his father by continuing to discipline him. God says here that he has elected people. There are two types of people in the world: true sons, covenant sons through adoption into Jesus Christ and bastards who are not sons of God, who were sons and have now been disinherited by God because of the sin of Adam their father.

There’s two kinds of people, the elect and the non-elect. And God says here that his discipline is a sign of true sonship. And so lack of discipline in a person’s life is a sign of no sonship. God’s electness means that discipline will not be effectual for all.

Secondly, in verse 11, we have the idea of our responsibility talked about here. It says that discipline produces the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby—not unto everybody. Those people that are trained by it, who work hard at it. And the word means to strive and to work hard here. And he uses that same sort of word other way in other places in the passage. He’s telling us to strive to achieve holiness. Those who are exercised by it, trained by it, working hard at it—those people the discipline will result in the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

So what I’m saying is that based upon God’s electness and based upon human responsibility and its interaction with God’s electness, which of course is decreed by God, both these things teach us that discipline will not be effectual for all. We cannot discipline our children into the kingdom of God.

Now, there are those who think we can. I don’t think they’re right. In fact, I think that God takes a whole chapter out of Ezekiel 18 to teach the reverse.

In Ezekiel 18, the word of the Lord comes unto me again, saying, “What mean ye that you use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?” God says, “Why are you using this proverb that the fathers drink sour grapes, the kids’ teeth are set on edge. As I live, sayeth the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion anymore to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine. As the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The soul that sins will die. The father doesn’t sin and as a result the child die. The son doesn’t sin and as a result the father dies.”

And then the rest of Ezekiel 18—which maybe you could read later—but he goes on to say in verse 5 that if a man be just and do that which is lawful and right, hath not eaten them upon the mountains nor lifted up his eyes to the idols, goes through a long list of that the man is right, upright and righteous. In other words, he in verse 9, “If he hath walked in my statutes, kept my judgments to deal truly, he is just, he shall surely live, sayeth the Lord God.”

If he beget a son that is a robber, a shedder of blood, and that doeth any one of these things, and that doeth not any of these duties, but even have eaten upon the mountains—he goes on and on. “He shall surely die. His blood shall be upon him,” the son, that is.

So God is saying that you can have situations. He uses a situation here of a father who is upright and holy and righteous before God. And that would of course include him disciplining his children. And yet, if he is a son who grows up and is a robber and a no good, that man doesn’t die for that sin. The son does. It’s the son’s responsibility. And God and his electness has brought that to pass.

Now, if we stressed in this church that believers’ children are to be counted as though they were covenant keepers, they’re to be presumed in covenant community, and that is clearly taught in Scripture. But we don’t want to communicate that is always the case or that it is the parents’ fault somehow if the children fall away from the faith. That’s not what God teaches here. And he goes on to give the other example that if the son’s terrible and the father’s terrible and the son is good, the son will live, the father will die. He says every man dies for his own sin is what God says in this chapter.

He takes a whole chapter out to refute that proverb, which again is having some play in our land today. It’s important to recognize God’s electness and our own individual responsibility.

Now, say, “What about a father who’s supposed to train up his child? And if a person’s going to be an elder in a church, he should have good control over his children.” That’s true, but that doesn’t mean that his children are necessarily going to be elect. He cannot guarantee that. Nobody can. The father, however, will be anxious to discipline his children. And if need be, after all discipline is failed, he will be willing to excommunicate that child and to disinherit that child and so govern his family correctly. That’s true government before God.

Sixth, discipline must demonstrate God’s attitude towards sin. Verses 10 and 11, as we said, talks about discipline’s correlation to holiness and righteousness. Verse and the whole chapter is the presumption of sin. We must understand here that the discipline of God is coming upon those who sin in some way and he’s using it to train them in righteousness.

So discipline and discipline of our children must demonstrate God’s attitude towards sin. He doesn’t like it and he doesn’t like it when we sin. Now the corollary to that, the flip side of that coin, is to also teach our children through discipline God’s provision for our sin through the shed blood of Jesus Christ and forgiveness through repentance and restitution. In other words, we should teach our kids we discipline them. We show them that we hate the sin. And we make sure that they understand also the way that sin can be forgiven through the blood of Christ.

Now, when we think about discipline in our own mind, we don’t always think of corporal punishment. Discipline after all means to make a disciple, doesn’t it? Same kind of root words going on there. And we should, we have a lot of unfortunate connotations in our minds today.

When we think of government, we think of the civil government. That’s terrible. We’ve talked a lot in this church about how family governments, church governments, self-governments—these are all methods of government. The same thing is true with discipline. We normally think of discipline as application of a rod to a child’s behind. But that’s not how the Scriptures use the word. It’s an appropriate use of the word sometimes, but it’s not the only use. The discipline is far broader than that. And we’ll see that in this passage here, some very broad words are used for discipline or chastisement.

So I guess what I’d like to do now is talk about seven specific methods or what is discipline. There are seven different things that I’ve annunciated from these passages and from other texts of the Scriptures. This is not a complete list, not meant to be. This is not the final word. This is a handy device to look at various forms of discipline and to remind you of various ways we’re to be disciplining our children.

First of all, discipline is verbal instruction both formalized and informal. And the word, as I said, paideia—was commonly used as for an instructor, for instance in New Testament times, somebody who would take the kids into a classroom situation and teach them formalized. In Deuteronomy 6 we have these two things. We’re to teach our children diligently talking with them in the way. There’s formalized instruction that’s required in terms of discipline. There’s informalized instruction required as well.

The content of that should be the various things that God has told us about himself in the Scriptures. We should obviously be giving our children formal instruction in relationship to the person of God himself. We should be giving our children formalized instruction in the history of God’s covenant people. And that’s necessary for lots of reasons. One reason, of course, to remind them that there is warfare in the world. That there are two kinds of people: covenant keepers and covenant breakers. History is a way to remind them of the continual warfare of God’s people and also their own forwardness, their own sinfulness and falling away from God and his faithfulness to them.

