Deo Gloria
Sermon for August 15, 2021
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Proverbs 3:11-12; 13:24
Theme: Wisdom for All Time
Lesson: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child!
Back in the 1950s a psychologist and a psychiatrist set out to prove a point: that crime is caused by environment. So they began a 17-year study involving countless hours of clinical testing on 250 inmates in Washington D.C. To their astonishment, they discovered that the cause of crime could not be traced to environment, poverty or oppression. Rather crime is the result of people making, as they put it, wrong moral choices. In their 1977 work The Criminal Personality, they concluded that the answer to crime is a “conversion of the wrong-doer to a more responsible lifestyle.”
In 1987 two Harvard professors came to similar conclusions in their book Crime and Human Nature. They determined that the cause of crime can be traced to a lack of proper moral training among young people during their formative years, particularly ages 1 to 6.
It’s interesting, of course, that these two pairs of researchers independently came to the same conclusion, but it shouldn’t be surprising. In fact, these men could have saved themselves hundreds of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars if they only would have opened their Bibles.
God’s Word clearly teaches that people are born sinful. (We call that inherited sin or original sin.) But the Bible also stresses how important it is for parents to train their children. Here are a couple examples from the book of Proverbs: “Discipline your son, for in that there is hope”(19:18). “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him”(22:15).
Did you catch the word that is used in both of those passages? “Discipline.” Discipline usually has a negative connotation. We tend to associate discipline with pain and punishment. And so most of us would agree that being disciplined isn’t much fun. The Bible says the same. In the book of Hebrews it says, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful”(12:11). However it goes on to say that it produces some long-term benefits. Discipline “produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” No, we may not enjoy it. We may not ever look forward to discipline. But with God’s help we can learn to appreciate it. For as Solomon warns us in the book of Proverbs, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”
It would be easy, of course, to make this entire sermon about Christian parenting, and there certainly wouldn’t be anything wrong with that. But before we get to the issue of parenting, before we talk about how parents should (or should not) discipline their children, we need to understand what discipline is and how it is used in Proverbs.
The word appears already in the opening verses of this book. There Solomon explains that the proverbs are written “for attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight; for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life”(1:2+3). Proverbs is more than a how-to manual for moms and dads. It’s a book of wisdom for all believers. It has something for everyone, for young and old, for parents and children, for you and me. Even if you are single, even if you don’t have any children, you still can benefit from today’s lesson because God uses the parent/child relationship to describe his personal relationship with you.
Solomon writes: “My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” Can there be any doubt that God loves you? If you do have any doubts, all you have to do is look at the cross, where Jesus, the Son of God, suffered and died for your sins and the sins of the world. As the Bible says, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”(John 3:16). Can you imagine the family of Aniya Allen, that 6-year-old girl from Minneapolis who was shot back in May while eating McDonalds in the back seat of a car, having another one of their children or relatives sent to prison so that her shooter might be set free? I can’t. Or can you imagine President Biden allowing his son to go to prison so someone like Joaquin Guzman, the notorious Mexican drug lord, might be set free? I can’t. And yet, that is what God has done for us. He loved us so much that he gave up his Son for us, to suffer and die for our sins, so that we might not perish but might live forever with him in heaven.
And yet, that isn’t all he has done. God demonstrates his love for you in many other ways as well. He provides for you. He protects you. He gives you food to eat and clothes to wear and cars to drive and campers to go camping and TVs to watch.
And just in case that isn’t enough to convince you that you are a dearly loved child of God, Solomon adds one more piece of evidence to the list. God shows his love for you every time he disciplines you. You heard me correctly. Discipline is evidence of God’s love for you. If that doesn’t sound right, then perhaps an illustration would help.
As many of you know, I grew up on a farm in southern Minnesota. One time when I was 5 or 6 years old (old enough to know better), I played with matches in the pig barn. You see, I had found a book of matches in grandpa’s car. And one night when I was supposed to be doing my chores, I took out the book of matches and began to play with them. I lit them one at time and used them to burn the ends of the stalks that were sticking out of the straw bales. Well, the next day my dad found the burnt match sticks and saw the burnt ends of straw in the pig barn and he came to question my brothers and me. When he found out what I had done, he walloped me a good one, hard enough that I ended up on the ground. His face was red. His voice was raised. And he made it clear in no uncertain terms: YOU DO NOT PLAY WITH MATCHES EVER, ESPECIALLY IN THE PIG BARN!!!
Now if I didn’t get hurt and nothing else bad happened, why did my father rebuke me so severely? Because he loved me. I could easily have burned down the pig barn. I could easily have killed our pigs. And worst of all I could easily have killed myself. He wanted to put the fear of God in me so that I would never want to do such a foolish and dangerous thing again.
