WHAT GRACIOUS PARENTS MAY BEST DO FOR THE CONVERSION OF THEIR CHILDREN

"He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers." —Malachi 4:6

This difficult Bible verse was proposed to me. I preached on it once before. At that time I said it spoke only indirectly to the question we're discussing. After thinking about it more carefully, I decided to add another verse. I believe this second verse speaks more directly to both parts of our two-part question:

"Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath. But bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." —Ephesians 6:4

Children and young people have many common faults. They are often rude, stubborn, sassy, self-willed, disobedient, and even contemptuous and mocking toward their parents. This is especially true toward parents who are too lenient and weak.

On the other hand, parents who are not shaped and changed by God's Word and Spirit tend to fall into one of two extremes. Either they are too harsh and misuse their parental authority, or they are foolishly indulgent and fail to use proper discipline.

Our apostle Paul arms and protects godly parents against both these extremes. He instructs them how to hold the balance evenly. He teaches them how to wisely manage the reins and rudder of their parental power and discipline. This way they won't provoke their children to justified disgust and anger on one side. Nor will they expose themselves to contempt and scorn on the other side.

Paul does this in two ways:

First, by forbidding a sin: "Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath." The Greek words mean: "Do not provoke them to anger, to an overflowing of wrath. Do not irritate them."

It's as if Paul said: "Fathers, I know your children are likely to be foolish, rash, disobedient, and stubborn. They're able to trouble even the calmest spirit and test the patience of Job himself. And it's right—yes, necessary—that you warn them, correct them, rebuke them, and discipline them. But be careful. Even though they provoke you to justified displeasure, don't misuse your proper authority. Don't be too strict, harsh, and extreme in your severity against them. Don't give your offending children any good reason for sinful anger or lasting bitterness against you. While you're correcting one sin, don't provoke them to commit another. While you're pulling them out of one pit, don't dash them against a rock. Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath."

But notice Paul's wisdom here. In verses 1-3, he gave children their duty: obedience. "Children, obey your parents in the Lord." He backed up this command with both God's command and His promise. Logic would suggest that he should next give parents their portion: command and government. But he carefully avoids that. He assumes he has already firmly established parental authority by putting children under the duty of obedience. So now he looks out for the child's interest—or really, the mutual comfort of both parent and child. He advises parents to use the power God gave them with moderation and tenderness.

On one hand, he sweetens the child's obedience. On the other hand, he tempers the parent's authority. The command of obedience might frighten the child, and the privilege of power might make the parent proud. So let them both know this: The child is under subjection and must obey. But it's his father who either does or should love him. The father has authority and may command. But whom? It's his child, whom he must govern with such tenderness as not to provoke him in the least.

This is how Paul forbids a sin.

Second, by commanding them to do the opposite good: "But bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."

Children must not be provoked to wrath, but they also must not be spoiled in foolishness. They must not be discouraged, but they also may not be coddled. Our children by nature are too much like the wild horse or young donkey. If they once learn their strength and get the bit between their teeth, they will first throw their rider and then run at full speed to their own destruction.

So be careful. Don't spoil them in their foolish desires. "But bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."

Having laid our foundation, let's now build. In the case before us, I find two truths assumed and one question (which is really two-part) proposed.

I. The Two Truths (And These Are Sad Ones) Assumed

Truth #1: It has been, is, and may be the experience of godly parents to have unconverted, wicked children.

Truth #2: The wickedness of these unconverted children has been—and too often is—caused by their godly parents' sinful (1) harshness or (2) spoiling.

II. The Question, or Case of Conscience to Be Answered (Which Is Two-Part)

What may godly parents best do toward the conversion of those children whose wickedness is caused by their sinful:

1. Harshness?

2. Spoiling?
   

I. The First Truth

(1) The first truth assumed: It has been, is, and may be the experience of godly parents to have unconverted, wicked children.

Let me add: It has been the experience of even the best of parents to be troubled with very wicked—yes, the worst of—children.

Didn't Adam have an envious, murderous Cain? (Genesis 4:8-11). The first branch from the universal root was completely rotten!

Didn't Noah have a cursed Ham? (Genesis 9:22).

Didn't Abraham have a mocking, persecuting Ishmael? (Genesis 21:9; Galatians 4:29).

Didn't Lot have Moab and Ammon, the sons of incest and the fathers of an idol-worshiping people who hated God's chosen Israel with deadly hatred? (Genesis 19:37-38).

Didn't Isaac have a worldly Esau? (Genesis 25:25; Hebrews 12:16).

Didn't Eli have two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, both "sons of Belial"—monsters of lust and wickedness? (1 Samuel 2:12-17, 22).

Didn't David have an ambitious Adonijah (1 Kings 1:5; 2:13-25), an incestuous Amnon (2 Samuel 13:14), and a murderous, traitorous, rebellious Absalom? (2 Samuel 13:28-29; 15:10).

Didn't Jehoshaphat have a bloody, idol-worshiping Jehoram? (2 Chronicles 21:4, 6, 11, 13).

Didn't Josiah have a wicked Jehoiakim, and another son as bad or worse—a wretched, false, promise-breaking Zedekiah? (2 Chronicles 36:5, 12-13; Ezekiel 17:15, 18).

But enough of this. Sigh until your hearts break when you think of many, very many others in former ages and in our own day and city who could be added to fill up this dark list.

(II) The Second Truth: The wickedness of these unconverted children has been—and too often is—caused, yes, made worse, by the sinful harshness or spoiling of their careless (though godly) parents.

This truth divides into two branches: parents' sinful harshness and parents' sinful spoiling.

First: Sinful Harshness

Let me explain: (1) What it is not, and (2) What it is.

1. What Sinful Harshness Is Not

(1) A serious, wise, holy, strict behavior toward our children is not sinful harshness.

Carrying ourselves in a way that brings glory to God and honor to ourselves—and that preserves the authority God has stamped on us—is not sinful harshness. To carry ourselves so as to keep our proper distance and not give our children reason to look down on or despise us (1 Timothy 4:12; Titus 2:15)—so that they see and acknowledge the wisdom of God shining in us and pay us the respect God requires of them (1 Kings 3:28)—this is not sinful harshness. It's behaving ourselves "worthily in Ephratah" (Ruth 4:11).

(2) All proper anger—the rising up of the heart in holy displeasure against sin in our children—is not sinful harshness.

Parents may "be angry and yet not sin" (Ephesians 4:26). In fact, parents would certainly sin if, when given proper cause by their children, they were not angry. But there are conditions:

(i) The cause for which they are angry must be good and justified. It must be something we can give a good account of to God. An anger like our Savior's, who "looked around at them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts" (Mark 3:5). When our anger comes with grief because God is dishonored by our children's sins against truth, godliness, justice, and humanity—because we see them neglect their duty and hurt their own or others' souls or bodies—this is proper anger.

(ii) The object of this anger must be right. We should be angry not so much at the persons of our children who offend, but at their offense itself—their sin, fault, disobedience. We're angry not so much at the patient, but at the disease.

(iii) The goal must be right. The goal is that the fault we're offended by may be corrected by our children, and that they may be warned not to offend the same way again in the future.

(iv) Proper decorum must be observed in both the measure and duration of our anger. It should be neither too hot nor too long. It should be a reasonable, holy, moderate displeasure. Right reason and Scripture should sit in the driver's seat and guide the chariot, saying like the Lord to the sea, "This much, this long, and no more, no longer." This is not sinful harshness.

(3) Serious counseling and warning of our children in what is truly good is not sinful harshness (Ephesians 6:4).

All serious disapproval and severe frowning at them when they're in an evil way—yes, even sharp corrections and rebukes (Titus 1:13)—are not sinful harshness. Even being enough of a terror to them that they know we don't bear the stamp of God's authority "for nothing" (Romans 13:3-4)—yes, even sharp physical discipline appropriate to their age and offense (Proverbs 29:15)—as long as we express fatherly love and tenderness in all of it, with a true desire for their repentance and reformation: all this is not sinful harshness. It's the faithful performance of a necessary parental duty. This duty is all the more excellent because it's so often neglected and so hard to do correctly.

2. What Sinful Harshness Is, or How It Shows Itself

Sinful harshness reveals itself in the irregular passions, harsh looks, bitter words, and cruel actions of parents who misuse their parental power.

The wickedness of unconverted children is often caused by the sinful harshness of their parents. They are provoked—and provoked to sin—in these ways:

First, by irregular passions, especially uncontrolled and excessive anger.

(1) Hasty anger: When parents are quick to get angry with their children, when they won't let their judgment think before they get angry (James 1:19).

The wise man tells us, "A man's wisdom makes him slow to anger," and "it is his glory to overlook an offense" (Proverbs 19:11). But he marks hasty anger with the label of foolishness: "He who is quick-tempered acts foolishly" (Proverbs 14:17).

Someone once gave good advice: Don't get angry at any time until you've first repeated the Greek alphabet. To be angry without any cause, or over every small, minor occasion—over anything that isn't important in itself or in what follows from it, over purely accidental and unintentional mistakes in our children (the kind that couldn't have been prevented without great care)—and to be so irritated by these things that you begin to hate your children or love them less warmly: This is like firing the signal beacon of your soul for the landing of a tiny boat. It exposes the father to his child's contempt and to God's judgment (Matthew 5:22).

(2) When a parent's anger is too frequent, too hot, or lasts too long.

Anger must be used like medicine—only now and then, and only on proper occasions. Otherwise it loses its effectiveness or hurts the patient.