We’re to teach our children of God in a formalized way. We’re to teach our children God’s relationship to man and history. We’re to teach our children God’s laws in a formalized instruction. It’d be a great idea to have a daily devotional or a time with your children. And we did this for several months in our family, went through the entire Scriptures from Exodus 21-23, the case laws of the covenant. Sit down with your children when you have dinner with them or lunch with them and go through them one verse at a time and explain to them what it means.

There’s a couple of books that would be helpful for you if you want to do that and you can talk to me about that later. But we should have some sort of formalized instruction of our children regarding the laws of God. And of course, these things are none of these things are isolated from each other. The laws will reflect the person of God as well.

We should have formalized instruction of our children in regards to his judgments upon people that break his laws or that keep his laws. We should have formalized instruction of our children in terms of the succession that the future of the world, the future of covenant keepers.

Now, those of you who are reading some of the last few months about covenant will recognize that I just used that five-fold order that Ray Sutton talks about, that Meredith Kline talks about, and I’ve said it many times, but I’ll say it again. That’s not an absolute form, but it’s a very convenient way to think of the various aspects of God’s covenant and his relationship to us in terms of educating your children.

Those same things, of course, should be taught informally to our children through verbal instruction. Again, this first method we’re talking about is all verbal instruction. And it’s absolutely critical to see that as the beginning elements of any discipline of any child—to instruct him in the things of God and that necessity for obedience.

All these same things, the character of God himself should be dealt informally as we go through our lives. The history of God’s people should also be seen to relate to the history of his people today and give them an idea of covenant continuity of the Reformation Covenant Church and the covenant continuity that church has with the church of the ages and understand and teach your children informally the history of God’s dealing with your particular family or with them as an individual.

Informal teaching would also informally teach them about the judgments that God makes. If there’s anything that a child likes to do, he likes to bring things to us to show them to us and have us evaluate them. That’s because he is doing the same thing that we do with our Father in heaven. We like to bring God our works and bring our thinking and the things of our hands and evaluate them according to the word of God. And we should begin to teach our children when they bring us their works as it were.

Whatever they color or a story they’ve written, anything they’ve done, we should begin to show them the evaluation process that goes on through the heads of households and to the delegated heads of households and to the mothers as well. In other words, what I’m saying is that’s an informal method of disciplining, but it’s very important that our children understand that we care about them, that we’re looking at what they’re doing, and we’re evaluating them according to biblical standards.

If you’re too busy to listen to your child, if you’re too busy to look at pictures that he’s drawn or stories that he’s written or things he wants to talk to you about, you’re too busy, period. And you better start cutting back. It’s important that we give our children the response that God gives us when we come to him for evaluation and judgment.

So all these things—verbal instruction both formalized and informalized—are a method of discipline. But it’s not the only method.

Secondly, there are also our deeds obviously which are disciplinary in nature. Blessings and cursings, rewards and punishments. Deuteronomy 28 says that God disciplines his people through rewards and through punishments. He says if you do these things, then you’ll receive these blessings. If you do these things, then you’ll receive these cursings. And we should begin to teach our children also in a disciplinary fashion in terms of letting them do certain deeds in a complicated fashion.

What I’m trying to say is this. It’s perfectly appropriate to set a goal for your child. Ray Sutton in his book “Who Owns the Family” talks about his children wanted to participate in a free karate course. He said, “Sure, you can participate in that course. If you get your weekly book report done by Friday, you can go ahead and participate in the in the course on Saturday,” whenever it was. They didn’t get the book report done. They didn’t get that reward.

Now, there’s an example of a specific deed or action that we participate in our children that disciplines them. And we should be looking at things that we can do to encourage our children to activity by putting rewards in front of them and by discouraging bad activity through discipline or denials.

Third area of discipline is physical restraint. It’s a perfectly proper way of disciplining our children. One of the interesting verses that I came across as I was going through this is Proverbs 7:22. “He goeth after a straight way as an ox goeth to the slaughter or as a fool to the correction of the stocks.” And I was doing a word study on the word “correction” in the Old Testament because the Proverbs 3:11 that Hebrews quotes from uses that word “correction.” And one of those words that it uses in the Hebrew has the idea of restraint to it.

And that word is used here in Proverbs 7:22. The fool goes to the correction of the stocks of the stocks. So there’s a restraining influence that is sometimes necessary for our children.

Now again, that’s to be understood in our relationship to our Father as well. He disciplines us through formalized instruction through his Scriptures, doesn’t he? He disciplines us as we go through the day. He disciplines us by reminding us and actually enacting in our lives rewards and punishments. And he disciplines us by restraining us. We can’t do anything we want to do. You know, I mean, if I wanted to run the Oregon Graduate Center this next week, God’s not going to let me do that. I’m restrained from doing it. It would probably be harmful to myself and to the Oregon Graduate Center to have me in that position.

God restrains us from certain activities. He doesn’t bring us into temptation that we couldn’t overcome. He has promised us that when we do have temptation, we can overcome it. That he’s provided the method. And it’s perfectly proper for us to restrain our children. If you have this—probably not a good example—if you have a hunting gun that you go hunting, you want to make sure you keep that gun out of the hands of your child. You want to physically restrain him from that activity. And that’s a method of discipline or training him there.

Okay. It’s interesting that later on in Proverbs 22:15, that word for correction where it says the fool goes to the correction of the stocks, Proverbs 22:15 says, “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” Same word used for restraint basically is the what’s being taught there. The rod restrains children from activity that would harm them.

We’ll talk about that more in a minute. But discipline in general is also accomplished through restraint.

These are generalized areas: verbal instruction of our children, actions with our children, physical restraint from harmful areas for them.

These are generalized areas. Now, in terms of specific sin, when all that has failed and our child fails anyway and sins anyway, what are some other methods of discipline God tells us about?

First, I think and this is very important to remember and to implement in your families is the rebuke. The Scriptures are abundant with examples of rebukes. And in verse 5, Hebrews 12, you have “Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.” Rebuked of him.

