Problems That We As Parents Are Facing In This Modern Day.
Sunday June 18, 2000 A.M.
We take our text this morning from Ephesians 5:14-33
14 Therefore He says:
“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”
Now we see here that Paul is trying to tell us to wake up and realize what the condition of the world is and not just set there and let evil take over!
15 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise,
Here Paul is telling us to not only wake up but stay awake, because there are people out there that would like nothing better than to see you fail!
16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
We need to be not only wise in our thinking but in our doing also, we need to stay one up on Satan!
The way to stay one up on satan is to pray without ceasing.
17 Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Understand what the Will of the Lord is, to understand the Will takes a lot of bible study and prayer.
A constant communion with God.
We need to pray to really find the Will of God and then ask for the Holy Spirit to help us to understand the Will of God!
18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,
What Paul is talking about here is not to get drunk on wine of liquor or whatever because getting drunk with that kind of thing only gives you a temporary high or a buzz as they call it today.
What we need to be getting drunk on is the Spirit of God because the high that we get from that kind of drunkenness will give you a high or a buzz that will last you for the rest of your days here on earth!
If you will submit yourself daily to the teachings of the Word you will find a high, like you have never had before!
19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,
With this high that you are on you will want to praise God all the day long!
20 giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
I know that a lot of the time it may be hard to feel up and give thanks to God, but we are not thanking God for our problems.
We are thanking God for the strength that He gives us to make it through our problems!
21 submitting to one another in the fear of God.
Now a lot of the time this scripture is taken out of text.
We are not to become doormats for people to step on.
That is not the meaning of this scripture.
It simply means that we are to submit to the Will of God.
And do like it says in Matthew 5:48
48 “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Submitting to the Will of God and staying in His Will is to be our mission.
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
Here is another scripture that is often misinterpreted.
This scripture simply means that husband and wife are to be as one and see things in one accord.
23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.
Here we find another scripture that is misquoted.
This is not a go ahead for men to treat their wives like a nothing.
She is not to be used and treated like a slave.
The husband is supposed to be a man and take care of his wife and children and to love them and nurture them, just like the wife is instructed in the previous verse.
24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
With the same kind of love that the church gives Christ so let the wives give there husbands also.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,
Now this is a big one, Husbands Love your wives just like Christ loved the church and gave Himself for!
I have seen a lot of men who are big wigs in the church in front of the church people and then they go home and treat their wives worse than some treat their dogs.
I feel like those type of men will have a lot to answer for when they are called home.
26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,
Are you men out there willing to sacrifice everything for your wife?
You see what sanctify means.
Jesus Christ gave everything that He had for you and I, we are the church.
Do you know that if you give your wife the same kind of love and care that Christ gave the church, she will not have a bit of problem submitting to you.
27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.
29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.
30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.
31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
33 Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Now we are not going to stop there, let’s go to,
Ephesians 6:1-4
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Children this is the word of God to obey your parents.
2 “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise:
Children you are to honor your Parents.
Parents you need to be living a life in front of your children that gives them something to honor!
3 “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
That you will see something in your Parents that you will want to honor for all of your lives!
4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
Fathers you are not to provoke your children to wrath.
Don’t come into the home off of an all night drunk and slap them up side the head and then expect them to look up to you and honor you for the rest of their lives.
It is just not going to happen!
There are many problems today that we face as parents.
One of the main problems is that the role that satan plays in our everyday lives!
We also have a greater problem, one of how to raise up our children!
Let’s look at what the scripture has to say about it.
Let’s turn to Proverbs 22:6
6 Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.
Now I don’t think that we can do that and that be the end to it.
We have to step back a little bit and look at our own lives and see what we can do to help that situation.
Do you realize this morning that from the day that your child is born they begin to look at there parents as role models?
We are all that they know, we are what they learn to depend on for their very being!
We are what they look to in a time of need.
We are what they look to for their very existence in life.
We are there everything!
It is impossible to raise a child in a Christ less home and hope for anything but the worst to happen!
Children today watch their parents more that you can even know!
You cannot lie to your children and expect them not to lie to you!