Also, when anger is too hot, violent, and excessive, it provokes. It's true that anger must be serious. There must be some life and warmth in it. The medicine must be warmed so it can work more powerfully toward reforming offending children. But when it swells into an excess and outburst of passion, it provokes. Such excessive anger is like a ball of wildfire. It's very likely to set the child's heart on fire and provoke him into a sinful return of anger and fighting (Proverbs 15:18).

Lastly, when anger lasts too long, when it soaks in the heart, it tends to rot. If the sun rises and sets on a man in his anger, the Bible tells us who is likely to be his bedmate (Ephesians 4:26-27). "Anger rests in the heart of fools" (Ecclesiastes 7:9). And it may well provoke a child, though he's guilty, to see his father's heart—where he once lay—now become anger's couch and Satan's pillow.

So you see that irregular passions in harsh parents are no small provocations and spurs to sin and anger in their disobedient children. They're like Spanish flies—the quickest and most effective means to raise blisters.

Second, by a harsh look—a grim, sour, scowling, frowning face.

When a man seems to carry revenge, daggers, and death in his face. When a man usually looks at his child as Cain looked at his brother (Genesis 4:5-6)—as someone highly displeased who bears ill will, holds a grudge, and will be sure to pay it back in due time. When the child sees his ancestors' coat of arms displayed on his father's forehead, and instead of smiles can see nothing there but cruel lions, bears, and tigers: this must highly provoke. It's no wonder if the child, in fright and terrible indignation, cries out, roaring, "I'm right to be angry, even to death! Better to be killed outright than buried alive! No grave is as dark and dismal as those deep furrows in my frowning, constantly frowning father's forehead."

Third, by bitter, hasty, biting, sharp, scornful, insulting, mocking, threatening words.

Words steeped in the poison of asps. Oh, these pierce deep like the tails of scorpions and greatly provoke. More specifically:

(1) Hard words:

Soft words and hard arguments work powerfully: "A gentle tongue breaks the bone" (Proverbs 25:15)—or breaks one that is stiff and hard. Abigail found this true in her approach to David when he was in his anger (1 Samuel 25:4-42).

But a hard tongue hardens the heart: "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger" (Proverbs 15:1).

Objection: "But what are you talking about with words, which are just wind?"

Answer: True, but this wind many times kindles a dreadful fire and makes it grow once it's kindled: "As charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife" (Proverbs 26:21; James 3:5-6).

(2) Insulting, shameful, disgraceful words:

These are far from fatherly love and respect. Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, tells us that the main purpose and design of insult is that a man may rejoice and triumph in the disgrace of the person he's insulting.

How barbarous it is, then, to rejoice in the disgrace and shame of a child of your own body! This cannot help but provoke.

Here's a thunderclap in the ears of sharp, insulting parents: "Whoever says, 'You fool,' will be in danger of hell fire" (Matthew 5:22).

Insulting words are no less than sharp arrows and keen swords. In fact, they carry with them stings and poison. Even the wisest and best of men can hardly bear the force of them.

So Saul greatly provoked his son when he foamed at the mouth and broke out into that filthy drivel: "You son of a perverse, rebellious woman"—or in our English way of speaking, "You son of a whore!" He lashed his son on his wife's back (1 Samuel 20:30). What could have been spoken more sharply to provoke?

(3) Threatening words:

And that perhaps for little mistakes of youth—yes, even when there's no plan to actually carry out what they threaten. Suppose it's only an empty threat, "a flash without a bullet." The very wind and noise are enough to make the trembling child faint.

If masters must not threaten servants (Ephesians 6:9), much less may parents threaten children.

Fourth, by cruel actions.

When parents, completely forgetting their parental relationship, affection, and duty, act like tyrants and use (or rather abuse) their children as servants—or really as slaves. These parents should know that the great God never gave them authority to be more than tender governors, not domineering tyrants or Egyptian slave-masters.

This tyranny shows itself in various ways:

(1) When parents either deny to their children or take from them those things that belong to their necessities or their proper comforts in the rank and relationship in which their heavenly Father by birth has placed them.

When they deny them the education, provision, and encouragement that is just and fair. When they deny them the food, clothing, and inheritance that befits the children of such a father: this is to act beneath even an unbeliever (1 Timothy 5:8)—yes, even beneath the animals, who by natural instinct diligently nourish and care for their young. And it cannot help but provoke.

Even a horse, when reined in too tightly, will rear up and buck. When the spoiled favorite—though a younger brother or sister, and perhaps less deserving—is called to the table, closet, and lap, and there treated with the height of sweetness, while the poor, neglected, looked-down-upon, despised older child must stand outside and either blow on his fingers or use his hands in some low, dirty, slave-like drudgery that would better suit a slave than a son: this goes straight to the heart of a well-mannered and observant child. This must create in him an enraged jealousy and envy against his equals or inferiors, and—without a huge supply of love, humility, and patience—a boiling, bitter scorn and anger against his superiors.

(2) When parents load their children with unjust commands.

This is to copy that wretched Saul, who commanded Jonathan to ambush his innocent, dearest friend and brother David. David was upright and brave, had served the whole kingdom well, and was designed by God Himself to succeed to the throne of Israel. Yet against his solemn oath to David, Saul commanded Jonathan to bring David to him so he could be murdered (1 Samuel 20:31). This both grieved and provoked Jonathan (verse 34).

Or like that incestuous, bloody creature Herodias, who commanded her dancing daughter to ask Herod for more than half his kingdom—namely, "John the Baptist's head" (Matthew 14:8).

(3) When parents, merely to satisfy their mood, self-will, lusts, passions, and fury, punish, beat, and almost kill their children with unjust and excessive beatings, whippings, and punishments.

(i) Unjust: When the parent has no lawful cause or reason to do so.

What fair excuse could that unnatural Saul make for throwing his spear to strike his innocent son Jonathan? (1 Samuel 20:33). After he had spit out the poison of his heart in his words, he filled up the measure of his wickedness in this bloody deed, matching his murderous heart.

(ii) Excessive: When the severity of the punishment exceeds the seriousness of the crime.

Here the Lord, the righteous Judge, takes care by His supreme authority that those who have authority over others should not, according to their own lusts, will, and pleasure, rage and vent their fury and passion on criminals (Deuteronomy 25:2-3).

Now if justice requires us to keep our minds free and composed when punishing the worst strangers and most terrible criminals—so that we can exactly match the penalty to their fault—how much more should a father (whose very name breathes nothing but kindness and sweetness) observe the same moderation when his job is to discipline the child of his own body!

If not, instead of reforming, he only provokes his child.

So much about sinful harshness: what it is and how far it provokes. In all of this, I haven't found and couldn't find one instance—not one father or mother in all of Scripture who had the character of a godly person—who is charged with the deep guilt of being a sinfully harsh parent.

II. What May Godly Parents Best Do for the Conversion of Those Children Whose Wickedness Is Caused by Their Sinful Harshness?

To this I answer:

First: More Generally

"Physician, heal yourself." To cleanse the polluted stream, let's begin at the muddied fountain.

1. As much as possible, stop your complaints to other people about finding so much cause of grief and sorrow in your difficult children, instead of joy and comfort.

Stop complaining that they are painful thorns instead of refreshing roses, stabs instead of staffs. Don't complain anymore—at least not grumpily or in anger—against the pride, lightness, foolishness, stubbornness, wildness, and incorrigibility of your wretched children. Especially don't do this where your children can hear you.

It's very likely they'll be quick to blame their own sins on their father and attribute all their gross misbehaviors to their harsh father's harshness, contempt, and lack of love. They'll say: "If I hadn't been unlucky enough to have such a stiff father, he might have been happy with a more agreeable son. If my father had treated me with more affection, it's possible I would have readily answered his tenderness with a melting heart, bent knee, and sincere obedience."

2. Instead of opening your mouths to other people, go immediately and in sincerity pour out your whole soul to God.

Throw yourself at His feet. Humbly acknowledge your great failures and mistakes in managing the authority that God, the supreme Father, has stamped on you. Humble yourself deeply before the Lord for all your past irregular and out-of-control passions, stabbing looks, hard speeches, grumpy behavior, unfair treatment, and dreadful predictions of the sad fate of your currently disobedient child.

Weep—I don't say weep less, but—don't weep only for your child. Weep for yourself too. If the root had been sound as it should be, the branch wouldn't be as rotten as it is. If the father had been more like a fig tree, the son wouldn't have been so much like a thistle. If the vine had the least taint of Sodom, no wonder the wine has an ugly taste of Gomorrah.

Weep, I say, and pray. Pray and weep. And instead of counting beads, drop a tear at the close of every prayer for the full and free pardon of these your relational sins, through the blood of that Son who never offended His and your Father.

Beg—and beg earnestly—for grace, strength, and wisdom, which is "first pure, then peaceable," so that you may be kept from the same misbehavior in the future.

3. Act toward your children in all things as a father.

Keep your relationship in your eye.

(1) Love your children as a father.

You'd think this advice would be unnecessary: "Concerning love you don't need me to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love" (1 Thessalonians 4:9). It seems like telling the sun to shine, the fire to burn—yes, telling a man to be a man.

This law of love to children is written by the finger, drawn by the pencil, stamped and engraved by the deepest impression of nature on the hearts and affections of all parents (Isaiah 49:15). Indeed I've spent more than a few minutes searching the Scriptures on this. And though I find many clear texts that command us to love God, Christ, our neighbor, the brotherhood, our wives, yes, our enemies, yet I can only find one text that in clear terms commands parents to love their children. That's Titus 2:4, where we find that the young women are to be taught "to love their children."