Rebuke means to tell a fault, to reprove a specific matter. And God tells us here that part of his method of chastising his people and bringing them to correction is the rebuke. And we should do that with our children as well. We should specifically rebuke specific actions based upon the clear standard of God’s word.

Fifth, another method of discipline in a specific activity is withdrawal of presence for a time. Now, David, as we said earlier, one of the things that he feared most from God was that God would withhold his spirit from David, that he’d hold back from David as it were. And I think it’s completely appropriate with our children that there are situations that call for withdrawal of our presence from them. It is one way to communicate displeasure with their activity that will sometimes hit them right between the eyes and hit them very hard in terms of an understanding of what they’ve done wrong.

Sometimes they can get rather hardened to some of the other methods that we use or stiff-necked and sometimes the withdrawal of our presence in terms of our approving presence of our children will do work wonders.

With my two daughters several weeks ago I came home for lunch. They were having a bad fight between them. They were acting very badly and I just at that particular day I thought of this verse. I thought about the fact that David feared the withdrawal of God’s presence and I withdrew my presence from the children. I told them I’m not happy being around you. You’re in a very bad attitude. You’re in a bad state of mind. You’re sinning over this specific area. And I just pulled back and I went into a different room.

And within 3 or 4 minutes, my children came to me repentant together. They came, by the way, and they had been fighting before. They recognized that something was dreadfully wrong in the household. Now, the dad’s presence wasn’t with them in an approving manner. And they came to me and they recognized immediately what they had done wrong. And they said they were sorry for it. They repented. They repented to each other. And they tried to make it right with each other.

Sometimes withdrawal of our presence from our children and showing our disapproval through that method is completely called for and completely legitimate. It is a valid exercise of discipline in our children over specific activities.

Having said that, it also has some dangerous aspects to it as well. It can be overused. It’s very easy to overuse that particular method. It’s easy to leave the child alone and let them sulk and not deal with the sin at hand. So, you have to use it very cautiously. But it is one of the methods of disciplining God’s children. After all, we’re talking about children that are ultimately God’s children, not our own.

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COMMUNION HOMILY

No communion homily recorded.

Q&A SESSION

# Reformation Covenant Church Q&A Session
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Pastor Tuuri: So, we’ve talked about these various methods of discipline—verbal instruction, instruction of blessings and cursings and actions, restraints, rebukes, withdrawal of presence, and finally, of course, corporal punishment is a legitimate method of God’s discipline.

Corporal punishment, we’ll return to that in a minute. And then finally, the last area of discipline left to a family is disinheritance. That is a godly method of discipline when all else fails, when our children are or have proven themselves to be reprobates.

There is a point in time when we come to actually disinherit them out of the family. That would of course be when they’re quite older. Most of us don’t have older children like that. But if it gets to where the child is old and still rebellious, then it’s perfectly appropriate to disinherit them. And in fact, it would be wrong to give our ungodly children who demonstrate their covenant breaking tendencies an inheritance. God instructs us to give our inheritance to the godly.

So these are various methods of discipline. Now we want to talk specifically about corporal punishment. Corporal punishment—spanking, using the rod. First of all, we want to recognize that corporal punishment is just one of many methods of discipline. I just listed a lot of methods of discipline. There are probably others.

Corporal punishment is one among many. Don’t put all your eggs in that basket. Don’t think that spanking is the answer to all your disciplinary problems at home. It isn’t. It isn’t in this text. It isn’t the primary method that God uses to deal with us. And it shouldn’t be the only method we use to deal with our children.

It’s somewhat distressing to me that in an attempt to counter some of the liberalism in our homes and in our society today, some Christian writers are calling on corporal punishment as basically the only tool you have at discipline. I think it’s a real disservice to God’s people.

In this chapter in Hebrews, there’s only one verse that is specifically talking about corporal punishment or scourging—Hebrews 12. Now, the other words can be used times for corporal punishment, but they don’t necessarily imply that in the word itself. Some are more general.

Proverbs 29:15 says, “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.” One specific example where there’s something called upon in addition to the rod—reproof—that will bring wisdom. The rod by itself doesn’t bring wisdom in those sorts of cases. The rod plus reproof brings wisdom.

Corporal punishment is one among many. Secondly, corporal punishment is not guaranteed to produce results. We talked a little bit about how discipline in general is not guaranteed to produce results. From Hebrews 12:11, God’s election and our own personal responsibility for sin indicates that, and a lot of other scriptures do as well.

This is extremely important because again, many of the books that you’ll find dealing with discipline today say that you spank that child until they submit. You spank the child until they have the right attitude. And I’m here to tell you that doesn’t happen that way. The word of God says that is not necessarily true. The rod cannot bring about a correct attitude in the hearts of God’s people, nor in the hearts of our children.

Now, for those of you who want a little bit more scripture on that: Jeremiah 2:29 and 30. “Wherefore will you plead with me? God speaking to a rebellious nation. Now, ye all have transgressed against me, saith the Lord. In vain have I smitten your children. They received no correction. Your own sword hath devoured your prophets like a destroying lion.”

God says, “In vain did I discipline your children. In vain did I discipline you, you wouldn’t receive correction.” God’s rod of discipline upon his people did not bring repentance in all cases. In vain.

The same thing is said in Jeremiah 5:3. “Oh Lord, are not thine eyes upon the truth? Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved. Thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They had made their faces harder than a rock. They refused to return.”

And I’m telling you that if you think that spanking your child will always produce submission to authority, you’re wrong. The word of God—I should back off here. If you want to argue with me about this later, if you want to point out some other scriptures, or if you think it will produce repentance, I’ll be glad to look at them. But from what the word of God tells me in these verses and in Hebrews, in terms of God’s election, in terms of our children’s responsibility, in terms of Ezekiel 18—all these things go together to me to say that when you spank a child, you will not be guaranteed of the results. That’s important because there are people who teach that it will produce results, and there are people who listen to those people and spank their children and spank their children and spank their children and spank their children, and it won’t. It doesn’t produce repentance. The child becomes stiff-necked and rebellious.

