I want to continue thinking about parenting; Paul reminds us that evil men will be at work in the last days.

‘Deceiving and being deceived’ the arch deceiver would want to deceive our children. Where did Timothy find the remedy?

‘From a child he had known the scriptures’. Where did he learn the scriptures?

From his Granny and his mum, in the home that is my next point.

It’s not the Sunday school, not even the church, but the home that has the greatest influence. It can prepare children as they enter this deceitful world.

Remember again Moses in Deut 6.

The children of Israel were ready to go in and posses the land. A land full of debauchery and every evil conceivable, a land of idolatry and every sinful practise imaginable. How and where could the children of Israel be taught?

What an influence our homes can have on our children. Do you realise that great responsibility? Or have you passed the buck?

That word ‘train’ originally was used of a midwife. Who after a child’s birth would dip her finger into a juice made from crushed dates and massage the infants gum and palate, this tangy taste stimulated the baby, and the baby began to suck.

We can see again we have to train them when young and it is in the home that our children should have an interest for spiritual things.

Broken homes can produce broken children. I must say some have done a marvellous job on their own, but a united home is a wonderful base from which to teach the children.

Dads do you have a family altar?

1 Kings 18:30 And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down.

In the forests of Northern Europe lives a small animal called an ermine. It is brown in the winter but in summer it grows a coat of snowy white fur. Intuitively the ermine protects its white coat from becoming soiled. Hunters will take advantage of this.

They locate the ermine’s home and daub the entrance with pitch or tar. When the ermine returns, being chased by dogs, rather that enter the dirty home, it will fight the dogs.

Purity in our homes is essential if we want our children to find the safety and refuge they need. We need the purity, then the family altar, to seek God’s help to maintain it.

Someone has said, "Most of those who have been taught religion in the home remain religious to the end."

A time needs to be set aside, if you don’t have time, forsake something and make time. It’s easier to gather the children around you when they are young, just to open the word, read and pray. Do it now. What a blessing a family altar is.

Set aside a place, it doesn’t matter where you sit down as a family.

Remember the home prepares the children for the world, don’t neglect them, dads, this is your responsibility as the teacher in the home.

Read appropriate portions and make a few comments.

158 Doctors who became missionaries were asked about the main influence in their lives.

• Second came the missionary speaker.
• Third was a contact with a missionary they knew.
• Joint fourth was God’s call to help others and books on missions.
• Sixth was the Pastor.
• Seventh was the college teacher.
• First was the home.

In a study several years ago sociologists Sheldon and Eleanor Gluke of Harvard noted some crucial factors in juvenile delinquency.

They determined four factors to prevent it

I was reading that some years ago in Texas the police published a document called How to ruin your children. It claimed to be 99% effective.

• Begin with infancy to give the child everything he wants.
• When he picks up bad words laugh at him.
• Never give him any spiritual training, let him wait until he is twenty-one and decide for himself.
• Avoid using the word wrong, he will develop a guilt complex.
• Pick up everything he leaves lying around so he will be experienced in throwing responsibility on everybody else.

This brings me to the next point.

We are told today that we should not spank our children. They should never be smacked. In fact it could someday be against the law.

Do you want your child to be a fool?

Do you want your child to go to hell?

Do you want your child to bring shame upon you?

Do you love your child?

Will you leave it until it is too late?

We have a heavenly father who loves us. Would he for one moment withhold that correction that we so often need?

Hebrews 12:6-8 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. [7] If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? [8] But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

There needs to be discipline in the home.

"Children today are tyrants they contradict their parents they gobble their food they terrorise their teachers," Sound familiar?

Written 2000 years ago by Socrates. Children need discipline, they must know right from wrong and understand that there are consequences for doing wrong.

Some other things that we could mention about discipline:-

Discipline will be easier for a child to understand when it comes from a parent who has that close relationship with the child. We need to spend more time on the child’s heart than on his bottom.

You cannot jump from strict to passive.

All law and no love will produce resentment.

As parents we need to connect with our children, we need to be consistent and we need to show compassion towards them.

It is difficult and hard for a parent to discipline a little child. It seems nearly cruel and at times we are made to feel guilty. There is something much worse and that is failing to discipline.

Eli was such a Godly man but he failed with his children. They were involved in all sorts of vile practices and what did he do?

Eli had nothing but words, they where not worried about his words, as a result of his failure his sons where killed in battle.

If only he has restrained them, if he had chastised, disciplined, how different it could have been.

Eli made a good job of raising Samuel, so often we are better at raising others peoples’ children.

Samuel another mighty man of God failed in the area of his children. Probably he was too busy, even too busy in the Lord’s work.

Scripture exhorts us to put His ministry first.

Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

And the care of our families.

1 Tim. 5:8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

Woodrow Kroll gives some good advice for Christian parents in the area of discipline.

Speak when you’re angry and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret.

I remember receiving this advice before, we don’t want our hands to be viewed as tools for discipline, think about the Lord’s hands.

Psalm 22:6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

Rev. 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

John 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

Mark 1:41 And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean.

We want our children to see our hands as loving, caring and compassionate.

Vary your discipline, leave corporal punishment for severe cases. Especially as the child gets older, spanking a teenager can be degrading. Perhaps by then the time for smacking or spanking is over.

Take your turn, I am a failure, mum and dad should take turns to show that united approach.

Years ago the Duke of Windsor said, "The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children!"

I read about an evangelist who said his mum had a board she used for discipline. It hung upon the wall and it had inscribed on it, "I need thee every hour!" He often wondered was it the board, or the Lord?

Many parents work hard for money and wealth, things that they cannot take to heaven with them. Children are something that we can take to heaven with us.

We want them to grow up and become Christians.

Psalm 127:4-5 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. [5] Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

One day the archer has to put the arrow in his bow and let it go.

He has sharpened it, he has bent it, he has pointed it in the right direction and then he has to let it go. The arrow goes on its own, one day we have to let our children go.

Oh that our children would rise up as soldiers of the cross

May we do all we can to prepare our children for this big bad world.