Discipline is presented as a vital aspect of a life pleasing to God, rooted in the Hebrew word 'Musa' and its New Testament equivalents of instruction and correction. The sermon emphasizes that true discipline begins in the home and requires parents to model a disciplined life, as children learn more from actions than words. It critiques the modern age's permissiveness, particularly in public schools and the judicial system, as undermining this essential quality and leading to societal chaos. The message concludes by urging believers to cultivate disciplined lives, homes, prayer, and Bible study to resist adverse forces and live according to God's will.
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I mentioned to you that I had in mind a topic for the day, and I see that our visitors are not here, and so I'm going to go to that topic, and you'll have the introduction of the topic tonight, and then the next time I preach. If the Lord will, we'll continue with the topic. Job chapter thirty-six and verse seven. He that is God, of course, he withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous, but with kings are they upon the throne.
Yea, he doth establish them forever, and they are exalted. If they be bound in fetters and beholden in cords of fiction, then he showeth them their work and their transgressions that they have exceeded. He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity. Now there's that word discipline, and the only time that we find it in our King James Version of the Bible at all. We were just singing, On Christ, the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.
And almost every week now we sing, the wise man build his house upon the rock. You know the rest of it. The rains came down and the floods came up and the house on the rock stood firm. Now I believe that the reason why the Lord Jesus is the solid rock is because his life was a totally disciplined life. I do always, he said, the things that pleased the Father.
And to live like that is to live a life that is very... Now the Hebrew word, Musa, which is translated here, discipline isn't found anywhere else, but please don't be worried because the New Testament has the equivalent of that word time and time again. we read it and we find that eight times it is translated correction six times it is translated chastise and thirty times it is translated instruction now the word discipline can be either a noun or a verb.
And my teacher used to tell me at school that a verb is a doing word, which means that a man can no discipline in his life, or man can be disciplined in his life. The noun and the verb. But isn't it interesting that the New Testament equivalent... dwells mostly upon the thought of instruction than it does upon the thoughts of correction or chastismat. Now the root of the Greek word is a word that twenty-five times is translated child, four times is translated damsel, twelve times a little child and ten times a young child.
So that obviously Bible discipline has to do with child training. The Bible says bring up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. But we are living in an unfortunate age when the truth of the Word of God to a large extent has been forgotten. I looked this word in the dictionary when I was preparing for today, and I found that it had in the dictionary a threefold definition.
Number one, instruction. Now that goes along with those thirty times in the New Testament when the word that means discipline is translated instruction. The thought is that of training in three areas. The training of mind and the training of body and the training of moral faculties. Dictionary. The second one, and again, the definition of this word as a noun, subjection to authority.
And then it gives the definition of the word as a verb to improve behavior by judicious penal methods. So there you have it. That's what discipline means. And so often it's been pointed out. that the word chastisement in the New Testament really means child training, while our emphasis has so often been put upon the punitive when we mention discipline, instead of being put upon that which is constructive and the thought of instruction.
Now... Because of this, I fear that when it comes to the punitive in the church, local congregations are very much untought. It's not my intention tonight to talk about discipline in the church. It would have been, had I given you an introduction this morning, because when the church is happy, and when things are going well in the church, when the church is prospering and believers are getting along together, that's the time to teach them what the Bible means when it seeks of discipline in the church, and there is a place for it, and although the church by and large seems to have lost of that.
Discipline is very precious to God. Tonight I want to talk about where it should begin and where it is being undermined, and then next time, if the Lord will, where it must be maintained. Now first of all, Because discipline is precious to God, and because God loves and uses and makes a challenge the disciplined life, especially in a worldly society that seems to be totally undisciplined, it is very fitting, it is very necessary that we ask ourselves what we know of discipline in our own experience.
Now where should discipline begin? Somebody give me the answer. It should begin in the home. That's absolutely right. Our children should be taught. They should be corrected. They should be in a subjection. And Dr. Spark notwithstanding, when the need is there, they should be punished. Now this is what the Scripture teaches us. And I am sure that the same can be carried over into the Church of God.
The children of God must be taught. When the need arises, they must be corrected. They are always expected to be in subjection. to those that God has placed over them in the local church, and if need be, God will see that if he can do it no other way, he will use what the dictionary calls penal methods. Because we are living in an age of permissiveness, Because there is so much a lack of discipline all the way around us, it is very easy for us as believers to get slitchard in our own lives and experience, and if we are younger in our homes, in this area.