And there are cases—and you’re going to hear about this apart from me, so I’ll mention it to you now. When I was driving home from work the other day, on public radio they were talking about a disciplinary case. I don’t know exactly when it happened—several years ago, I guess. The father believed: you spank them, they’ll repent. And he spanked him, and the child hemorrhaged and died.

It is possible. It’s very rare, of course, but it is possible to beat your child, and as a result of spankings to his bottom, to cause such bruising and such bleeding that there is physical harm done to the child—permanent harm. Now I don’t think any of us are going to be in that category, but I just want to warn you: don’t take that as an absolute principle that spankings will always produce repentance. It won’t.

And I want to make that clear too—that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about using the rod, corporal punishment, as one of many methods that God has given to us, but as a method that he requires.

Having said that, having said that corporal punishment is one of many that can produce results, we also should recognize that it has an element of restraint to it. We mentioned that earlier. The word for correction or restraint in the Hebrew—the word for restraint—talks about the child. The rod is a restraint upon children.

Fourth, corporal punishment is required by God. Using a rod is required by God. We said it’s not the only method. We said it can’t always produce results. But now we’re here to say that corporal punishment is absolutely required by God. There are many references we could talk about, but just briefly: Proverbs 23:14.

“Withhold not correction from the child.” And somebody could say, “Well, correction—he’s just talking about teaching him, right?” No, he isn’t talking about teaching him there because he goes on to say, “For if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.” He says, “Don’t withhold correction.” And I’m telling you now what correction is. It’s the rod applied to his behind. It’s a command of God here.

Proverbs 23:14: “Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell.” These are laws of God. And we believe that the laws of God are binding upon us unless they’re specifically removed by God in the New Testament. There’s no removal of this law. And God specifically tells us here to withhold not the rod from our child. To spare not the child the rod. Okay? It’s a command of God that we must in some instances spank our child, and it will be normative in terms of discipline with small children, because after all, they don’t have the self-restraint that adults have. Corporal punishment is required by God.

Fifth, a rod is to be the means of corporal punishment. Okay, a rod. Why do I say that? There are lots of reasons why I think that God has chosen the rod. I’ll just list several of them here now.

First of all, the rod is a symbol of God’s love and protection. In Psalm 23:4: “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” That’s the cry of the sheep. The rod of God, which was used as a rod of correction upon sheep as well, was also used to defend those sheep from other people who would break into harm them.

So, the rod is a symbol of God’s love and protection for us. Then Proverbs 13:24 says, “He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteth him betimes.” The symbol—the rod—is a symbol then of God’s love and protection. Both from Psalm 23:4, we’re taught that it corrects the sheep and protects the sheep. And then in Proverbs 13:24, the one that spares the rod hates the child. So to apply the rod is to love the child. The rod is a symbol of God’s love.

Secondly, the rod is a symbol of God’s justice. Psalm 89:32: “Then will I visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes.” The rod is a symbol of God’s justice, his righteousness, his punishment of sin and of wickedness in his people. The rod is a symbol of God’s justice.

Now, of course, we also recognize there that it also implies, for us who are covenant keepers, it also talks about the rod being a method of forgiveness.

Now, as we go through these things, try to think of ways to apply these truths in your own family. The rod is a symbol of God’s love. Our children should be taught that the same authority in their lives that applies punishment to them protects them from other people as well. Okay? Our children should be reminded that we’re spanking them because we love them. Our children should be reminded that the rod is a symbol of God’s justice and God’s wrath against sin. At the same time, they should be reminded of Christ’s forgiveness of their sins through his atoning work.

That means we have to explain sin as a violation of God’s authority.

Third, the rod is a symbol of God’s authority, not our authority. I believe that one of the reasons that God has us use the rod instead of our hand is because it’s given to us by him. Okay? Our hand is an extension of ourselves. What we’re trying to teach our children is that it’s not an extension of ourselves that disciplines them. It’s the rod that God has given the parent to discipline his child and correct him. That’s what we’re using on our children.

And I think it’d be perfectly appropriate. We’ve decided in our family to make a new rod—a central spanking spoon—and on that spoon to have it placed in a significant portion of the house and have a verse, couple of verses up there about the justice of God and God’s authority over our family. God gives us the rod to discipline our children with, and he gives us to teach our children that his authority is over us as parents as well.

The word rod is also translated in other verses as scepter or ruler. And again, the same Hebrew word for rod that’s used to chastise children or to spank them is also used in terms of the rod of God, the scepter of the king Jesus Christ, who has authority over all the earth.

So fourthly, the rod is a symbol of Christ’s present rule. Psalm 2:9, talking about the Messiah to come: “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.” The rod should be symbol of Christ’s present rule in our homes and in the nation as well. Psalm 110:2: “The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.” The rod is associated with Christ’s present rule, and it should be in our children’s home as well.

They should be taught that for us to forsake the use of the rod is to forsake the headship of Jesus Christ over our family and over our nation as well. If we restrain our hands from using the rod with our children, we deny all these things that God symbolizes through the use of the rod and corporal punishment.

Sixthly, having said that the rod is the normal method—corporal punishment is necessary for the health of our children. It’s interesting to me that if you use a hand on a child, not only is it denial of the symbols being used, I think it also can be more physically damaging to a child. You can jar a child. You can do a lot of damage with a big instrument like your hand. Whereas the thin rod from a tree, applied to the behind, is much more effective and produces much less health harm to the child.

Corporal punishment is necessary for the health of our child using the rod, but it’s also necessary in that it restrains our children from harm. We talked about this a little bit already, but the rod will drive foolishness out of the heart of our children. In terms of application of the rod, their foolishness will cause them to run in front of dashing cars driving down the street. They’re foolish. They don’t understand yet. And the rod will restrain them from activity that will produce physical harm to themselves.