What did I say a couple of weeks ago?
You reap what you sow!
You can not smoke in your home and tell your children that they shouldn’t, or it is bad for them!
That’s living a lie right in front of them!
You can not drink in front of your children and tell them that it is wrong for them to do it!
That’s living another lie in front of them!
You are the only role model that your child has to look up to!
Or at least I hope that you are the only role model that you want your children to have!
The way you bring your children up is important.
You must remember that the children of today will be the leaders of tomorrow.
In a few years others of you will marry and have children, so the problem is going to affect you.
I want to help you if I can.
America’s wealth is not in her fine buildings, her fertile fields, her huge factories, or great cities.
Her wealth is in her boys and girls.
As they go, so shall go the country.
These children have been given you by the Lord to bring up in the right way.
Your biggest job is to be the right kind of parents and give them the right start in life.
Your task as a parent did not begin on the day your child was born, but years before.
A group of women were talking about the time to begin training a child.
One said, When he is six years old."
Another said, "When he is one year old."
Another said, "The day he is born."
One who was an older and wiser mother said, "You should begin twenty years before the child is born to give him the right kind of parents.
So I address this message to those who are already parents and to those who will some day become parents.
I want to tell you a true story that I read the other day about
a man who was visiting a large farm.
His host showed him the fields and told him what he had planted there, the process he had used, the kind of fertilizer he had used.
He then took him into his tool shed and showed him that he was well acquainted with every piece of machinery.
He then showed him his cattle and hogs.
He could give the pedigree of all of his animals-how old they were, how long he had had them, how much they were worth.
He knew something about everything on his farm.
After having supper they sat out on the front porch.
Suddenly a car drove up and the driver blew his horn.
The farmers daughter then ran out of the house and got in the car and they drove away.
The Man said, "Who is that young fellow?"
The farmer replied, "Oh, that’s just some young fellow taking Mary out."
"What kind of a man is he?"
Asked the other man.
"I don’t know," replied the farmer, "she goes out somewhere with somebody every night."
The farmer knew all about his farm, his cattle, his machinery, but he knew nothing about his daughter’s associates or their associates.
Yet she was worth more than the farm and all on it.
But more important than that she was becoming a lost soul.
She was not being taught the ways of the Lord by her father.
I am afraid this is true about most parents.
They know about their business interests, their automobiles, their jobs, but very little about their dearest possessions, their children.
If they go to church, that is all right; if they don’t go, that is all right.
If they do well or not, that is all right.
If they study or not, that is all right.
If they go to bed early or late, that is all right.
If they live a Christian life or not, that is all right.
Oh, parents, I am pleading with you to give more time and thought and prayer to your children.
But you can’t do this if your own life is crowded with worldly things, and God and the church are left out.
Now, let’s think of some practical things that you can do for your children.
PARENTS CAN SEE THAT
THEIR CHILDREN ARE WELL BORN
Someone has said that a new universe is created when a child is born.
How true!
So before the children are born, parents should prepare themselves.
This means preparation physically.
The Bible tells us that the sins of the fathers and mothers are visited unto the third and fourth generations.
Parents, then, should be careful about how they use their bodies.
You can sin now but it will pay off in the lives of your children.
The superintendent of an academy for the blind in one of our southern states, in making his annual report, stated.
"One out of every three blind children here is blind because of the sin of his or her father or mother."
God’s truth still holds, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
Many parents sin and get away with it, but later reap the harvest in the lives of their children.
It pays to live a good, clean Christian life, for it helps to give the child a good start in life.
This means preparation mentally.
If you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher, you prepare for it.
If you want to be a good parent, you prepare for it.
You won’t always find the best advice on child rearing in the modern books on child psychology, though some may help.
But the Bible can help you, and prayer and a close relationship with God is the most important thing in your life.
A good Christian doctor is good to have also.
This means preparation spiritually.
When a baby is born the parents should say, "We’ll work harder now; we have a bigger responsibility, and surely we must live better."
If there ever was a time for a man and woman to rededicate their lives to God, it is when a baby is born into the home.
Hannah prayed for God to give her a son.