The best reason I can give for this right now is the same reason someone gave for why the Romans, among all their laws, had made none against the horrible sin of killing one's parents. The Romans either couldn't or wouldn't imagine that men could be such monsters as to be guilty of so black a crime.

Scripture assumes that while we keep the nature of human beings or own the name of fathers, we cannot help but love our children. Well then, love your children. But love them as fathers.

Fathers! This very single word contains a flood of arguments. If I had time, it would be easy to draw out all the persuasive appeals from its heart. Father! The very name is like ointment poured out. It sends out nothing but the perfume of love, gentleness, and tenderness.

Just sincerely love your children as fathers, and then be sinfully harsh if you can!

Love your children not so much for their lovely face, their pleasing grace and sweetness (which, however charming, is only a fading flower, a skin-deep vanity), but mainly as those who are bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, to whom you have given your blood and your very nature.

And don't let this love be like a dead picture or idol in your chest, without life or action. Let it be a living, active principle, a spring that may strongly and effectively influence all the powers of your soul for getting all that is truly good for your poor children.

Objection: "But how can I possibly love such naughty, such provoking children?"

Answer 1: Does your duty of loving your children allow for that exception? "Love them—that is, if they are, or while they are, free from all fault." Didn't the Lord who commands this duty know full well that no mortal person is without spots, imperfections, and failings? That command is useless if it's limited to a condition that's impossible to fulfill.

Answer 2: Look inward, and then look upward.

Aren't you naughty? (James 3:2). Haven't you often—and don't you daily, hourly—provoke your heavenly Father? And yet wouldn't you want Him to love you? Let your own prayers and tears be witnesses in the case.

If a man had put his ear close to your prayer closet, might he not have heard you, like Ephraim, crying about yourself like this? "Heavenly Father, I am vile. I have done wrong. I haven't just touched the edge of sin, but entered the circle. In fact, my sins are made worse by continuing to do wrong and by resisting advice. I can't—I don't dare—clear myself with a fair defense. Having rightly lost Your love and favor, I can't look for any mediators for my relief except Your Christ and free grace. So let me hope that a Father's affection is as powerful a persuader as a son's misery. And while my sins block the way to favor, may fatherly compassion not forget to be merciful. He who bears the name of a Father cannot forget the tears of a child."

Tell me, harsh parents, isn't this a true echo of some of your most passionate prayers? But what answer have you expected, and what answer has your heavenly Father returned?

Answer 3: Possibly while you've been speaking, God has answered as He did in Jeremiah 31:20:

"Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child?"

"No, no. He is naughty. He is a prodigal."

"True! But yet he is a repenting, a returning prodigal. Though not 'a pleasant' son, yet a son, a child. And therefore, since I spoke against him, I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore my heart is troubled for him. I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord."

Read, think about, and often pray over those relevant texts: Deuteronomy 32:36; Isaiah 63:15-16; Hosea 11:7-9; Luke 15:19-20.

"All this is true for a repenting Ephraim, but my child lies stinking in his filth."

Answer 4: But please tell me, in what condition and position did your heavenly Father find you when He first showed His love to you?

"When I saw you polluted in your own blood, I said to you when you were in your blood, 'Live.' Behold, this time was the time of My love" (Ezekiel 16:6, 8).

God the Father showed His love toward you "in that while you were still sinners, Christ died for you" (Romans 5:8).

(2) Govern your children as a father.

And so remember that your parental power is not absolute or tyrannical, but regulated and limited within proper bounds. Parents may not think they can do whatever they want, according to their own will and pleasure, with their children. "My will is sufficient reason for my commands" is the language of a tyrant, not of a father.

And here:

(i) Beware of secret pride, of excessive self-exaltation, of magnifying your position, and of thinking more highly of yourselves than you really are, and of eagerly desiring that your children should think of you and treat you that way.

(ii) Beware of thinking more about the dignity of your position than about your duty you owe to God and your children in that position where God has placed you.

(iii) Beware of being excessively hard to please and too strict in demanding obedience and respect from your child, and of looking down on, undervaluing, and insulting him when he has done his best. Beware of discontent and complaining if you don't have everything you desire in your child.

All these are dangerous rocks to which your secret pride exposes you—enough to destroy both pilot and ship.

(3) Be angry with your child, but "be angry and do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26).

Be angry, but let it be the anger of a displeased father against an offending child, not the anger of a bloody enemy against an unchangeable foe. Be angry as your heavenly Father is said to be angry. (I've talked about this before.)

(4) Warn, advise, correct, rebuke, and discipline offending children. But always remember whose representative you are, whom you represent.

You represent your heavenly Father. Fury is not in Him. Judgment is His strange work. But He "delights in mercy." When He is, as it were, forced to show His anger, He uses a father's rod, not an executioner's ax (2 Samuel 7:14). He will neither break His children's bones nor His own covenant (Psalm 89:30-35).

He whips in love (Hebrews 12:6; Revelation 3:19), in measure, in pity, and in compassion. "In all their affliction He is afflicted" (Isaiah 63:9). Every stroke on His child's back bounces back on His own heart. And if the member is gangrened and there's an absolute necessity to cut it off to save the life—the soul—of His child, then like a surgeon who is the father of the patient, He uses the saw. But He doesn't forget that He is now cutting off His own flesh, and would never do it except for the child's good (Romans 8:28).

Go and do the same.

(5) In all you do, be careful that you don't provoke them on one hand or discourage them on the other.

(i) Don't provoke them. I've said something about this before. Let me add:

When children find themselves, contrary to their hopes and perhaps their deservings, to be treated harshly and severely, and when nothing they attempt or do finds acceptance with their grumpy and harsh parents, especially if they have fiercer spirits, in the heat and bitterness of their enraged souls they're likely to throw off all reverence, to "break their chains and cast away their ropes" (Psalm 2:3). Like wild and untamed young horses, they'll kick and rear and harden their necks, foreheads, and hearts against all warnings and threats, against all words and blows.

They'll say their father hates them. They must sink, and sink they will. But not alone. If possible, they'll drag their cruel father's heart and peace into the same pit with them. How dreadful! So be careful. Don't provoke.

(ii) Don't discourage, dishearten, or break the spirit of your children.

"Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they be discouraged" (Colossians 3:21).

There is nothing that more discourages and crushes the heart of a poor child (especially if he's well-mannered and of a softer, gentler temperament) than the harsh severity and roughness of a father. It completely crushes the poor child when, in the face and behavior of his father (to whom of all men in the world he should reasonably be dearest), he sees nothing but anger and rejection.

It intimidates the child, destroys his courage and bravery for any honest or honorable undertaking, smothers—yes, extinguishes—all his fire and liveliness. It transforms him into a mere fool, dummy, dullard, block, completely unfit for use and service. In fact, it often throws him into the deepest pit of grief and depression, sickness, and death.

And then, perhaps when it's too late, the unhappy parent will see reason to regret and hate himself for his unjust harshness.

(6) Parents, remember they are children, and only children.

Their age may be some excuse for them. Their heads are green; yours are gray. More years may teach them better manners.

They are your children, your own flesh, blood, and body—"your own beloved," as Aristotle says. Your children. If the stream is corrupt, it gets that from you, the fountain (Psalm 51:5). The young serpent came from the old poisonous snake.

(7) Since harshness will not do the job, see what sweetness, gentleness, gentleness, holy tenderness, and appropriate leniency will do.

"The greatest rivers roll with quiet flow. In peace the height of majesty is seen. By gentle means has often been obtained what overbearing force would never have gained."

The pillow may help break the flint that the hammer and anvil cannot. It worked with flinty Saul (1 Samuel 24:16). The healing medicine may succeed where the burning acid cannot. The sight of the pardon commands the heart of the desperate traitor more than the sight of the ax or gallows.

(8) To all these, add scriptural warning, fervent prayer, patient waiting on God, and humble submission to the will of God (Micah 7:7-9).

So much about sinful harshness. We move now to the second extreme, and that is sinful spoiling.

Our apostle, knowing very well how likely parents are to wander from the golden middle way of parental discipline, and while they work to avoid the rock of sinful harshness how prone they are to plunge themselves into the pit of sinful spoiling, gives in the same verse a powerful antidote against that fatal disease of foolish affection, in these words:

"But bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."

While the harsh parent is bleeding a sick child, Paul cautions him to be careful not to pierce an artery: "Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath."

But on the other hand, if the child has an infected wound and needs the lancet, our apostle here commands the wise use of it. He will by no means allow the sinking child to be soothed or stroked and petted into certain ruin.

Children must be "trained," though they may not be "provoked." Parents must not be cruel ostriches and leave and expose their young ones to harm and danger. Nor must they be such foolish apes who are said to hug their cubs so closely that they kill them with their embraces.

And this is true because:

Secondly, the wickedness of unconverted children is too, too often caused—yes, and made worse—by the sinful spoiling of their godly parents.

Sinful harshness, with Saul, has killed its thousands. But sinful spoiling, with David, has killed its ten thousands.

Poor spoiled children, when it's too late, find that the little finger of a foolish mother weighs far heavier and sinks the soul far deeper than the heavy hand of a harsh father. In the long run they'll find more sting in a rod of roses than in a whip of scorpions.