It is immediate physical danger for a person to withdraw the rod from their child’s behind and not spank them, and as a result just try to reason with them to stay out of the way of the car, and that child then becomes run over by that car. The blood guiltiness for that is upon the parent because he didn’t use God’s method of restraining the child. Corporal punishment is necessary for the health of our children because it provides correction for the child in terms of righteousness and holiness. Our children’s mental health will be much better when they’re in right relationship to God their father, when they demonstrate his laws and obedience to his laws and his authority in their lives.

So our children’s mental health is corrected as a result of the correction they receive under righteousness and holiness, which is a result of discipline and corporal punishment.

Corporal punishment is necessary for the health of our child thirdly because it produces wisdom in the heart of the child. Proverbs 29:15: “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.”

The health of our child will be greatly improved by application of wisdom to everything that they do and say, and the rod is part of the method by which they achieve wisdom in this world.

And fourthly, the rod is important because it’s said by God himself to deliver their soul from hell. Now, we know that corporal punishment doesn’t take the place of Jesus Christ’s covenant keeping. That’s not what God is saying here. But God is saying that the application of corporal punishment through the rod applied to the behind will deliver the soul from hell. What does that mean?

It means it’ll lead that child to a life of repentance from sin, a demonstration of God’s justice against sin and awareness of their sin and true repentance on their part. And those things are all necessary conditions of election and of eternal salvation. God says we will deliver our children from hell if we apply the rod to them.

The rod is a given pedagogic device to our children to instruct them about their sinfulness and about God’s authority over them and about the true rod of rods, Jesus Christ, who’s made provision for their sin and delivered them from hell.

Now, I’ve gone lickety-split over all this material. I still have quite a bit left. There’s a problem with all this.

We’ve talked about the necessity for discipline. We’ve talked about the various forms of discipline. We’ve talked about corporal punishment not being the only method of discipline. And we’ve talked, however, that corporal punishment is required by God to do certain things for our children, and it’s necessary for their health and wellbeing.

What’s the problem, Dennis? The problem is that because of the state laws of Oregon right now, I stand in violation of the law. I’m a clergyman now in this church, right? The state would see me as a clergyman. And I am required by law to report incidences of child abuse to the civil government. And child abuse is now defined in this state as any disciplinary action which produces a bruise on the behind of that child.

I’m required by law to turn you all in. I called Multnomah County hotline yesterday. I said, “I’m a pastor of a church. I want to understand the ramifications of this law. Am I understanding it correctly?” She said, “Do you have people in your church that you know use the rod on their children?” I said, “Oh, you’re kidding? No, they really do.” She said, “Well, have you seen any bruises?” I said, “No, I don’t look at their behinds. You know, if they tell me they spank them, you know.”

And she said, “Well, are the children afraid? Do they act fearful at all around their parents?” I said, “Well, not normally.” She said, “Well, if they act fearful, you report them. If you know they’re spanking their children and they act fearful around them sometimes, report them to the hotline.” I said, “Well, I guess they haven’t acted too fearful around them.”

And they said, “Well, what age are they spanking their children?” I said, “Oh, probably four, five, six year olds.” She said, “Oh, that’s terrible. Tell them to take away their allowance.”

Now, these are—there’s a lot of things in Mary Pride’s new book that talk about how a lot of this stuff is the foisting of some upper middle class, upper-level white standards of correct childbearing practices upon a whole population. Poor people are frequently the target of hotline calls.

So anyway, in any event, the point is they told me I have this responsibility. The law says clearly that a clergyman has a responsibility to turn people in on this hotline program, and if I don’t, I’m liable to a fine of $1,000. Okay, so I’m looking at a lot of fines looking at me in the face right now.

There’s a problem we have. And remember now what we said about Romans 13. If the civil magistrate causes us to disobey a command of God, we cannot obey the civil magistrate in that point. We must obey God rather than man. And rest assured, that’s what I plan to do. I’m not going to turn any of you in. I’m not going to turn myself in. I use the rod as well with my children.

For those of you who are concerned about this, say, “Well, Dennis, now look, what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to correct a real situation in our country that is a real problem. You have thousands, hundreds of thousands of kids being abused out there.”

Just some quick statistics now, and I know it’s getting a little late. Quick statistics: Over one million—these statistics are all gleaned out of Mary Pride’s book, *The Child Abuse Industry*, which I highly recommend. It is a great book. I read it this week along with several other books relating to discipline, and it’s very helpful.

Over 1 million parents were falsely accused of child abuse last year alone. 1 million. Over 1 million parents falsely accused. Okay, clear to the charge.

Now, it’s so important to remember that Mary Pride gets her statistics from the American Humane Association, which is the only association in the entire country which has credible statistics. They have that charter to provide statistics on child abuse. So she’s not making this stuff up herself. She’s going to the only source there is for valid statistics. Okay.

There are 72 million children approximately in our country, and out of that 72 million last year, 10,000 received major injury. Several thousand—maybe 2,000—had incestuous rape committed upon them. 2,000 were a result of severe neglect.

Now, 10,000 sounds like a lot of kids, but you got to remember we’re talking about a population of 72 million children. That means that one child out of every 7,200 actually had physical harm come to them last year in this state that was prosecuted by child abuse laws. I don’t know about you, but that’s a far cry from what your original perception is going into this thing.

They’re telling you there are statistics out there that says one out of four are sexually abused. Two out of five or something are physically abused by their parents. Well, there are some studies that child abuse specialists rely on, some books that define child abuse as any physical punishment inflicted on the child. And the book acknowledges that 84 to 97% of parents use that type of punishment.

So if you use their statistics and their definition—and a lot of people do—that means 85% of the population out there are child abusers. It is just ridiculous. In point of fact, one child out of 7,200 received some kind of major injury.

She also talks about, and correlated with this, missing children. I know some of the parents in our congregation have been afraid somebody might kidnap their children because they have all these stories about millions of kids being kidnapped all over the country. Right. Wrong.