God, our heavenly Father, loves us the same way. Actually, he loves us even more than our earthly parents; but just like children sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we make bad decisions. Sometimes we ignore what God says because we think we know better. Sometimes we disobey God’s commands and we sin against him. So what does God do when we sin? When we disobey him and place ourselves in spiritual danger, what does our heavenly Father do? Does he just ignore it? No, he loves us too much to do that. Instead, in love he disciplines us.
Let’s be clear about one thing, though: God does not punish us for our sins. If he did, if God did punish us for our sins, we would end up in hell, because that’s the punishment our sins deserve. But because of his great love for us, God chose to punish his Son instead. God punished Jesus for our sinful words and actions. God punished Jesus for our stubborn refusal to listen to him and his Word. God punished Jesus for our rebellion and disobedience. God punished Jesus for our sins, so that we might be spared, so that we might be forgiven.
And yet, because he loves us, God does discipline us at times. He allows trouble to come into our lives. He allows us to experience headaches and heartaches, because he doesn’t want to lose us forever. Instead of letting us go our own way, God disciplines us to lead us to repentance, to turn away from our sins and back to him.
The word “discipline” is closely related to another English word, “disciple.” That is what we are, isn’t it? We are disciples of Jesus, students who are constantly learning more about God and his ways. As we experience the Lord’s discipline in our lives, we do learn more about God. We learn to know him as a righteous God. We learn to appreciate that he is a forgiving God. We learn to trust that his way is the best way. And yes, we even learn to appreciate his discipline.
So far we’ve been talking about discipline from the perspective of the one being disciplined. Many of us, however, especially those of us who are parents, know what it’s like to be on the other side. Disciplining children is by no means easy, but it is important. In fact, it’s so important that Solomon had this to say about it in Proverbs, ch. 13: “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him”(v. 24). The wisdom of Solomon certainly goes against the conventional wisdom of today. Corporal punishment isn’t just considered old-fashioned anymore. There are those who want to make a crime. In fact, some states have even considered legislation to make it illegal for parents to spank their own children.
Now before we take sides on this issue, before we decide that the government is overstepping its bounds or that corporal punishment is just another name for child abuse, we need to take a step back and review again what God’s Word says to Christian parents.
Our Lord directs parents to take care of their children, to protect them, and to provide for their physical needs. God also commands parents to provide for their children’s spiritual needs, to bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. God tells parents what to do, but he doesn’t tell them specifically how to do it. The Bible lays down the principles, but it doesn’t get into the specific details. And so parenting styles, even among Christians, can differ. One couple may choose not to use a belt or bare hand in disciplining their children. That doesn’t mean they hate their kids. In another family spanking may be considered an acceptable form of discipline. That doesn’t mean those parents hate their kids either.
This verse from Proverbs is sometimes cited to defend corporal punishment. That’s not an abuse of Solomon’s words, but it does miss the main point. Solomon isn’t arguing that you really don’t love your children unless you use a rod to discipline them. He is stressing the importance of discipline. So if you’re not in favor of using the rod or any other form of corporal punishment, fine. That’s not the issue. The issue is: What are you going to do to discipline your children? What are you going to do, for example, when you tell them “No,” and they do it anyway? What are you going to do when you tell them they can’t have ice cream before supper and they throw a fit? What are you going to do when you tell them to clean up their room and they say, “I don’t wanna”? In many cases that’s precisely the problem. Instead of disciplining their children for their disobedience or their defiance, parents give in and do nothing.
What Solomon is saying to parents is this: “If you love your children, you won’t let them say whatever they want. If you love your children, you won’t let them do whatever they want. If you love your children, there will be rules. And if they disobey those rules, there will be consequences.”
More often than not that makes you rather unpopular as a parent. There will be times when your children don’t like you one bit because you grounded them or took away their cell phone or said they couldn’t watch TV. There will be days when you feel worn out and your patience wears thin, but with God’s help you can stand your ground. With his help you won’t give up on your kids, and you won’t give in to them either, because you love them. And someday, maybe 20 or 30 years from now when they have kids of their own—someday they’ll appreciate what you did.
“You can’t take it with you.” I’m sure you’ve heard that saying, and it’s true when it comes to things of this life. You can’t take your car with you when you die. You can’t take your fishing boat or your motorcycle. You can’t take your iPad or your cell phone. You can’t take anything to heaven…except your children.
Christian parents train their children in the way they should go so that when they are old they will not turn from it.(Proverbs 22:6) Christian parents teach their children the truths of God’s Word so that they will look to Jesus and trust in him as their Savior. Christian parents do the difficult job of disciplining their children because more than anything else in the world they want to see their children in heaven. That’s why Christian parents pay extra close attention to Solomon’s words of wisdom on discipline: Spare the rod and spoil the child! Amen.