In explaining this case, I'll proceed as before and show you:

1. What Sinful Spoiling Is Not

Natural, proper, moderate parental love—even when mixed with the most yearning heart and most deep and tender compassion—is not sinful spoiling.

In fact, to be without these natural affections is not only wretched heartlessness but sinful, cursed, and worse than animal-like: "without natural affection" (Romans 1:31). Even the storks and sea creatures will teach us to love our children.

I may and must love my children:

(1) With all the types and kinds of love.

The love of desire for union and communion with them, for the sweet enjoyment of them. The love of goodwill, willing, ready, and prepared to desire and wish all good for them. The love of doing good and generosity, actually working to do them all possible good, both for their souls and bodies (Titus 2:4; Genesis 21:19; 1 Kings 3:25-26; 17:10, 12, 18-19; 1 Timothy 5:8).

All our spiritual gifts must be for the benefit of their souls, for their direction, comfort, and salvation. And as for their bodies, their backs must be our wardrobes, their bellies our barns, and their hands our treasuries.

And with the love of pleasure and delight. Our children may and ought to be the joy and rejoicing of our hearts: "No greater joy than to see our children like olive plants around our table, especially if we see and find them walking in the truth" (2 John 4; 3 John 4).

(2) With all the characteristics of parental love.

That is: sincere and genuine; a love not just in word and tongue, but from the heart, in deed and in truth. A forward, cheerful love, not dragged or driven, but flowing as from a fountain. An expansive, open-handed as well as open-hearted love. A fruitful love, producing not only fair leaves, buds, and blossoms of pleasing smiles and large promises, but the mature fruits of helpful actions.

A holy, fair, fervent, constant love. A most gentle, dear, tender, compassionate love, by which we're ready to sympathize with them and quick to help them in their misery. Ready to care about them when they care about neither us nor themselves. Ready to accept the desires of their souls when they can't actually perform them. Ready to accept a sigh instead of a service, a tiny coin instead of a treasure, a groan instead of a duty, the very stammering of my child above the eloquence of a beggar (Malachi 3:17).

Ready to look at a returning prodigal as a son and to pity as a father, not punish as a judge. Remembering their makeup and knowing that both they and we are poor dust (Psalm 103:13-14).

All this and much more is not sinful spoiling. To carry them in our arms as Moses did the Israelites (Numbers 11:12), or so in our hearts as to be willing to give our very souls to them in and for God, because they are dear to us, as Paul did (1 Thessalonians 2:7-8, 11). To bless them in God's name, faith, and fear, as Jacob did (Genesis 49:28). To encourage and reward them for doing well (1 Peter 2:14; Esther 6:3). To love most those who love God most. To give such Benjamins five portions, a double or triple share, an Isaac's inheritance—this is not sinful spoiling.

2. What Sinful Spoiling Is

It consists in the excess and overflow of our love and affections, and in loosening and letting go too much of the reins of government.

When we, as it were, abandon and give up our minds and efforts to coax, please, and satisfy the moods—yes, satisfy the lusts—of our foolish children. When we make their wills our laws, our rules. When the doting parent is led by the heart—shall I say? or nose?—by his bold child, and must be at his beck and call, at his command.

When the child may and must speak or do whatever he pleases, and the parent either may not or dare not say, "What are you doing?" Let him act what and when and how he pleases—he must not be displeased, disturbed, or contradicted in the least.

When the child, grown insolent and unbearable, is too gently treated and put up with. When a forced frown or a gentle, soft whisper is looked upon as a severe rebuke, and the touch of a rod as no less than the wound of a sword. When we perhaps mildly snip at the wasteful darling, and at the same time that we pretend to scold, we actually add fuel to his excess.

This—oh, this—is sinful spoiling: a sin of a deep red dye and dreadful consequences.

More specifically:

(1) When our out-of-control love persuades us to be too mild and gentle in putting up with our wicked children's contempt of or rebellion against God's laws or our own lawful commands and advice (Isaiah 3:5; 1 Samuel 3:13; 2 Samuel 15:1-12).

(2) When our excessive love for them causes us to advise them to do or encourage them in what is evil (Matthew 14:8).

This was a deep stain—and indeed the only one I find—in that godly mother's record, good Rebekah. It is said that "Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his venison, but Rebekah loved Jacob" (Genesis 25:28).

Isaac, being old, was too controlled by his appetite and too fond of Esau for his venison's sake. But Rebekah herself was quite at fault. Her Jacob had gotten the birthright through his red stew. And now she's determined that he should have the blessing too.

For this reason she provides him with a lie in his mouth and skins on his neck and hands. And so, in her great love, she exposes her dressed-up Jacob to his father's curse and his own damnation instead of a blessing (Genesis 27:6-17).

It's true, he narrowly escaped and ran away with the blessing. But both mother and son had their bellies full of the sauce in which the mother's spoiling had sinfully soaked it. It was this mainly that made poor Jacob go limping to his grave.

(3) When parents will not allow that natural fierceness, pride, self-will, and impatience that peeks out in their children to be severely checked and grubbed up by the roots.

When children must not be trained in truth, modesty, bashfulness, reverence, courtesy, obedience, and hard work—"No, no, that's harshness!"—but even while they're little children, barely out of the shell, they're taught and encouraged to harden their faces, to throw off all humble modesty, all respect for superiors, to talk and strut and swagger: "Their tongue is their own. Who is Lord over them?"

Oh, unbearable! "Don't tell it in Gath, don't publish it in the streets of Ashkelon!"

(4) When we feed our children more delicious food, dress them up in more gorgeous clothes, and loosen and break the strength of their souls and bodies with too soft and delicate an education, in no way suitable either to our own means or their condition.

This was the serious complaint of Quinctilian long ago, and it's the sin and shame of this present age. This, this is the sinful spoiling intended here. This is what too often causes—yes, inflames and increases—our children's daring wickedness and prepares them, makes them fit vessels, for temporary and eternal ruin.

Now concerning this I'll give you my thoughts under these two main points:

I'll lay before you clear instances of this sinful spoiling in three parents—all of them fathers. For after the most exact search throughout all the Scriptures, I can't find one—no, not one—of all the godly mothers in Israel guilty of or charged with this sin, with only Rebekah as the exception.

Two of these fathers were, beyond all argument, truly—yes, outstandingly—godly. The third was probably so, by the tender respect he showed the Levite.

We begin with him.

1. That the spoiling of parents is the ruin of children, a helper of their wickedness, the shelter for their foolishness.

How easily is the thief led to steal when he knows where his fence is! When the looseness of youth knows where to find pity and tolerance, what mischief can it hold back from?

See this in the Levite's concubine or wife (Judges 19:1-2). This concubine played the prostitute against the Levite, whom she at least owned as a husband. Her guilt makes her run away. But where should she take her shame? Where indeed but to her own dear father's house?

She who had deserved to be hated by her loving and faithful husband doesn't doubt she'll find shelter from her foolish and spoiling father. His heart and house and lap, she knew, would all be open to her.

Well, home she hurries to her father at Bethlehem-Ephratah. But does her good old father receive her? What! Does he allow his house to become a brothel, to be defiled with an adulteress, though she came out of his own body?

I imagine I hear him in justified anger speaking to her like this: "Why, what now, shameless woman? What are you doing here? Do you think you'll find my house a shelter for your sins? The brothels are a more fitting home for you. While you were a faithful wife to your husband, you were a beloved daughter to me. But now you are neither. You are not mine. I gave you to your husband. You are not your husband's. You have betrayed his bed. Your filthiness has made you your own and your adulterer's. Go seek your entertainment where you lost your honesty. Your lewdness has brought necessary shame upon those who help you. How can I approve of your person and abandon your sin? Your father must be a just man rather than a sinfully kind father. Get home, therefore, to your husband. Beg his forgiveness on your knees. Win back his love with your modesty and obedience. When his heart is once open to you, my doors won't be shut. In the meantime, before you are humbled both before God and man, know that I can be no father to a prostitute."

I imagine I should have heard him say this. But look—foolish father that he was!—he treats and caresses her at a completely different rate. He seems to speak to her as Jael did to Sisera (Judges 4:18): "Turn in, my dear child, turn in to me." He brings her into his house, covers her with a blanket. Instead of water, he gives her "a bottle of milk." Yes, he "brings out butter in a fine dish." He treats her in the kindest way, and that for four whole months.

And now let the most spoiling parent judge whether this was fair dealing with this prostitute, whose crime God had long before sentenced with death (Leviticus 20:10).

But remember that this petting Jael proved to be a most fatal executioner. The vile Sisera "bowed and fell at her feet" (Judges 4:21; 5:25-27).

For all I know, if her father had been more strict, he might have prevented her further defilement and murder by the filthy men of Gibeah (Judges 19:25-28).

Spoiling is a siren that first sings and then kills. It's worse than Jael. Her hammer and nail destroy only the body, but this destroys the soul, and that even by its lullabies, when the unhappy spoiled child sleeps and snores in the parent's lap.

2. Spoiling parents are really cruel to themselves, their children, and the church of God.

For this we have two such instances in two stars of the greatest brightness that ever shone in the church's sky. Indeed they are not to be mentioned without the greatest dread and trembling with respect to their plunge into this deep pit of gross spoiling: ELI and DAVID.

Yes, don't be shocked. These are the men—even good Eli and better David: the best of men and, I had almost said, the worst of parents. And then no wonder if they were plagued with the worst of children.

First: ELI

His tragic story we find in 1 Samuel 2:12 through 4:22.