Missing children. Last year, confirmed statistics show that somewhere between 67 on the low estimate and several thousand—maybe 2,000—on the high estimate were children who were victims of stranger kidnapping. Okay, did you hear that? Between 67 on the low side, several thousand would be 2 or 3,000 on the high side—that’s all the children in the entire country that were stranger kidnapped.

That means that what we’ve seen in the paper in terms of kids being—you know, all these pictures we have of kids on the milk cartons and the supermarket bags and all these things—almost none of those cases are actual children kidnappings. It is not a major epidemic. It is a very small portion of the population, infinitesimal, but related to the fact that you got 72 million kids out there.

Out of 72 million kids, perhaps as low as 67 children were all that were victims of stranger kidnapping. So rest a little bit more secure tonight about your children. They will probably not be kidnapped by anybody. The odds are incredibly low against them.

Let’s see. Last year, approximately 1,000 children died of violence inflicted by parents and/or guardians. Now, again, we’re not happy about 1,000 children dying. But look at what we’re talking about. Out of a population of 72 million kids, it means one out of 72,000 children died. That’s 0.0138%.

Okay? Now, that doesn’t mean they necessarily had to die at the hands of their parents. A lot of these cases are foster children. A lot of these cases are live-in boyfriends who will do damage to the children and kill them. So total of 1,000 children died out of 72 million.

It’s important to recognize there were 80,000 deaths altogether in that age group. Okay? Out of 80,000, 1,000 of them were a result of true child abuse. Out of children under one year of age, 870 of them died because of some sort of infection received at the hospital. So almost as many children died from an infection at the hospital as died at the hands of parents, guardians, or living boyfriends all of last year.

Okay, it begins to give you some idea of the primary focus of this thing. And yet, do we have all kinds of cries for greater protection at hospitals? No. We have these tremendous child abuse programs going on now to take control of children.

4,000 children died last year of suicide. Now, you got to remember that death classes are taught today in the public schools. It’s required curriculum in many states. The public school system isn’t coming under any great pressure from people because you have so many kids dying from suicide. Four times as many died from suicide as died at the hands of a parent, guardian, or living boyfriend.

These are just some statistics to help you get a correct understanding of this thing. I could go on, but I probably we do have to move to some sort of conclusion with all this.

The point I’m trying to make is that there is child abuse going on, but it is incredibly small in relationship to what is being taught and promulgated by the mass media, by the legislators, and by those who have vested interests in enlarging their own bureaucracy and trying to deal with child abuse.

Now, there are various elements, and I’m going to just have to go real quickly through this stuff. Now, let’s see. We don’t want to in any way come across as if we’re unconcerned about the child abuse problem in our country. We’re not. In fact, we would like to promote areas or ways of treating the problem that would actually meet the problem head-on instead of just kind of monkeying around about the edges with it.

Okay. Well, we have to recognize that those people now who have promulgated child abuse laws have done several things that are absolutely heinous and unconscionable to our present system of government.

First of all, there’s a denial of due process that occurs in child abuse cases. Okay? You’re not tried, as it were, by a jury of your peers. A jury is out of the question. You’re not charged with the crime when your children are taken from you or when CSD comes in to take away your children. There’s no trial by a jury. There’s no removal of the perpetrator. Okay? There’s no challenge of the record.

If, for instance, a child abuse worker gets a hotline call on you, and the hotline is one of the big areas, of course, that produces many of these violations of due process—if you get a hotline call against you and a worker comes to your house and investigates your child and takes them away for a while, and they finally decide that you in fact didn’t really abuse them, that clears your record, right?

Wrong. It stays under your record, and you are now a suspected child abuser.

Now, there’s a state—let’s see, I believe it’s Ohio, Kansas. In Kansas, high-risk women who are pregnant are—let’s see, it’s possible now in Kansas for the state to take custodian of the child before birth. Okay. A parent who comes in, who is a high-risk parent—and what does that mean, a high-risk parent in terms of child abuse? It means, among other things, they have no parenting skills. If the people in the hospital suspect you have no parenting skills, or if you’ve been suspected, if you’re a suspected child abuser, the state now can legally move in and take custody of that child before he’s even born.

Now, remember that if you’re charged with child abuse and then you’re cleared, you’re still on the records in most states as a suspected child abuser. So just somebody hotlining you, getting a record on you, you going into the hospital then and having your child, the state can take that child before birth away from you, take custody of it. As soon as it’s born, it’s gone to a real great loving environment. Right. Wrong. Wrong. It goes to a foster home in many cases where children are abused, killed, neglected, beaten—all kinds of bad things happen to them. They go to juvenile detention halls at times. It’s just terrible.

I can’t go into all this stuff now. I wish I could. I just wish I could, but please get that book and read it. There’s a lot of very good material in it.

Now, why am I bringing all this up this morning? I’m bringing all this up this morning because, as I said earlier, there are new child abuse regulations in the state of Oregon. These regulations were just adopted on October 1st, and they say specifically that physical abuse, child abuse, includes any injury which is the result of discipline or punishment. Among these injuries, examples of injuries which may result from physical abuse include, among other things, bruises.

So the state of Oregon says that if a child is bruised as a result of discipline, as a result of spanking, the parent is now guilty of child abuse. Okay, these are now statewide rules for all the state of Oregon, and they’re being applied statewide. They tell me—and they would—they have statewide rules, and they’re going to go after all perpetrators.

There are some other areas though in which this child abuse law is very bad also. Child abuse is a failure, whether intentional or not, to provide and maintain adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, supervision, etc. So now the case worker has to decide: is this person providing adequate shelter for this child? What’s the temperature in the house? You know, is there too much humidity? I don’t know what kind of clothing does the child wear outside. Did he die if he goes out without an umbrella. Is that child abuse in our state? Well, it’s hard to say according to these laws.

And these are laws, and the CSD people have to look at these, and they’re under obligation by the state to enforce these laws. These laws are a witch hunt—is what they open up the doors to—for them to come into any home that they don’t like and find something out of compliance. And with those sort of broad generalities in the law—you know, adequate clothing, inadequate shelter—what does that mean? It doesn’t say it has to be life-threatening at all, with no guidance. These things could produce witch hunts.