She promised Him if He would do that, she would give him over to God’s service.
God heard that prayer.
Samuel was born, and his mother did give him to God.
Samuel became one of the greatest men in the Bible, largely because of a Godly mother and the touch of God on him before he was born.
A pastor had a couple in his church and they were expecting their first baby.
He went to that home, they all knelt down, and He prayed that whether the child was a boy or girl, it should live for the Lord.
The parents said, "That’s exactly what we want."
And God gave them a beautiful baby girl who grew up to bless their hearts.
THE PARENTS CAN SEE THAT THE CHILDREN ARE BORN INTO THE RIGHT KIND OF HOME
It should be a home where they are welcome
They do not come into the world of their own accord, they have nothing to do with it.
Surely they ought to be welcome.
Some parents say, "We don’t want any children."
In their selfishness they miss one of the greatest joys of life.
Others want children and cannot have them.
Either they ought to adopt a baby and give it a good home, or they ought to get involved in some church organization and help the children there.
It is God’s plan, where it is physically possible, for a couple to have children.
In the Bible we hear several childless women crying out, "Oh, God, give me children and take away my reproach among women."
Children should always be welcomed into the home.
It should be a home where the surroundings are pleasant.
God pity the child who is born into a quarrelsome, nagging home.
The home may be poor, but if love is there, it makes all the difference in the world.
A teen-aged boy said to me, "I’ll be glad when I get a little older, so I can get away from my parents, all they do is fight.
A teen-aged girl said to me, "I know I have been pretty wild, but if my parents had provided a home where I could entertain my friends, I would not have done the things I have done."
We owe our children a pleasant home.
It should be a Christian home.
When a new-born is laid in the bed by its mother’s side, she should say, "I am surely going to be a Christian mother.
I am grateful to God for giving me this precious baby."
And when the daddy holds the baby in his arms for the first time, he should say, "My child is going to have a Christian father."
It is sad when a child grows up in a home and finds out that the best people around his home are Christian people, and his parents are not.
Surely you want your children to say some day, "My daddy was the best man in the world," or "My mother was the finest Christian I ever knew."
PARENTS CAN SEE THAT THEIR CHILDREN
ARE GIVEN THE PROPER HOME TRAINING
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs. 22:6).
You can’t get away from that truth.
You may say, "I know some who were brought up in a Christian home and a church and they went far wrong."
So do I, but if you’ll look a little closer you’ll probably see that there was something else wrong.
I know parents who are godly and faithful Christians, but their children went astray because they were pampered and never disciplined.
"Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth."
If you love your children you will chasten them for their own good.
A woman came to me and said, "I can’t understand my daughter.
I tried to bring her up in the right way."
But I knew something else.
That mother hardly ever went to church and never to prayer meeting on Wednesday night.
She gave practically nothing to the church, and the Bible was never read nor prayer offered in the home.
What could that mother expect?
Parents can never say they have done their best if those things are not included.
Richard Cecil was a great man and a great Christian.
He said that in his youth he tried to be an infidel.
He said he could overcome all the arguments except one, and that was his mother’s Christian life.
No, the children can never forget that.
Here is a strange thing today.
Parents have more time- saving devices than ever but less time to give to their children, less time to pray, to read God’s Word, to worship God.
I am thinking of a certain home.
In the family there are a father, mother, and a little girl.
The father makes enough money to care for them all in a good way.
But they are not satisfied, so the wife works so that they can have more money to spend.
What about the little girl?
Each morning she is carried to a neighbor where she stays all day, going home at nightfall.
Now the extra money may’ be important, but I think the little girl is more so.
The mother ought to be at home to give the little girl a mother’s care and to teach and train her in the right way.
I could multiply this case by the hundreds.
I know it is necessary in some cases for mothers to work, but not in the majority, of situations.
The children are left to grow up lacking the home training they ought to have.
Proper home training includes discipline.
"The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.
Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea; he shall delight unto thy soul" (Proverbs. 29:15-17).
Why do children misbehave in church and school?
Because they are not disciplined at home.
By discipline I do not mean cruelty, but loving correction.
