Voddie Baucham says it like it is and he isn't afraid of not being politically correct. I love preachers like him who don't make me comfortable but exhort, rebuke and challenge me to grow in the wisdom and the knowledge of the Lord. He preached a sermon on the Centrality of the Family and I'm going to discuss some of the points he made. EVERYONE should listen to this HERE! I am going to summarize parts of this sermon and this one concerning the family.
We are losing a generation and we are losing that generation rapidly. For instance, depending on where you look, we are losing somewhere between 75 and 88% of our young people by the end of their freshman year in college {They are leaving their faith.}...In our culture, in America for the first time, our birth rate is below replacement rate. Replacement rate is 2.1 children per family. We are at 1.9. Now, in case you don't understand what that means, what that means is we are not having enough children for our culture to continue to survive. Our culture is dying one generation at a time. {In regards to numbers and faith.}
Why? Because they want prosperity more than they want children. And it is the same for us. We despise children in our culture...You don't believe me? Find a woman with six or seven kids and follow her into a church and watch the way we mock her. Watch the way people who don't even know her come up to her and say, "Haven't you guys figured out how that happens yet?
Now, let me make it plain and bring it home. Christianity in America is dying one generation at a time, one home at a time...It starts with us. And it all goes back to prosperity. The poorest nations in the world see children as a blessing. The richest nation in the world, we talk about children in terms of how many we can afford. God help us. We are dying one generation at a time because we refuse to receive the gift that God wants to bring through the womb. Stop buying the lies of society! Marriage is WAY more important than education. We need kingdom marriages who are raising an army for the Lord.
We need to discipline our children in the Lord. If I tell my child to do something and they don't do it, they've disobeyed. I was training my children to sin. When they don't do something when I say it by saying it more than once, counting, yelling, or they obey with a bad attitude, I am training my children to sin. NO sin is acceptable. {You are either training your child to be obedient or disobedient.}
Read Proverbs. Spank their behind. "Yeah, well I just don't believe in spanking." Then you don't believe the Bible. The Bible teaches it. Dr. Jesus does. "Folly and rebellion are bound in the heart of a child and time out will drive it out from him." No! "...the rod of correction will drive it out from him." This is the ONLY instrument God gives us to drive out the folly and rebellion of children.
If your baby gets bit by a snake, you take it to the ER. The doctor has a long needle of anti-venom. "No, that will hurt my baby!' "Ma'am, if I don't stick this needle into your baby, your baby will die." The Bible says our children have a disease and there's one anti-venom. If you don't give them the anti-venom, then you're saying you're okay with the disease.
John MacArthur's teaching on the rod in his study bible, "Early childhood teaching requires both parental discipline, including corporal punishment and balanced kindness and love. There is great hope that the use of the 'divine ordinance' of the rod will produce godly virtue and parental joy. Such discipline must have the right motivation {Hebrews 12:5-11} and appropriate severity {Ephesians 6:4}. One who has genuine affection for his child, but withholds corporal punishment, will produce the same kind of child as a parent who hates his offspring."
John MacArthur's teaching on the rod in his study bible, "Early childhood teaching requires both parental discipline, including corporal punishment and balanced kindness and love. There is great hope that the use of the 'divine ordinance' of the rod will produce godly virtue and parental joy. Such discipline must have the right motivation {Hebrews 12:5-11} and appropriate severity {Ephesians 6:4}. One who has genuine affection for his child, but withholds corporal punishment, will produce the same kind of child as a parent who hates his offspring."
He that spares his rod hates his son:
but he that loves him chastens him.
Proverbs 13:24
Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child;
but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
Proverbs 23:13
Withhold not correction from the child:
for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
Proverbs 23:14
Thou shalt beat him with the rod,
and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
Proverbs 29:15
The rod and reproof give wisdom:
but a child left to himself brings his mother to shame.
Proverbs 29:15