Mental injury. Mental injury is a result of cruel or unconscionable acts and/or statements made, threatened to be made, or permitted to be made by the caretaker. Statements made which could be mentally harmful to the child.

Now, this is the guidelines for CSD based upon these rules. And how are they going to decide when a person tells a child if it’s mentally harmful to them, if it’s threatening? Here’s what it says: “Threat of harm includes all action, statements, written or non-verbal messages conveying threats of physical or mental injury, expression of an intention to inflict pain, injury, evil, or punishment on the child, and an avowed present determination or intent to injure the child. The threat is of such a menace nature and/or extent as to unsettle the child’s mind.”

If you tell your child what we told you to tell them earlier, about the cursings and blessings of God’s law, you threaten them with the cursings and blessings of God’s law. Okay? And you say, “God will do this if you do this. God will do this if you do that. He’ll bring his judgment against you if you sin.” And that unsettles your child’s mind. The caseworker now has an open door to come into your family, take out the child, and you never see them again.

Now, this is happening all over the country. There’s a group called VOCAL—about parents who have been victimized by these child abuse laws. And they have 7,000 members. They’d have many more except that one of the great tactics for state systems in prosecuting supposed child abusers is to hold fear over them.

You know, I mean, this is a very fearful thing. You read Mary Pride’s book, and several emotions will go through your mind. One will be fear. It’ll be there—terror that they’ll come and take your child away. Another thing that will go through your mind is anger at finding that they’re doing this to people. So, as a result, people aren’t necessarily real brave about coming forward and crying about the damage the state is doing to them because they’re never going to get their kids back. Then it’s held as a threat over their head.

The hotline situation is absolutely deplorable. There are situations that she talks about in the book again where, if case workers can’t get a good reason based upon these broad laws to come into your home and take the child away, another case worker will tell them, “We’ll just phone in a hotline calling them a couple three times. Two or three calls from a hotline source will be adequate reason to come in and pull the child out of the home as suspected being a victim of child abuse.”

The hotlines are a terrible thing. It’s just like Russia, where the parent—where anybody on the block can turn in anybody else for any crime without any due process at all. That’s what we have in our country right now. It’s in law. It’s required by the federal government to get the funds the state needs to run all these expensive programs.

Well, as I said, I could go on and on, and I really wish I could. I probably should have done this over two Sundays again. I make that mistake, but I want to make some basic comments here now.

And by the way, Mary Pride doesn’t just criticize the system. She gives very practical examples of what we should do about child abuse. Let’s make child abuse criminal. Let’s not have some case worker go into the home of a man who has raped or beaten or broken his son’s arm or something. Let’s send a cop there and arrest the guy, get him out of the home. Let’s not send a case worker in to counsel the man.

And that counseling then produces a situation where they try to reunite the father and child, who he’s molested. That’s their aim for these counseling situations—to bring him back together again under the same roof. That’s unconscionable.

A child molester normally has 30 to 50 cases after his first molestation. He repeats that crime 30 to 50 times on children. If the biblical laws about child molesting and rape were enforced, which is the death penalty, you would save 30 to 50 kids from being molested by that individual. Multiply that times the number of true molesters we have in our country, and you have some very humane laws at work.

And if we really want to protect our children, that’s what we’ll move toward. We should abolish the hotlines. We should make child abuse actual criminal. We should get rid of the social workers, the psychological garbage that goes into their evaluation. We should send in policemen to investigate the case as we used to in this country. And then, if there’s an abuse situation, we shouldn’t give them psychological counseling. We should treat them with the biblical principle of justice.

If he’s broken a child’s arm, then his arm should be broken. Now, his arm wouldn’t be actually broken, but he would suffer punishment in correlation to the damage that he’s inflicted upon that child. Okay? Rape, sexual abuse, killing children should be punished by death, not by psychological counseling.

There are instances in the book that will just make your blood boil where people who have raped 8-year-old girls, for instance, are given two years probation, not a day in jail.

Well, in any event, she gives some very practical suggestions on what we should do. She provides a good working definition of what physical abuse actually is. So it’s not all negative stuff. It gives the positive idea: we’re concerned about child abuse. We want to end it. We don’t want people beating their children and breaking their arms and hitting them in the head. But at the same time, we want to obey God in terms of the application of the rod of punishment to their behinds.

That is for the child’s health and interest. Our state—the state that says that they love the children more than we do, and they want to protect the children—they don’t love the children. The person who wants to come into your home and take the rod of discipline out of your hand wants you to hate your child and not administer the punishment that God says is love toward them.

Those people hate God, and they’re trying to eliminate God’s direction to families through this kind of legislation. Those people hate God. And what does the scripture say about those who hate God? They love death. They don’t love children. They love death.

These people deny God’s justice. They don’t want the rod of God’s justice. It’s a symbol of God’s justice upon the offender. They don’t want to see that in the home. They’ve already taken it out of the prison system. They’ve gotten rid of restitution and God’s justice there. They’ve turned it into counseling and rehabilitation, whatever else you want to talk about.

They don’t want God’s justice manifest in the world at all. And they recognize that if it’s manifested in the family, it will eventually manifest itself in society as well. And they want to deny God’s justice because they stand as lawbreakers. Their law, which commands the parent not to use the rod through fear of bruising the child, is a direct violation of the scriptures of God, and you cannot obey that law.

That law is a direct denial of God’s authority that he has given them. They stand as being outside the justice of God and trying to overthrow it. They want to get rid of the symbol of authority that God has placed in our homes because they don’t want to exercise—they don’t want to understand that God’s authority is exercised over them as civil magistrates. They’re attempting to move out from underneath the authority of God.