1. He had two sons: "sons of Belial," a pair of hellhounds, Hophni and Phinehas, whose names almost stain the sacred Scripture.

They were wretches who were as desperately wicked as he himself was outstandingly holy. And this appears for these reasons:

(1) If the goodness of example, instruction, education, and profession could have been antidotes against extreme sin, these sons of so holy a father would not have been so hellishly wicked.

But now neither parentage nor education nor priesthood could keep the sons of Eli from degenerating into the "sons of Belial." Yes, their wickedness was most desperately improved, boiled up, and fermented to the highest degree.

(2) Had they not been the sons of Eli a priest, yet being themselves priests by office of the most high and holy God, who wouldn't have thought, hoped, and concluded that their very calling and function should have at least suggested, if not poured in, some holiness into them?

But—how dreadful!—even their white and clean priestly robes are only cloaks for their fouler sins. In fact, though they serve at the altar, yet their wickedness, degenerating from their duty, is so far from being lessened and made smaller that it rises as much above others' wickedness as their position and station is holier than others'.

A wicked priest is the worst, the vilest creature on God's earth—devils in disguise. Who are devils now but those who were once angels of light? The worst dung comes from the best meat, the most deadly poison out of the sweetest mineral.

(3) God, who had promised to be the Levites' portion, had set out the fair portion of these Levites. And God will not only feed them but feast them too, and that at His own table, at His own altar.

They'll eat of His own morsel and drink of His own cup. The breast and the right shoulder of the peace offering were their allowed portions (Leviticus 7:14-15, 31-34).

"Well, they're satisfied. They're thankful, aren't they?" No such thing. These bold and sassy priests would rather have their meat hook be their judge than God. And whatever their three-pronged fork grabs will be for their delicate tooth.

They were tired of one or two pieces. Their delicacy wants more variety. God isn't worthy to carve for these men—only their own hands. And so they don't receive but take or snatch violently, boldly, unseasonably, sacrilegiously.

It would have been only fitting that God should have been served first. But their presumption won't wait for God's convenience. Before the fat is burned, before the flesh is boiled, they must and will snatch their share from the altar—as if the God of heaven should wait on their fussy palate. As if the Jews had come there not so much to sacrifice to the Lord Jehovah as to these priests' bellies (1 Samuel 2:13-17).

But beyond all this:

(4) Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth, and be astonished with all those who bear the name, guilt, and shame of such corrupt priests of the altar!

Even then and there, at the very altar—the most holy God's throne on earth—even there, they are no sooner fed than, like cursed stallions, they lusted after the modest mothers of Israel.

Holy women "assembled at the door of the tabernacle." And these scoundrels, blackest villains—worse by far than Zimri and Cozbi, all circumstances considered (Numbers 25:6)—and it would have been well if that other Phinehas had been near them with his avenging spear—tempted, if not forced, them to adultery. These women came there for devotion.

These wretches had wives of their own. Yet their unbridled desires roamed after strange women, and they didn't fear to pollute even that holy place with abominable filthiness.

Oh, sins too shameful for common men, much more for the spiritual guides of Israel! That ark, which atoned for other men's sins, dreadfully added to the sins of these sacrificers (Jeremiah 2:8; Ezekiel 23:38; Romans 2:17-25).

So much about the sin and wickedness of these villains, the children and sons of Eli.

2. As to old Eli: Did he know all this?

It's true especially of great men that they're usually the very last to be informed of the evil in their own house. But as for Eli:

(1) It could hardly be that when all Israel rang with the lewdness of his sons, he alone should be ignorant of it.

But:

(2) Or if he didn't know it, can his ignorance be excused?

It was not an ignorance of mere lack of information, but an ignorance from a corrupt disposition. For where should Eli have been but in the temple, either for action or oversight? The very presence of the priest keeps God's house in order.

It was his great duty to carefully inspect them, or at least diligently to inquire after the proper administration of God's ordinances. A proper and timely rebuke and restraint might have happily prevented this extreme height of monstrous wickedness.

Nothing but age can plead and excuse for Eli, that he was not the first accuser of these—his sons? or monsters.

But:

(3) Now, when their terrible sins come to be the cry of the multitude, when it thunders and he must by necessity hear it, and this loud crash must necessarily pierce not only his ears but his heart, his affections, his conscience: but with what holy passion, zeal, justice, and anger?

(i) Was it as with Judah, when it was told him, "Tamar your daughter-in-law has played the prostitute"? "Bring her out, and let her be burned" (Genesis 38:24). "These my sons are adulterers."

(ii) Or did he, as the parents of the "stubborn and rebellious son" were commanded, take hold of them and bring them to the elders of the city and say to the elders of the city, "These my sons are stubborn and rebellious. They have not and will not obey my voice. Let them be stoned to death"?

So God commanded in Deuteronomy 21:18-22. So should Eli, who was not only the chief priest but the supreme judge of Israel, have impartially judged his own corrupt flesh. And never could he have offered a more pleasing sacrifice than the corrupt blood of such wicked sons.

(i) Doubtless Eli knew full well that it was useless to rebuke those sins abroad that we tolerate at home. He knew that a man makes himself ridiculous who leaves his own house on fire and runs to put out his neighbor's. He knew it's foolish to quit his own family infected with the plague and hurry to cure his neighbor.

(ii) We find that this good Eli, as old as he was, could be tart and sharp enough to another person—to godly, mourning, praying Hannah, when he only "thought she had been drunk" before the Lord, upon just the bare suspicion of a sin: "How long will you be drunk? Put away your wine from you!" (1 Samuel 1:13-14).

It's true, his rebuke arose from misunderstanding. But that misunderstanding came from zeal.

(iii) But what now? In the case before us, you can't help but expect to find him wound up to a note beyond the highest pitch, inflamed to the eighth degree. You expect the zeal, the fire, the furnace heated seven times more than usual. You expect the burning zeal of his God's house to consume him.

But to our amazement, here's what he says:

(iv) Read 1 Samuel 2:22-26: "Now Eli was very old, and heard all that his sons did to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And he said to them:"

"To shame, to torment, to hell with them! To the worm that doesn't die, to the fire that will never be quenched!" Was this his sentence? No, no. But, to our amazement, hear what he says:

"He said to them, 'Why do you such things? For I hear of your evil dealings by all this people. No, my sons, for it is no good report that I hear. You make the Lord's people to transgress. If one man sins against another, the judge will judge him. But if a man sins against the Lord, who will plead for him?'" (verses 24-25).

See here spoiling to an extreme degree, toward the notorious crimes of his wicked sons!

(i) How quickly we find the case changed! To Hannah he spoke as a holy priest, a just judge. To these, as a foolish, spoiling father.

If corrupt nature is allowed to speak in judgment and to make a difference based not on crimes but on criminals, not on sins but on offenders, the scales will not be balanced.

(ii) Had these wretches just slacked a little in their duty or carelessly skipped some rituals of the sacrifices, this censure wouldn't have been so inappropriate.

(iii) But to punish the thefts, robberies, sacrileges, and adulteries of his sons with a mere "Why do you do so?" was no different than shaving a head that deserved the ax.

It's like weak medicine with bad humors—a weak dose only irritates and angers them, doesn't purge them out. So it is with habitual sins, and so it was here: "They did not listen to the voice of their father" (verse 25).

An easy rebuke only encourages wickedness and makes it think itself as slight as that censure suggests. In fact, a strong rebuke—if nothing more—for a capital evil is at most like a hard shower on a ripe field, which only lays down the grain that's worthy of a sickle.

It's a breach of justice not to match the punishment to the offense. To whip a man for murder, to punish the wallet only for incest, to burn treason on the hand, to award the stocks for burglary, to lay on the rod where the ax or gallows are deserved—this is to protect evil instead of avenging it.

So we have seen the children's wickedness and the father's spoiling. But is there not a more thorough inquiry in the case? Yes, yes, from a foolish and partial court to a strict and impartial tribunal.

3. God Himself, the greatest party concerned and the most injured, steps in.

Poor Eli could not have devised or planned a more complete and effective way to have plagued himself, his house, and his descendants than by this his sinful kindness to his children's sins.

(1) What a variety of judgments does he now hear of from the messenger of God! (1 Samuel 2:27-36).

Because he had now doted in his old age, there should "not be an old man left in his house forever."

Because it didn't vex him enough to see his sons as enemies to God, he shall see his own enemies in the dwelling place of the Lord (verse 32).

Because he himself failed to take vengeance on his sons and valued their lives above the glory of his God and Master, God Himself will take the sword into His own hand and kill them both in one day (verse 34; 4:11).

Because he misused his authority and winked at sin and honored his sons before God, his house shall be stripped of its honor, and it should be transferred to another (verses 30-32, 35).

Because he allowed his sons to please their wanton appetites by taking meat from God's table, those who remain of his house shall come to his successors and beg a piece of silver to buy a morsel of bread (verse 36).

Because he was foolish and partial to his sons, God will execute all this and more on him and them, severely and impartially (1 Samuel 3:11-14).

(2) Notice, I beg you, notice, spoiling citizens: We don't read of any sin that Eli was charged with except the one that is epidemic, I fear, among you and looked upon as a very small sin—and if a sin, at most only a forgivable one.

What were these dreadful threats against Eli but warnings to us? These murderous cannons against him are our warning shots. God says—yes, God swears—that He "will judge Eli's house" with poverty, with death, with desolation, and "that the wickedness of his house will not be purged with sacrifices or offerings forever" (1 Samuel 3:11-14).

