1 Samuel 2:12-17 What Does It Take to Be A Good Parent? This account is of Elis sons. If I mention the name of Eli, most would think of a man who was a godly judge over Israel. Indeed, a good man, a faithful man. Yet, the Bible calls his sons "sons of the devil," and gives an example of why. They disregarded Gods laws of the sacrifice and used force to take what they wanted. Their corruption caused good people to dispiease worshipping the Lord. And that was just the tip of the iceburg. So we have a situation where a very godly man produced very ungodly children. I hope I do not tell you anything you do not know when I say that America has lost her children. America is not losing a generation of children. America has lost a generation of children. Indeed, we have lost several generations of children. It is Fathers Day, and we want to honor our fathers; but at the same time, I want to help fathers. So fathers and mothers, I pray that you will listen to the word that I believe God has given to us this morning. I. Let me start out by telling you what is not sufficient. A. I do not believe that religion is sufficient to be a good parent. B. I do not believe that having a good church is sufficient to be a good parent. C. I do not believe that having a Bible in your home is sufficient to be a good parent. D. I do not believe that being in Gods service is sufficient to be a good parent. 1. Eli was a judge, a great and godly judge, over Israel, but his sons were exceedingly wicked. 2. Serving God was not enough. E. I do not believe that seeing others fail is sufficient to be a good parent. 1. Samuel knew what happened to Eli. 2. As a very young child, he was placed in Elis home so he was there and saw the kinds of sons that Eli had. 3. God selected Samuel to be Elis replacement. 4. Yet, Samuel also lost ALL of his sons to sin. 1Samuel 8:3 And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment. F. I do not believe that having a warning from God is sufficient to be a good parent. 1. Eli had several warnings from God. 2. It did not help. 3. He still lost his children to sin. G. I do not believe that love is sufficient to be a good parent. II. What does it take? A. It takes WISDOM. 1. Wisdom is the ability to see things as God sees it. 2. America has lost the ability to see as God sees. 3. For the last 60 years, America has experimented with our people. a. I am not talking about drug experiment, a medical or psychological experiment, or a DNA experiement. b. I am talking about behavior experiments. They have and are doing behavior experiments on our children. 4. Some 60 to 70 years ago, our educators and leaders told America to throw away their Bible and to raise chldren the way they thought best. a. That experiment is called humanism. b. It is human beings telling human beings what is best for human beings. 5. The experiments are total and colossal failures. a. Almost immediately, drug abuse rose. 50 years ago, we started the war on drugs. We lost that war. b. Gradually violence rose. Today we have metal detectors, guards, and there is talk of arming our teachers. c. Today we have an astonishing and rising suicide rate. 6. How are our children better today? a. They are not smarter. b. They do not have better social skills. c. They are not happier, do not have better habits, and do not build better homes. d. They are not more sucessful. In fact, for the first time in American history, the expectations for the childrens wealth and happiness is dropping from that of the parents. 7. Yet, for all the evidence, parentsincluding Christian parentswill not turn from the tenants of humanism to the Bible. 8. What are the tenants of humanism? Just so you will recognize it, I will give you three. a. Humanists wont discipline children. They call misbehavior a phase and expects that the child will learn better behaviors in time. b. Humanists wont teach their children personal responsiblity. (1) They will not teach self control, self accountablity, or self sacrifice. (2) They say that parents just need to love their children as if loving your children means letting them do whatever they wants. c. Parents wont teach absolutes. (1) Everything is relative and it just depends on what the circumstances are. (2) What are the circumstances? The circumstances are if you want to do something bad, it is no longer bad. 9. Parents, we need to return to God and wisdom. B. It takes STANDARDS. 1. The word "standards" or its twin, "convictions," is a bad word in most Christian circles today. 2. What are standards or convictions? a. Think of them as walls of behavior that you will not cross. b. It is not that you CANT cross them. It is that you WONT cross them. c. Most everyone has them. If a person does not, he is a psychopath and very dangerous. d. In everyday life, thankfully (1) Most people wont just kill someone. (2) Many people wont just take something. (3) A few people wont just be mean to you. 3. What kind of convictions do you have BECAUSE of Gods Word? a. If we let our children live with the world run with the world think like the world behave like the world then they are the world. 1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. b. When talking about convictions today, ee are not just talking about clothing, music, and hair styles. c. We are talking about Americas seven deadly sins: (1) Evolution (2) Marriage (3) Sex outside of marriage (4) Abortion (5) Homesexuality (6) Socalism and Communism (7) Euthanasia d. I wish the only convictions we needed to talk about were men looking like men, women looking like women and the beat of music, but those days are long past. e. We are talking about the essential, basic beliefs of the Bible and of our country! f. We cannot count on schools,the laws of the land, or religion to help build the correct walls of behavior. g. Parents must do it! How? (1) We teach them. (a) Where do we get our conviction? i. From the Bible. ii. What part of the Bible? All of it! Deut 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: (b) To the Jews, verse 4 is one of the most important potions of Scripture. i. It is called the Shema. ii. It is John 3;16 to the Jews. iii. Most every Jew knows it and can quote it. iv. It is the first Bible verse taught. v. For the devout, it will be the last words spoken at night. (c) Notice the command God given immediately after this most important Old Testament Bible verse. Deut 6:6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. 9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. (d) God commanded the parents to teach their children ALL of the COMMANDS of God. i. Why? ii. Because those commands are to be their standards of behavior. iii. They are to define how they think, what they think about, what they believe, and how they will behave! (e) Why do you think one of the first things the anti-God forces within this country did was to remove the Word of God and God from our public schools? i. They did not and do not want this Book to shape and influence the way children think, what they believe, or how they behave. ii. Friend, when they took the Bible away from our children, the fate of our country was determined. iii. The only question was, "How long was it going to take until it happened?" (2) We model them. (a) The things that we dont want our children to do, need to be our convictions. i. If you dont want your kids to kill, you dont kill. ii. If you dont want your kids to lie, you dont lie. iii. If you dont them to do drugs, have adulterers, or turn away from God, then we dont do those things. (b) The things that we want our children to do also need to be our convictions. i. Love and obey God. ii. Go to church, read the Bible, iii. Work hard, be kind, be gentle. C. It takes discipline. 1. Society says dont, but God says do. 2. Verses: Proverbs 13:24 He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Proverbs 22:15 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 29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. 3. In this world, I hesitate to talk about discipling of children because many us have never learned how to discipline children a. Spanking is not the first line of correction. it is the last. (1) Talking with a child. (2) Teaching a child. (3) Praying with a child. (4) Isolating a child. (5) Grounding a child. (6) Positive reinforcements for a child. (7) These are all great and first disciplines for a child. b. But most every child is going to take some loving spankings. c. And a few children are going to need some tough spankings. D. It takes love. 1. Ive said that love is not sufficient, and by itself, it is not. a. Many loved children go extremely wrong. b. But nothing else will work if love, much love, is not also included. 2. Not only must a child be loved, but the child must know that he or she is loved. 3. Contrary to the worlds view, love does not make us blind or stop us from discipling our children. 4. Love opens our eyes and forces us to do whatever is necessary to insure that our children turn out as good, godly, and productive citizens on this earth and righteous children of God in heaven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1 Samuel 2:12-17 What Does It Take to Be A Good Parent? This account is of Elis sons. If I mention the name of Eli, most would think of a man who was a godly judge over Israel. Indeed, a good man, a faithful man. Yet, the Bible calls his sons "sons of the devil," … Continue reading “1 Samuel 1:2-17 – What It Takes to Make A Good Parent – Bible study”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}