Of course the children will not like the discipline now, but one day they will thank God for it.
The Bible tells us that no punishment is pleasant now but afterward it brings the fruits of righteousness.
Go to our prisons today.
You see young people there.
Why?
Because many were not disciplined in the home.
They became disobedient to their parents, and this led to disobedience to the law and to imprisonment.
Proper home training also includes teaching the rugged principles of life:
Honesty.
Lincoln walked three miles to restore six cents to a customer with whom he had made a mistake.
Do we have honesty like that today?
Unselfishness.
Teach your children to share with others.
Let them learn that others come first.
Politeness.
It seems that this is a lost art in many homes today.
Hard work.
A young man in the penitentiary said, "This is the first work these hands have ever done."
No wonder he landed in prison.
Hard study
Because you want them to be fitted for life.
An aim in life.
Have them set a goal, not just drift along.
Purity.
This means sexual and all other kinds.
It is easier to bawl out your children for doing wrong than to teach them what is right.
But if you don’t teach them the right things to do, it will be your fault if they do wrong.
A good rule to follow is to condemn a little less and commend a little more.
Look at the relationship between God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
At His baptism the Father said, "My Son, you are doing rightly’ and I am pleased."
On the Mount of Transfiguration, He said, "My Boy, I am pleased with Your life."
We ought to do more commending where and when it is deserved.
PARENTS CAN SEE THAT THEIR
CHILDREN ARE GIVEN A GOOD EDUCATION
A high-school graduate has an 87 percent better chance of succeeding in life than a grammar-school graduate.
If at all possible try to put your children in a good Christian school.
PARENTS CAN SET THE RIGHT
EXAMPLE BEFORE THEIR CHILDREN
A smart fish noticed that crabs always walked sideways and backwards.
So he opened a school to teach them to walk straight.
Every Monday he gave them an hour of intensive training, and when they went back home they would be walking straight.
But the next Monday when they came back to school, they were walking as crooked as ever.
The fish who was the teacher confided in an older and wiser fish, who said.
You teach them for an hour every’ week and they begin to walk straight, but they go home and see their parents walking crooked.
Your hour of teaching cannot outweigh a week of bad example.
We have your children for a little while on Sunday and teach them the best we can.
But if they see you living the wrong life in the home, you undo the good work of Sunday and then walk in the wrong way.
A Georgia preacher stopped over in a small town to change trains.
He had a few minutes to wait so he walked down the street.
He saw a boy in a yard and said to him.
"Do you ever go to church and Sunday school?"
The boy replied that he did not.
"Does your father or mother or sister ever go?"
And the boy replied, "No."
The preacher went up to the porch and asked the father and mother if they ever felt that they should go to church.
The father answered, "No, there are too many hypocrites in the church!"
A few years went by and the same preacher was called to be the pastor of the church in that town.
One day he received a request to go to a certain home where they were in trouble.
To his surprise it was the same home he had stopped at years before.
He learned that the boy had grown up, had become a criminal, and was to die in the electric chair the next day.
The daughter had committed suicide in shame the week before.
The mother had lost her mind and kept on crying out, "Church, church, church."
You may not be a bad sinner, but if you leave God out of your home, if you don’t set the right Christian example for your children, you will pay the price some day.
A child follows the example of his parents.
If the parents are worldly, if they neglect the church and their Christian duties, if they criticize the preacher and the church members, the children are likely’ to grow up the same way.
If you live a godly life with the church at its center and do the best you can your children are most likely to grow up to bring joy into your lives.
I read about a little girl that went to school
"tipsy" and with liquor on her breath.
Usually she was very quiet, but as she entered the schoolroom she said, "Hi," to the teacher and began to talk loudly.
The teacher took her home and told the child’s mother what had happened.
The mother laughed heartily.
The child had been sick and was told to go to the bathroom and take a dose of cough medicine.
But she took down the wrong bottle, a bottle that contained whiskey, drank from it, and went to school drunk.
If the parents had been what they should have been, there would have been no whiskey in the house.
THE PARENTS CAN PRAY FOR THE CHILDREN
If you ever needed to pray for your children, it is now.