Don't your ears tingle at the mention of these things? Don't you wonder that both the neck and heart of poor Eli weren't broken at the report of them?

(3) We have heard the sentence. And (in spite of Eli's repentance and the saving of his soul), for the necessary defense of God's honor, holiness, and justice here below, see the dreadful execution:

(i) The Philistines and Israel join in battle. Israel is "defeated and fled. There fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the ark of God was taken" (1 Samuel 4:10-11).

(ii) The two scoundrels who had lived before to bring God's ark into contempt, and had now lived to carry it into captivity, were both killed by the Philistines.

(iii) Eli, now ninety-eight years old, at the news of this, fell backward from his seat and broke his neck.

(iv) To make the tragedy complete, the wife of that cursed Phinehas, not caring about father, husband, self, or child, with her last breath gasped out a doleful epitaph on the captive ark and stamped it on her child's forehead: "Call him Ichabod, for the ark of God is taken" (verses 21-22).

Before we move on, let's cast our eye back and just glance at the sin that was the main cause of this slaughter. "Because he honored his sons above Me" (1 Samuel 2:29). "For the sin which he knew—because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them" (1 Samuel 3:13). "From this came those tears."

Oh cruel spoiling! The jury has sat on you and given in this as their just and unanimous verdict: that you are guilty of the death of father and children, of priests and people, of the captivity of the ark—at least, if not the destruction of religion.

By this time, I suppose your ears and hearts may be full, if not overloaded. If not, take the third and last. And who is that but:

DAVID

He was no less unhappy in—than spoiling to—three of his children: Adonijah, Amnon, and Absalom.

1. Adonijah is much pampered, greatly spoiled, his father's darling and delight from his infancy.

"His father had not displeased him at any time," no matter what he did. No, not even by "saying, 'Why have you done so?'" (1 Kings 1:6).

And well might the spoiled youngster think, since he had gotten the throne of his father's heart, it wouldn't be such a high leap to usurp the throne of his father's kingdom (verses 5-25). And that while his father was still living!

Especially since his elder brother Absalom was now dead. (But he might have remembered how Phaëton fell.)

In fact, more—though he knew that his father, according to God's special appointment, had declared Solomon to be the heir-apparent of his crown and kingdom. For all this, David did not or dared not reprove him. No. His treason is no such great matter, but a light thing, to be looked upon only as the brisk effort of a foolish, if not a gallant, spirit.

For all this, not such a word from David as, "Why have you done so, Adonijah?"

Well, if the foolish father will not, the wise son shall and will make this vain youngster know himself. This is especially true when his subtle ambition so clearly revealed itself in asking for Abishag the Shunammite, David's concubine. By creeping into his father's bed, he aimed to make his way to his brother's throne.

This Solomon was well aware of, and he commanded him to be put to death as a just reward for his long-practiced and newly-intended treason (1 Kings 2:25).

There is Adonijah's exit.

2. The next is Amnon, guilty of incest with his own sister—yes, and this incest committed with rape (2 Samuel 13:14).

Amnon, a person to be cursed by the whole congregation (Deuteronomy 27:22) and to be punished with death (Leviticus 20:17).

But what does David do in the case? The text says: "When King David heard of all these things, he was very angry" (2 Samuel 13:21).

(1) But was that all?

Alas! What was that but a great flash and noise without a bullet? And this Absalom, that raped virgin's own brother, deeply resents and is resolved on just revenge (verse 22).

Certainly the incestuous son might justly have expected more than a sudden feverish fit of hot displeasure from a father. He should have expected the danger of the law, the anger of a brother, the shame and outcry of the world.

(2) What a stab in the heart, a sword in the gut, must this have been to Tamar's father, David, whose command, out of love to Amnon, had cast his dearest daughter into the den and jaws of this lion! (Verse 7).

What an insolent insult must he have interpreted this to be, offered by a son to a father—that the father should be made, as it were, a pimp of his own daughter to his own son!

(3) David, that tender father who lay on the ground and would eat no bread for the sickness of a child (who was only the offspring of an adulterous bed)—how vexed, enraged, inflamed must he have been with the villany of his son, with the rape of his daughter, both of them wounding more deeply than many deaths!

What revenge can he think of for so terrible a crime less than death, and that in its most bloody form?

(4) And yet what less than death is it to this spoiling father to think of proper revenge?

Rape was by the law of God a capital crime (Deuteronomy 22:25). How much more when joined with incest!

Anger, though never so hot and eager, is not punishment enough for so high, so complicated an offense. Such mild injustice is no less provoking to Heaven and dangerous to a nation than the fiercest cruelty.

For all I know, the blood of souls murdered by foolish pity cries as loudly in the ears of Divine Justice as the blood of bodies killed by cruel harshness.

And yet this is all we hear from so spoiling a father—unless perhaps he makes up the rest with sorrow and so punishes his son's misbehavior on himself (2 Samuel 13:37).

But:

(5) If David, perhaps out of awareness of his own recent adultery and murder, will not punish this horrible deed, his son Absalom shall. And that not so much out of any zeal for justice as desire for revenge (2 Samuel 13:28-29).

See Amnon there wallowing in his blood, murdered by Absalom's command when he was drunk. And so, for all we know, soul and body sank at once, and that eternally.

One act of injustice draws on another. The injustice of spoiling David in not punishing the rape of Tamar produces the injustice of Absalom in punishing Amnon with murder.

What the father should have justly avenged and did not, the son avenges unjustly. However, in all this the Lord, the supreme Judge, is righteous—reckoning for those sins that human partiality or negligence had skipped. And while He punishes sin with sin, He punishes sin with death.

Had David called Amnon to a severe account for this unpardonable villany, the revenge wouldn't have been so desperate.

So, to David's horror, fell Amnon.

The third and last, who brings up the rear of those serpents who lay so warm in David's lap, was that great gallant, the glistening darling of the court:

3. Absalom: Absalom the murderer, Absalom the rebel, and yet, for all that, Absalom the beloved.

(1) Absalom the murderer—and that of his own brother Amnon, as we have heard.

For two full years he sat close, brooding the deepest revenge. Having killed his brother and sent him to Hades, away he flees to Geshur and for three years hides and shelters himself in his grandfather's court (2 Samuel 13:34, 37-38; 3:3).

But does David send his ambassadors after him and demand that he be returned and handed over as a sacrifice to stop the cry of his brother's blood, which roared for vengeance? At least in three years' time? No, not a word of that.

But see and be amazed at the completely opposite workings of his diseased heart. Verse 39: "The soul of King David longed"—or was even consumed—"to go out to Absalom, for he was comforted concerning Amnon, seeing he was dead."

The three years' absence seemed not so much a banishment to the son as a punishment to the father. It's true that David, out of his wisdom, so leans toward favor that he conceals it. And yet he conceals it in such a way that Joab, who could see light through the smallest crack with his sharp eye, could clearly discover it.

Joab reads David's heart in his face and knows how to humor and serve him in what he wanted—and yet seemed as if he didn't want—to have accomplished. And by that cunning trick of the woman of Tekoa, he brings into the light that birth of desire of which he knew David was both pregnant and ashamed (2 Samuel 14:21).

See here the mask of royal spoiling. It is not David who recalls Absalom. Not he. He only does it to answer the humble request of an insistent subject and to follow the advice of Joab, a wise counselor: "The king said to Joab, 'Behold now, I have done this thing that you desire. Go therefore, bring the young man Absalom back.'"

But wait—another trick: "Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face" (verse 24), for fear the people should cry "Shame!" on this unjust spoiling.

(2) Absalom the rebel, Absalom the traitor.

Having prepared the people for a rebellion by a wicked suggestion of his father's unjust government, he sets himself up as king in Hebron. "And the conspiracy was strong" (2 Samuel 15:10, 12).

His eye is on the capital city. His first march must be to Jerusalem. To make room for the young rebel, the poor old father must pack up and be gone (verse 14) with a heavy heart, weeping eye, covered head, and bare feet, as it were.

Never did he come up to this city with more joy than he now left it with sorrow. And how could he do otherwise when the rebellion of his dearly beloved son drove him out from his chief city and throne—yes, from the ark of God?

(i) His first prank was a sufficient sample of what was likely to follow—an act of the highest incestuous uncleanness that the sun ever saw:

"They spread Absalom a tent on top of the house, and Absalom went in to his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel" (2 Samuel 16:21-23).

The action was like the advice (verse 21)—as deep as hell itself, an act incapable of forgiveness. Besides usurping the throne, to violate the bed of his father—to add to his treason incest—is no less unnatural.

So that the world might see that Absalom neither hoped for nor cared about reconciliation of a father, and as if the villany couldn't have been shameful enough in secret, he sets up his tent on top of the house and lets all Israel witness his own sin and his father's shame.

Ordinary sins are for ordinary offenders. But Absalom sins like himself—outstandingly, surpassingly. He does what may make the world at once blush and wonder. The filthiness of the sin is no greater than the shamelessness of the manner.

(ii) His pursuit (2 Samuel 15:14).

Absalom is now in full march, ready to make his attack. David rallies up all the forces he could make, not so much to assault his son as to defend himself.

But see his charge in 2 Samuel 18:5: "The king commanded Joab and Abishai and Ittai," his three generals, "saying"—"Fight neither against small nor great, for they, poor deceived souls, have come out in the simplicity of their hearts, are merely drawn in, and know nothing" (2 Samuel 15:11). "Fight only against the head and ringleader of these rebels, that son—or traitor rather—who came out of my body and seeks my life" (2 Samuel 16:11).