Now, I said it is precious to God. Let me say this. It is important. God. You will notice that when you read the qualifications of an elder, one of them is that his children should be in subjection to him. This is God's way of showing us that God expects discipline in the homes as well as the lives of the of believers. But not only is it important to God, but because of this it makes a demand upon parents.
Now you say I've already brought up my family, good, bad or indifferent. Now what's the point in talking to me about it tonight? Well there are spiritual lessons to be learned, and I don't think you'll have any difficulty in discerning them as we cover the truth in this way. Now if we are going to teach our children discipline, we have learned a long time ago that children learn from what grown-ups do much more than they learn from what grown-ups say.
so that the very first part of teaching others is living a disciplined life oneself. Now it is no good in trying to solve one's problems with regard to a life that is topsy-turdy by going to someone who has no experience. The word of God again in speaking of the elders says, not a novice. And that word means not newly saved. Reason being the elder who is to wield power in the assembly and control in the assembly, to whom believers are exhorted to be subject, that elder himself must have experience, not a novice.
I remember also once reading an article, and I think it was in letters of interest, losers don't consult losers. Now the fact is that they do. And they do very often. And they do it because... It's easier being a loser to talk to a loser than it is being a loser to talk to a winner. And the man with the undisciplined life is not going to find it easy to go to the man with an obviously disciplined life and say, please teach me what I need to learn about discipline in my life.
If you were to look at my desk, And I'm glad my wife's not here tonight. You would say, now there is an undisciplined man. But you know, there is such a thing as controlled chaos. I heard about a man when his death got littered. He simply took a lot of newspapers and he covered it up and he started all over again. Well, I can assure you, I don't do that. I sometimes wish that my desk was a little more tidy, but my wife has a computer beside it, and when I want to get at my desk, I have to push things to one side.
They're not all hers. But I wish I was a little more disciplined in that area. But I rather think that if I ever looked at my desk and saw the top of it, I would figure that somewhere along the line I'm missing the boat. I'm not as busy as I ought to be. My wife took me into Mr. Forest's office one day and she said, I want to show you a desk as it ought to be. Now there's a busy man who takes a tidy desk, but maybe she just bit a day when after six months he had just played us.
But teaching others discipline demands a disciplined life. Losers don't learn from losers. Losers learn from winners. And I think that you know the men that you would consider to be spiritually disciplined, or the women whom you feel are living lives that are spiritually disciplined. Now, if you have difficulty in your own life, then these are the people to go to, because one of the qualifications for being able to teach discipline is living a disciplined life.
Another thing is, of course, having a disciplined home. You say, well, I have no longer children around my table. Some of you say, why I live alone. So there's no point in talking to me about a disciplined home correction. You know, and I don't need to tell you, but I'm going to do it because I want to talk to myself. There's a little black box in your house.
And have you ever said to yourself, when you shut it off, I wasted those two hours. Did you ever have that? Nobody ever had that experience. Now there are things that I mark in the TV guide or my wife marks that we want to see. that we believe are profitable, and they are there, and we should make use of them. We can learn so much about so many things. Just beware of the National Geographic, because it says, first I was a polywad beginning to begin, then I was a slimy toad with my tail tucked in.
Then I was a monkey up a banyan tree. Then I was a doctor with a big DD. A Pollywagasami told a monkey, then a man, glory be to nothing for this godless plan. And you should know that little poem. I've recited it so many times from this very spot. But there's much to be learned from television. But have you ever noticed how, after looking at something good, When somebody else comes on, you don't rush to the television to turn it off. I told you I was talking to myself. It's not for no reason that the television is called the boo-joo.
Some people, he makes a very good babysitter. Saturday morning, when the parents sleep in, put the children to watch the cartoons. Now, that's a very sad thing to do. because you haven't watched those cartoons. I sat with my grandchildren on two occasions and watched those cartoons and I said, you don't want to watch this. And I turned it up. Then they were highly offended. But there's a lot of violence. Lots of things are put into children's minds with the use of television. And I think the devil is having a heyday with young minds today through television. but he's also having a heyday with old ones.
I mean older ones, I beg your pardon. Now, supposing I were to ask you to put your hand up, if you ever watch, I forget what it's called, out of stomach turns, is it? Something like that. I'm not going to ask you to do it. But do you know that there are Christian women, and they would not, for the life of them, make an episode of one of these horrible soap operas? And yet you know that is an indication of a lack of discipline in the life.