The whole world is against you, trying to drag your children down.
You need God to help you.
A young woman came to J. Wilbur Chapman and said, Mother and I are going to pray all night for my brother."
He had not been to the services.
They prayed until 3:00 in the morning, when the mother said, "That is enough, I believe God has heard our prayers."
The next night the boy was in church and he came forward and confessed Christ as his Savior.
He told Dr. Chapman that he was unable to sleep and that at 3:00 in the morning he had given his heart to Christ.
That was the hour his mother felt that God had saved him.
A pastor in Chicago visited a certain home and told the maid that he wanted to see the lady of the house.
The maid asked him if anyone was sick or hurt and he said,
"No, I’m just paying her a pastoral call."
The maid said, "She is upstairs but she prays from 9:00 to 10:00 each morning, so you’ll have to wait until 10:00 to see her."
He waited for her until 10:00 and when she came downstairs, the light of heaven was shining on her face.
"Pastor," she said, "I am sorry I kept you waiting, but I pray an hour each morning for my three children.
The daughter became a missionary and the two sons became preachers.
No wonder.
Parents, I know you are busy these days, but don’t be too busy to pray for your children.
God knows your hearts; He knows your problems.
He’ll answer your prayers; He’ll help you.
I warn you not to wait until your children are grown up before you start praying for them, start before they are born.
And don’t leave it all up to God.
Live rightly yourself and pray that God will help you out.
In many revivals I have seen mothers who lived worldly and prayer less lives.
Then suddenly they woke up.
"Pray for my boy who is eighteen," they would say.
"Pray for my girl who is twenty and out in the world, I would like to see her saved and living a good Christian life."
I promise to pray for them, but I feel like shouting, "Oh, dear mother, why not live for Christ and set the right example and pray for them yourself?
Why not take a spiritual interest in their lives when they are young and in a plastic state?"
VII. PARENTS SHOULD BRING THEIR CHILDREN TO CHRIST
In a beautiful scene we see mothers bringing their children to Jesus to receive His blessing.
Every mother ought to bring her children to Jesus to be saved.
Joseph was the head-person in Egypt.
His brothers came down to Egypt to buy grain, but he did not make himself known to them.
When they left Joseph commanded that the young brother, Benjamin, be left in Egypt as a hostage.
Judah came up before Joseph and said, "Benjamin is our father’s youngest son.
He loves him, so how shall I go up before my
father if the lad be not with me?"
Oh, in that last day, as we meet God, how can we go up in peace if we can’t take our children with us?
A man tells of visiting an insane asylum.
He heard a woman inside crying out, "We let her slip, we let her slip."
He then heard the story’ behind this cry.
The woman came from a wealthy home, but a home where there was no religion.
The girl went to a revival and was greatly stirred.
She wanted to accept Christ and join the church.
The preacher visited the home and said to the mother, "Your daughter is interested now; we mustn’t let her slip."
But the mother took the girl away from the meeting and took her to parties and movies and other places.
A few months later the girl went down into sin and disgrace and died without Christ.
The poor mother lost her mind and kept crying out, "We let her slip, we let her slip."
Parents, be careful, the lives and destinies of your children are in your hands.
Don’t let them slip.
All that I have said can be summed up in this way:
If you parents will live faithfully for Christ and in His church, if you will set the right example and teach and train them in the right way, if you pray for them and teach them the Word of God, if you give them a good home, if you love them and lead them to Christ, most of your problems will be solved.
A worldly college girl found Christ as her Savior and went home happily at Christmastime.
Her parents were very worldly and expected her to do the things and go to the places she had done and gone before.
But she said, "I have found One I love better than these things."
They said, "We will give you twenty-four hours to think it over.
If you insist on going on in your new way, you must leave our home."
She packed her bags and got ready to leave, then she went over to the piano and played and sang, "Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken, All to leave and Follow Thee
"Her parents broke into tears and said, "We understand now, we will go with you and follow Jesus, too.
Oh, that we could get all of our parents and children to make that decision.
Their lives would be sweeter and better and happier and more useful.
Together we would climb the heights that lead at last to the heavenly home.