Is this David's charge? No, not such a syllable in their orders. But this, which is not to be mentioned without a blush: "Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom" (2 Samuel 18:5).

But wait. What do I hear? Is this the voice of David? What! That David who was formerly forced to employ his arms for his defense against a tyrannous father-in-law, and is now forced to buckle them on against an unnatural son? What! He who has gathered his men, commissioned his generals, organized his troops? What! Is this his charge and word and signal for the battle?

Does he at once seem to encourage them with his eye and restrain them with his tongue?

O David, what does this misplaced love mean? This unjust, cruel mercy? "Deal gently with a traitor! Of all traitors, with a son! Of all sons, with an Absalom! The graceless, murderous, incestuous, traitorous son of so good, so tender a father! And all this 'for my sake,' whose crown, kingdom, and blood he hunts after?"

For whose sake must this wretch be pursued if he must be spared for yours? He was still courteous, though hypocritically, to your followers, friendly to petitioners, agreeable to all Israel, so that he might be perfectly cruel to you (2 Samuel 15:2-6).

Why are these arms, if the sole cause of the quarrel must be the attractive, persuasive reason for mercy? Yet you say, "Deal gently."

We see that even in the holiest parents on earth, corrupt nature may be guilty of most unjust tenderness, of bloody spoiling. But let's advance a step further.

(iii) The battle is joined.

The God of justice takes sides with justice. He lets Israel—foolish Israel—feel what it is to take sides with and bear arms for a traitorous usurper. The sword devours twenty thousand of them, and "the woods devoured more than the sword" (2 Samuel 18:6-9).

Among the rest, the loyal oak singles out the ringleader of this horrible conspiracy and by one of its spreading branches becomes at once his jail and gallows! The justice of God twists a noose from his locks. No wonder his own hair turned traitor to him, who dared rise up against his father.

Joab is informed that the beast is trapped, comes and sees him hanging, makes no delay, but immediately thrust three darts through the heart of the bloody traitor.

What the poor soldier refused to do in obedience (verses 12-13), the general did in zeal (verse 14). He didn't fear to prefer his king's safety before and beyond all little respects whatever, being more tender of his prince's life and his people's peace than the weak or strong affections of a misguided father (verses 14-15).

(iv) Now for the catastrophe, the last scene.

The battle is ended. David hears the trumpets sound a retreat.

"What news? How fares the army? Joab, Abishai, Ittai, my generals—how is it with them? My crown—does it stand more firm and fixed, or has it fallen? Speak, Ahimaaz. Say, Cushi."

None of this in the least. But to the everlasting disgrace of foolish parents: "Is the young man Absalom safe?" (verse 29).

Ahimaaz prudently answers, "The Lord has delivered up the men who lifted up their hand against my lord the king" (verses 28-29).

"Ahimaaz, turn aside and stand here."

Behold, here comes Cushi with a joyful heart and open mouth: "Tidings, my lord the king! For the Lord has avenged you this day of all those who rose up against you" (verse 31).

But these are not the tidings David so much pants after. Cushi, you must learn to distinguish between the king and the father, and tell him plainly: "Is the young man Absalom safe?"

"That murderous, incestuous traitor whom you call 'the young man' is dead, O king. And let the enemies of my lord the king, and all who rise against you to do you hurt, be as that young man is" (verse 32).

(v) And what does King David say to this?

I imagine I hear him say: "Come, my dear people, come, and let us sing aloud to God our strength and make a joyful noise to the God of Jacob. Take a psalm and bring here the tambourine, the pleasant harp with the psaltery. Blow the trumpet as in the new moon, as on a solemn feast day. Let this be a law for Israel" (Psalm 81:1-4). "For this is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and triumph in it" (Psalm 118:24). "The king shall joy in Your strength, O Lord, and in Your salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!" (Psalm 21:1). "The Lord is known by the judgment which He executed. The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah" (Psalm 9:16).

Is this the shout of triumph with which he makes the earth ring again?

No. But on the contrary, the poor father, being as it were thunderstruck with the words of his messenger, forgets that he was a king and father of his country. He looks like Jephthah when he met his devoted daughter. And as if stripped of all comfort, he breaks out into a flood of tears and into such an indecent lamentation as no records either sacred or human can match:

"The king was much moved and wept. And as he went, he said, 'O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for you, O Absalom, my son, my son!'" (2 Samuel 18:33).

My proper indignation at this more than womanish outburst forbids me to comment on it. I'll simply lay before you Joab's sharp reply, by which he tried to stop this flood:

"Joab said to the king, 'You have shamed this day the faces of all your servants who this day have saved your life, and the lives of your sons and daughters, and the lives of your wives and concubines. You love your enemies and hate your friends. For you have declared this day that you regard neither princes nor servants. For this day I perceive that if Absalom had lived and all we had died this day, then it would have pleased you well'" (2 Samuel 19:5-6).

And so we have seen the disease. Let's turn now to the remedy. The plague-sore has been opened. Now for the bunch of figs.

II. What May Godly Parents Best Do for the Conversion of Those Children Whose Wickedness Has Been Caused by Their Own Sinful SPOILING?

1. Reflect seriously on your heart and ways.

Beg—and beg sincerely, earnestly, believingly, constantly—of the Lord to effectively convince you of the great sinfulness and harm of your spoiling, and to humble you deeply for it.

Oh, throw yourselves at the foot of God. Lament it, weep over it. Mourn like doves before the Lord when you see (if indeed you can see, and foolishness hasn't completely put out your eyes) pride, stubbornness, worldliness, aversion from God, all sorts and degrees of sins and corruptions breaking out in your children's lives.

And that:

(1) With respect to your children. And this:

(i) Not only as the natural roots from whom all their lewdness springs.

They drew it from the womb and breast. They were poisoned in the very spring (Psalm 51:5; Job 14:1; 15:14; 25:4).

This thought alone, if nothing more—to see your children rotting, sinking, dying with a loathsome disease that they drew from your body—would be enough to rend your hearts in pieces.

But:

(ii) By your wretched spoiling, you have added much fuel to this flame. You have heated your furnace seven times hotter.

Your spoiling has encouraged—yes, inflamed—their wickedness. You have heightened their fever into a plague. And that's a thousand times worse than a plague of the body, which ends in a temporary death. But this is a plague of their souls and is likely to sink them forever into a pit of fire and brimstone.

(2) With respect to God.

The Lord was angry with the serpent and cursed him forever because he was only an instrument used by Satan for corrupting our first parents, though no cause of it at all (Genesis 3:14).

May not the Lord be much more angry with us and cause His wrath to smoke against us? We have not only been instruments really conveying this poison and corruption of nature into our children's hearts, but the main causes of their added wickedness!

You see, on both these accounts, matter for deep humbling.

2. Love your children.

Listen, spoiling parents. I say it again: Love your children. Yes, love them—I don't say more, but—better than you ever yet loved them.

You can never love them too well. You may and have loved them too much. One person said well: "None is to be loved much except Him only whom we can never love too much."

Love them with all the kinds, degrees, and characteristics of love mentioned before.

(1) Love them so as to be tender of their bodies, their outward person.

Let that want nothing that is necessary, convenient, comfortable, and suitable to their age or status. But above all, love their souls, their inward person.

The cabinet must not be neglected, but the jewel is to be most cared for. The ring is to be properly valued, but the diamond in it most highly prized.

The love of our children's souls is the very soul and spirit and essence of true parental love. If we truly love their souls, we'll sincerely desire and strongly work for their spiritual and eternal salvation.

If you love their souls indeed, your heart's desire and prayer to God for them will be "that they may be saved" (Romans 10:1). You will put out your utmost affections and strength to lift them up out of that pit of sin and misery in which they lie, and to raise them into and fix them in a state of grace.

If we don't really grieve to see our children wallowing in their sins of ignorance, unbelief, foolishness, and worldliness, and so under the power and paw of Satan—if we don't faithfully work to keep them from perishing but "allow sin upon them"—pretend what we will, let us show never so much love with our mouth, God says we really hate them in our hearts (Leviticus 19:17).

See how Solomon's parents expressed their love to him: "I was my father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. He taught me also and said to me, 'Let your heart hold fast my words. Keep my commandments and live'" (Proverbs 4:3-4).

If you love them in deed and in truth, you will—you can—"have no greater joy than to see your children walking in the truth" (3 John 4). That foolish son who is now "a heaviness to his mother," being made truly wise, will "make a glad father" (Proverbs 10:1).

Oh, what a lovely sight, what a soul-delighting object in a godly parent's eye is a hopeful Timothy, an obedient, godly Joseph! (Proverbs 23:24-25).

Well then, love your children, and in the first place love their precious souls. If you find that your love and care go out more for their bodies than their souls, then mistrust your love that far. It is fleshly.

(2) Love your children truly, tenderly—but yet be careful that you don't over-love them.

"But when is that?" Certainly when you love them more than you love God and Christ, you over-love them.

"But who does so?"

I won't charge you. But let me ask you a question or two. Tell me:

(i) When your God's glory and your child's good are both at stake, for which does your zeal burn most hotly? Aren't your affections most fiery where they should be most cool? And where they should burn, don't they freeze?

Doesn't your heart make you believe that it loves God and gives Him pledges of your affection, while it secretly dotes chiefly on the dandled child? Like some false adulteress who entertains her husband with her eyes and in the meantime steps on the toe of her lover.