It really is. There is absolutely nothing in any one of those stories that is edifying, and there is much that is destructive of good. And if there's any lady here, I doubt it, of course, why it couldn't be. Let alone a man who watches the soap soap story, please let me plead with you, have done with it. It is an instrument Satan will use to destroy your spirituality. We have to have disciplined homes. as well as disciplined lives, even if nobody else lives them in them, but we as a single person.
There are other areas too. My wife has a little gadget. No, it's not a gadget. Just a little motto. It sits on a kitchen window and it says, Death before diet. And I think she's trying to kill herself when she walks around the park as she does three miles in the morning hurrying along that I walk fifteen yards and get puffed out. Death before diet. There are areas in which our lives need to be disciplined as far as eating and drinking and the way that we live.
I better not keep on the subject or I'm going to lose all my friends. But you know, that discipline which is important to God and which calls for disciplined lives and homes has an effect upon the future. It really does. I believe that today's chaos and who's going to deny that we are living in a chaotic age, I believe that we can attribute it by and large to a lack of of discipline. I really believe that. I remember when World War II broke out and mothers went to work and children began for the very first time to get their own latch key.
Britain's will undoing began. Britain's a second-rate country today. Britain is not a leader among the nations anymore. Britain is literally struggling to exist. And it's because in those early days the seeds of lack of discipline were sown. Can't you see problems in our own country here? So many latchkey children. What do you think is happening? Their lives are becoming undisciplined. Is it strange how society keeps on trying to put on band-aids and plasters instead of putting on a good hot poultice and drawing out the evil that is there, treating the symptoms and letting the malady grow and grow and grow?
So much for where discipline should begin. Now, where discipline is being undermined. Number one on the list, public schools. Public schools today are the nation's nursery for infidelity, atheism, rebellion and anarchy. Fortunately, Keystone Heights is very well blessed. When you have a Christian principal and you have some Christian teachers and a Christian counselor, God has a force there that is dealing with the rising.
And I can remember when kids at the high school went on strike one day. Do you remember this? They went on strike because they didn't like the dress code. The school said, no cut up shorts, no this, no that, no the other, no bare feet. The kids actually went on strike at the school. Do you know what happened? I was going to gasp with surprise when I tell you. The parents rallied around the headmaster and said, you kids better get out of school. And that was the end of that particular rebellion. We're very fortunate in Keystone Heights.
There hasn't been a strike about the dress code since. I think there must have been a little relaxation when I see some of the kids coming to school or coming home. But we are very fortunate in this community. But by and large the public schools, control as they are by... those that do not believe in God, who do not hesitate to deny the existence of God in many instances, who have rejected the Bible from their schools, perhaps I should rephrase that, they have had it taken out of their hands, and many of them I'm sure gave it up reluctantly, but it's all part of this picture of a nursery for evil innings.
Think about the tragic stories that we're reading about shootings in the classrooms of the public schools. Drugs in the locker rooms, things like this. We to us, they seem so very remote, but they are not remote. You know that. when they come to Keystone Heights and dig up four drug pushers. You know that when the chief of police gets a message that there's a plane loaded with marijuana coming into Keystone Airport, and he calls a cruiser, two cruisers, and they stake it out, two vans arrive, and when they're loaded up, then the police chase them, capture one, and the other one gets away.
Even in a community like this, These evil things are bearing fruit, and I believe it's because of the lack of discipline. I can remember when a public school, if I said a sassy word to the teacher, that's what I got, right alongside the ear, where it stung for fifteen minutes. If she tried it today, she'd get sued by the parents. The very sad thing. We ought to pray for the teachers in our public schools, because in many cases it's the textbooks.
And those who have control and the say-so over the schools and not the teachers themselves, many a teacher, is struggling to get a little bit of teaching about morality. Even that's not allowed. You can have sex education classes in the schools and do, but you must not mention what is moral or immoral. It must be amoral teaching, no morality. How in the world can you teach a child to do right without teaching morality? It isn't taught anymore in the public schools. And our college campuses, I remember being home one day.