And so they want us not to exhibit the authority of God in our families through the use of the rod. And finally, they want to reject Christ’s rule. Remember, we said the rod is a symbol of Christ’s rule in our families. And the rod is spoken about in the scripture of Christ’s rule over the nations. They don’t want Christ’s rule over them. And they don’t want us to exhibit Christ’s rule in all spheres of society. They don’t want us to exhibit Christ’s rule in terms of our home as well. They want to throw off the rule of Jesus Christ.

Now, if we obey this law, if we obey this law and if we let this law influence us and make us put down the rod of discipline, okay, here’s what we end up doing. We then allow our children to be harmed, because we saw that the rod and corporal punishment are necessary for the health of our children. We allow our children to be harmed.

We leave our children unholy and unrighteous. We don’t bring them into the mental health of having peace with God through justice administered unto their errant ways. If we put down the rod in obedience to the state, we deny our children wisdom, because the rod teaches wisdom along with reproof. And finally, we expose our children to physical danger if we put down the rod. The rod protects them, restrains them from running out in front of the car.

And we deny that. We teach our children, if we put down that rod, that we don’t love them. We remind them that they’re not actually children of ours if we put down the rod. Those are the implications if you obey this law or if you allow this law to coerce you or threaten you into putting down the rod of discipline.

If we put down the rod of discipline, we remove the symbol of God’s justice, God’s authority, and Christ’s rule from our families. And that’s exactly—now, Mary Pride says that she saw some real economic reasons in it. I’m sure there are. But I am convinced the scriptures tell us we battle not against flesh. We battle against principalities and powers.

And I’m sure that those principalities and powers—that’s exactly what they want. They want the symbol of Christ’s authority, of Christ’s rule over the nations, and of God’s justice removed and kicked out the back door of the house. They want it out of the house. And they’re not going to get it.

The scriptures say that the nation that puts itself up against Christ like that and seeks to overthrow his authority—what does it say when we read from Psalm 2? He crushes them with the rod of iron. They come under the chastisement of Jesus Christ.

And we have nothing to fear as we trust in God, and we have to obey God. I’ve gone real long, and I appreciate your patience. But I want to make it real clear as to what we’re saying this morning.

We’re saying we want to obey the state. We want to do something about child abuse. We believe that it’s only when the state causes us to disobey God’s command that we are forced to disobey the state. And we’re saying that in this specific matter, with this specific rules and laws the state have given us, we must obey God rather than men.

We must not allow them to coerce us into putting down the rod of discipline that Christ has instructed us is for our children’s health, for our children’s benefit, for our children’s sanctification, for our children’s understanding of their acceptance of Jesus Christ, and to demonstrate to them the authority of God and his justice in our household and indeed in our nation.

We can’t put that down.

Now, on the other hand, I don’t want you to leave here without a question. What I’m saying is you’re under compulsion now to walk in obedience to those commandments and reminding of your obligation to apply the rod of discipline to your children, recognizing it’s one tool among many, recognizing it’s not to be overdone, but recognizing also that it will probably occasionally leave bruises on their behinds, and you’ll be guilty of violating this law.

But I’m telling you that if you do that, and if CSD calls you or anybody calls you about it, you contact me, and the whole church will come to your defense. You’re under the covering of the church in this area. You’re not under obligation to obey that law. You’re under obligation to obey the law of God, which says to apply the rod of discipline to your child’s behind when it’s appropriate.

I don’t want you to be fearful about that.

My wife pointed out last night a great verse out of 2 Kings 6. I’ll close at this. “And he said, ‘Go and spy where he is that I may send and fetch him.’ And it was told him, saying, ‘Behold, he is in Dothan.’ Therefore sent he hither horses and chariots and a great host. And they came by night and compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth, behold, a host compassed the city both with horses and chariots.

“And a servant said unto him, ‘Alas, my master, how shall we do?’ And he answered, ‘Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.’ Should sound familiar to us, shouldn’t it? Elisha prayed and said, ‘Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see.’ And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

“And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the Lord, and said, ‘Smite this people, I pray you with blindness.’ And God then goes on to deliver his people.”

Several weeks ago, we read the same sort of verse. “Greater is he that is with you than he that is with the enemy camped outside the door.” King Hezekiah had peace in the midst of being put upon by his enemies because he was in covenant relationship to God, and he recognized God’s charge over him.

Here we have Elisha opening the eyes—praying that the eyes of the servant would be opened and he would see the messengers of God’s justice and God’s protection all encompassed about him and Elisha. That’s the kind of protection we have with God.

When we look at the ungodly state action that we’re talking about this morning and the ramifications for our family, we shouldn’t be fearful. We shouldn’t let our heart shake. We should be in right relationship to God the way that King Hezekiah was in covenant relationship, and understanding our covenant position with Christ. And we should recognize that God has pledged himself to our protection. And he encompasses about with a host of angels ready to put his vengeance upon those who would come against his people.

We should stand firm this morning, knowing that we have to obey God rather than men and knowing that if we do that, God will reward us for it. And he’ll reward our children as we raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and not the fear and evilness that the state would try to seek to put about in our lives today.

Let’s pray. Almighty God, we thank you for yourself. We thank you for this day, Lord God. And we thank you for calling us together in holy convocation to hear from your scriptures. We thank you, Father, for reminding us of the necessity of disciplining our children and that one of those methods is corporal punishment. And we thank you, Lord God, that you have strengthened our hand to do your will in spite of being put upon by the state.

Father God, we pray that the state would quickly overturn this ruling and that they would rise together as one voice, the church of Jesus Christ in Oregon, to contend with the state over this and to instruct them that they have erred grievously. Help us, Lord God, to do that wisely and not to do it in a bad fashion, but help us to really proclaim forth the necessity of our obedience to your scriptures and to obey your scriptures when they’re in conflict with the laws of the land.

Help us, Father, though, in all other areas to be good, law-abiding citizens, anxious to convert the state to make it once again a ministry of your justice and peace—that would bring wrath upon the evildoers and not trouble upon the righteous.

We thank you, Father, for assuring our hearts that we have peace with you through Jesus Christ our Lord. In his name we pray. Amen.

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