(ii) Don't you often think that you love God enough? And when you love your child most, yet don't you think you love the child only enough—in fact, never enough?

Your head, heart, hand, wallet, special treats, extra portions, lap, affections—all are only little enough, too little, for your child, your idol. Is it so with your God?

To love our child in such a way as to thereby lessen our love to God—yes, or to equal it with our love to God—is not only spoiling but idolatry. And an idol of flesh and blood is to be hated as much as one of wood or stone.

Certainly the best way to quench this out-of-control love for children on earth is to set your hearts and affections more on your Father in heaven—on God, His Christ, Spirit, Word, ways, and rewards (Luke 12:30; Isaiah 33:6; 1 Peter 1:24-25).

Just look directly at that sun, and your eyes will quickly be dazzled to these glittering glow-worms here below. Make that priceless pearl your treasure, and you'll lightly value these cheap imitations. Take Christ fully and wholly into your heart and lap, and you'll quickly agree that your child's proper place is only at your foot or knee.

In a word: If God in Christ is your God indeed, you'll hate the thought and practice of making your child His rival.

(3) Love your children, but love them wisely.

Give them your hearts into their laps, but not the reins on their necks. When you do that, at the same time you mount them on your fiercest animal, provide them with whip and spurs, but without bit or bridle. And then just pause and think soberly about the end of their full-speed run.

Love them, I say, but still be careful to maintain that proper authority and position of respect that God has given you over them.

A parent who has lost his authority is like salt that has lost its flavor. Like the log sent from Jupiter, every frog in the family is likely to jump on him.

And remember this, foolish parents: There is nothing in the world that makes you more worthless, cheap, and contemptible in the eyes even of your children themselves, when they begin to show the first buds of reason—nothing that lays your authority more in the dust and exposes you to the foot and scorn of your child—than sinful spoiling.

"A foolish man despises his mother" (Proverbs 15:20). His mother's foolishness made him a fool. From a foolish child he at length grows up into a man, but "a foolish man." And this "foolish man despises his mother."

If you are fathers, then, take care of your honor. If mothers, be sure to carry yourselves in such a way as to preserve in your children that respectful reverence that they owe you (Malachi 1:6; Hebrews 12:9).

(4) Love your children, but love them in God and for God.

Love His image in them more than your own. In a word: Let God's Spirit be the principle, God's Word the rule, God's example the pattern, and His glory the goal of your dearest love to your dearest children.

Love them as God loves His children. "But how?"

(i) God so loves His children's persons that He infinitely hates their sins.

In fact, because He loves their persons, for that very reason He hates their sins. Because I love my child, therefore I hate the toad that I see crawling on his chest.

God infinitely loves His people. And yet in this life He shows more hatred against the sins of His own people than He does against the sins of any other people in the world.

First: Here He afflicts all His own people for sin, one way or another, every single one of them (Hebrews 12:6-8; Job 10:14; Isaiah 30:20; 48:10). But He is patient toward the wicked, lets them run wild without control (Psalm 50:21; 11:5; 13:4; 2 Peter 2:9).

Second: When He intends to bring a general judgment on a nation, He tends to begin with His own people (Isaiah 28:18; 1 Peter 4:17; Jeremiah 25:17-18; Luke 21:10-12).

Third: When He makes anyone an example to others of His hatred against sin, He chooses His own people before wicked people (Isaiah 8:18; 1 Corinthians 4:9; 1 Kings 13:24-32).

Fourth: His judgments are more severe on His own people than on others (Psalm 88:7; Lamentations 1:12; Daniel 9:12).

(ii) All this He does out of the purest, eternal, and unchangeable love that He bears to His children.

God disciplines and corrects His children so that He may keep them from sinning as others do and as they themselves have done, and from perishing forever in their sins as others shall.

He doesn't meddle with thorns and briers, but prunes His vines so that they may no longer yield such sour grapes. He casts His children as gold into a furnace here to refine and purify them, so that He may not be forced to cast them as stubble into an eternal flaming oven hereafter. And this in love (Exodus 4:24; Job 7:17-19; Psalm 119:71, 75; 89:30-38; Jeremiah 1:7; Lamentations 3:33; Hosea 4:14; Amos 3:2; Hebrews 12:6-7; Revelation 3:19; 1 Corinthians 11:30, 32).

And now, parents, as you have seen your heavenly Father do, you do the same. In His strength follow His example.

(i) Love your children's persons. And because you love them, hate their sins.

Hate the sins of those most whom you love most. You see your God does this.

Don't be so blinded that you can see no fault in them. Don't be so madly doting as to delight in their blemishes, to kiss their plague-sores. Don't be so spoiling as to be reluctant to grieve or displease them when they're grossly guilty. Especially:

(ii) Let your holy strictness show itself against those whom you most love.

Tell them: "Child, I love you. And therefore I cannot, will not overlook the least sin in you" (Habakkuk 1:13).

So Christ acted toward His beloved disciples (Matthew 15:16-17; 17:17). Tell them you cannot, will not pardon them (Exodus 23:21). Let them know that you can be angry, and if words won't work, the rod shall. And that you can make that rod sting (Exodus 4:24).

Tell them: Though they may presume to provoke you to cry over them, you will not allow them to provoke God to hate them (Isaiah 63:10; Psalm 78:58-59). And that you would rather hear them cry and see them bleed—yes, and die here—than hear them howl and see them burned and damned hereafter.

Correct them, therefore, but in love, wisdom, measure, and right timing.

Objection: But I hear the crying of foolish parents: "Oh, hold back, good sir, hold back! These are hard sayings. The land, the city, is not able to bear them. It's nothing but love that makes us put up with our children. Alas! Who could find it in their hearts to beat so sweet a child?"

Answer: "Nothing but love?" That's not true. The Holy Spirit gives you the lie. It's not love but real hatred not to correct offending children (Proverbs 13:24; 22:15; 29:15, 17).

Objection: "But they are little, and time enough later."

Answer: Do it early, "while there is hope" (Proverbs 19:18). Nip them in the bud. Small hopes afterward if neglected now.

Objection: "I can't stand to hear him cry."

Answer: "Don't let your soul spare because of his crying." It's strange to see how the Holy Spirit meets these foolish parents at every turn.

Objection: "But would you have me cruel to my own child?"

Answer: No, and therefore correct him. You are unmerciful and cruel to your child if you don't correct him. He will die and perish if you don't correct him (Proverbs 23:13). His arm is gangrened. He dies if you don't cut it off. He is in a stroke. Bleed him, cut him, open him, or he is gone, and that forever.

Objection: "Alas! Children's faults are nothing."

Answer: What! Is their stubbornness, pride, lying, disobedience—perhaps cursing, swearing—nothing? These all lead to hell, from which your rod is ordained and set apart by God to deliver him (Proverbs 23:14).

Objection: "But this is the way to make my child hate me—yes, to make him a dummy, a fool, so that I'll never have any comfort in him."

Answer: Better that your child should hate you for doing your duty than that your God should hate you for committing sin—yes, a comprehensive, complicated sin. All the sins that your child commits because of your neglect of correction are your own.

But read and believe Solomon: "Correct your son, and he will give you rest. Yes, he will give delight to your soul" (Proverbs 29:17).

(iii) Whenever you correct, be sure you warn your child.

So in the text, "training" and "instruction" are joined. David says your heavenly Father does this: He "disciplines" first and then "teaches" (Psalm 94:12).

Lay God's law and his sin against that law before him. I have known a man who, when he corrected his child, would bring his Bible out, have his child read such a Scripture as spoke directly to the case. And this pierced deeper than the rod.

Don't beat with harshness or in silence. Don't give blows without words, which may possibly cause the child to see his fault and come to change. In public justice there is proof of the crime before the sentence, and a word of warning before execution.

If our child carelessly falls into the dirt, we don't let him lie there and beat him. But first we help him up, settle everything well about him. After that we correct him. But we close everything with charging him to watch his feet better.

(iv) To correction and warning add faithful, fervent, constant prayers.

Without this all other means are ineffective. It's your heavenly Father who must do the job at last. It's He alone who must work effectively in your poor child both to will and to do.

Bring him to Bethesda. Put him in there. Beg your God to stir the waters and to make them healing. With the woman of Canaan, carry your child to Christ (Matthew 15:22).

Remember Job: He "sent and sanctified his children" (Job 1:5).

Would you have your child be a Samuel, a Solomon, an Augustine? Be a Hannah, a Bathsheba, a Monica. Let your child be the child of your prayers, vows, and tears (1 Samuel 1:12-20; Proverbs 31:2). And that is the way to make him a child of your praises, joys, and triumphs, like the father in the parable (Luke 15:32).

(v) To close everything, add a good example.

Make it appear to your child's conscience that you have begun to change first, to repent of your darling sin of spoiling. That done, you may fairly hope that this magnet may draw him to repentance. Parents' examples are powerful magnets (2 Kings 14:3; 15:3, 34).

Objection: Say both harsh and spoiling parents, "We have done these things, and that faithfully. And yet our children remain wicked."

Answer 1: However, none have more cause to expect and with patience to wait for God's blessing on the use of means, because your children are certainly under God's faithful promise (Genesis 17:7; Isaiah 44:3).

Answer 2: You have delivered your own souls (Ezekiel 3:19).

Answer 3: Your efforts are graciously accepted (Isaiah 49:4; 2 Corinthians 8:12).

Answer 4: Your prayers will return into your own lap (Psalm 35:13).