The parents had three children in college. I was glad they were rich and could afford it. I remember how we struggled to get through college, and they were going locally. But however, the father got a call one day, and I was in the sitting room in the phone, and it was his daughter on the phone. I didn't know it. But however, he talked to her, and his voice got a little more agitated. And then he stopped for a moment and he listened and he started again and broke off. The daughter at the other end was obviously saying, Daddy, listen to me. But Daddy, he said, Get back. Tomorrow I shall be at college to bring you home.
He hung up the phone and he turned to me and said, There goes my daughter back to her room in tears. But they have just... opened a coed dormitory building and that's the end of that college for my daughter you realize that in the colleges girls can entertain fellows in their rooms and have the door shut without a chaperone can you can you wonder what's happening in the country today can you wonder at it of course not it is what is undermining this necessary discipline.
What about a judicial system? There's a man, I see him from time to time, a senator, and I can't think of his name, it ends with Ski, S-K-I, I have no time for him at all. He was picked up for drunken driving. And I think it was the fifth occasion, and he still didn't go to jail. I remember reading about a judge picked up for drunken driving, if you please. But he got away with it. Our judicial system is written with bribery and evil things.
This is something else we should be praying about. We should pray that God will remove these judges in any way that he chooses. so that we might have at least a judicial system that is not corrupt. I don't think for a moment we appreciate how corrupt our Congress is, how corrupt our courts are. And I don't think we're real. I just stop. We're living in a violent age because we're living in an undisciplined That's the reason why parents in homes with children need to be so constantly concentrating on the matter of giving to the child an awareness of what is good and what is evil, and building on the child a strength to defy the evil and to deliberately and personally and willingly choose the good.
There's a campaign going on now. Say no to drugs. I hope the kids get to say no to alcohol. That's where their biggest problem is. See what happens on graduation night. Those people who make a little on the side by picking up aluminum cans are going to have a heyday. because beer will be flowing all over the place and the cans will be flung anywhere. Undisciplined. Now, I'm not saying this just to shock you.
I don't think I can because you know it all before I say it. But I'm saying this to impress upon you again in my own heart that in an undisciplined society, it is very easy to become a less disciplined person. Suppose you take a moment and you think of your Christian life ten years ago and then you make comparison with your Christian life today. I wonder whether you can see any differences that tend to make you inclined to believe that your life is not as disciplined now as it was then.
God deliver us from the adverse forces that surround us, that the devil uses so effectively. God grant that our lives shall be saved from the effects that Satan has in mind these things should produce. It means that in these days our praying has got to be more disciplined praying. You send your children to camp, they begin the morning with quiet time.
They are expected to be on their bunks with their Bibles open and reading a set portion of Scripture. That's a wonderful way to begin the day. But they go back to homes where it's not encouraged, where they get out of bed just in time to grab a little breakfast and go after school. we have so much time on our hands, may others. I wonder if our prayer life a disciplined prayer life.
I wonder do you use a prayer list? That's a good way of disciplining your prayer life. I wonder how many of you have the missionary handbook with one day of missionaries for each day of the month. Did you know that the new Home Workers Handbook has just come out? Get hold of one and every day pray for certain missionaries and certain home workers. You'll find a day when Park of the Palms is on that prayer list and when we are hoping tens of thousands of Christians right across the country are praying for Park of the Ponds.
Disciplined prayer life. We must have a disciplined Bible meal in our day. Not just a hurry glance at the calendar, but a definite disciplined period for reading Word of God. You know, the less busy we are, the more inclined we are to let things slip. Have you noticed that? Don't let your praying slip. And don't let your Bible reading slip. And don't let your concern about others that will take you to their homes, that will cause you to invite them out for a cup of coffee.
There's a little place called the Keystone Inn up the road. And there are a number of people in the manner who would just love in the middle of the day to have a cup of coffee. Maybe you ought to make arrangements somewhere in your week to come down and take them up there for a cup of coffee. Or maybe you're richer and can go to Sables where you'll have to pay ten cents more for a cup of coffee. These are disciplined things in the life and they're so necessary. Aren't you glad I'm through? My time has gone. Discipline is very important to God. Discipline in your life is very important to you.
Discipline is not an easy thing to develop. Shall we pray? Our Father, we know as you look into our lives, into the life of the speaker, and into the life of those who listen. You very readily find areas where discipline is lacking. And Lord, we confess these things, and we sorrow a little. And we ask, Lord, that by your Spirit you will enable us to develop a deep conviction about these things that shall again put right things in the right place.
First things first, so that our lives increasingly become the kind of disciplined lives that will please you. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.