Lecture 14: Marriage and Family Counseling

00:00:00.000 | Rueben's been a part of our class for, let's see, the entire semester.

00:00:10.580 | And Rueben, just as the class came in, made an announcement today, and we're going to

00:00:15.800 | let him make this particular announcement to everybody that's watching by way of DVD

00:00:20.400 | as well.

00:00:21.400 | So Rueben, come here and make an announcement.

00:00:23.480 | And I want you to keep in mind that this particular announcement is part of the fruit or the benefit

00:00:29.300 | of marriage and the family counseling class.

00:00:32.880 | I have to say that the one who made the announcement was my roommate.

00:00:39.160 | So now I've been forced to come here.

00:00:40.160 | But gladly, I would say that I'm proposing tonight to my girlfriend, obviously.

00:00:41.160 | And I would say, yeah, it's kind of a fruit for this class.

00:00:42.160 | And also, well, this class has made me think if I was ready to get married.

00:00:43.160 | And I realized that I was.

00:00:44.160 | So I'm going to make an announcement.

00:00:45.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:00:46.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement.

00:00:47.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

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00:00:52.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:00:53.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:00.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

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00:01:03.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:04.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:05.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:06.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:07.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:08.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:09.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:10.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:11.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:12.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

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00:01:15.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

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00:01:20.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:21.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

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00:01:23.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:24.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

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00:01:27.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

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00:01:29.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

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00:01:31.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:32.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:33.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:34.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:01:35.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:02.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:05.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:06.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:07.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:08.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:09.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:10.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:11.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:12.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:13.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:14.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:15.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:16.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:17.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:18.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:19.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:20.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:21.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:22.160 | And I'm going to make an announcement tonight.

00:02:43.160 | And the funny thing about this particular story is that if you've ever had children,

00:02:50.160 | and if you've ever had multiple children, you realize how true this is,

00:02:55.160 | how parents go through sort of an evolution.

00:02:57.160 | On their first child, they're a certain way.

00:03:00.160 | On their second child, they're a little bit different.

00:03:02.160 | On their third child, they're a little bit different.

00:03:04.160 | And this kind of explains the evolution in regards to several different topics.

00:03:08.160 | Well, the first one is clothing.

00:03:10.160 | On the first baby, it said you begin wearing maternity clothes

00:03:13.160 | as soon as your OB/GYN confirms your pregnancy.

00:03:18.160 | On the second baby, you wear your regular clothes as long as possible.

00:03:23.160 | On the third baby, your maternity clothes are your regular clothes.

00:03:31.160 | And what about the baby's name?

00:03:32.160 | You watch couples naming their babies.

00:03:35.160 | You pour over baby name books and practice pronouncing

00:03:38.160 | and writing combinations of all your favorites.

00:03:41.160 | On the second baby, well, someone has to name their kid after great Aunt Mavis,

00:03:46.160 | and it might as well be you.

00:03:48.160 | On the third baby, you open the name book, close your eyes,

00:03:50.160 | you see where your finger falls.

00:03:53.160 | Oh, Bimbaldo, that'll work, perfect.

00:03:56.160 | So by the third baby, you don't care.

00:03:59.160 | What about preparing for birth?

00:04:01.160 | On the first baby, you practice your breathing religiously.

00:04:04.160 | On the second baby, you don't bother practicing

00:04:06.160 | because you remember the last time the breathing didn't help a thing at all.

00:04:10.160 | On the third baby, you ask for an epidural in your eighth month.

00:04:16.160 | What about worries?

00:04:17.160 | On the first baby, at the first sign of distress,

00:04:19.160 | a little whimper, a little frown, you run in and you pick up the baby.

00:04:23.160 | On the second baby, you pick the baby up

00:04:25.160 | when her wails threaten to wake the firstborn.

00:04:28.160 | On the third baby, you teach your three-year-old

00:04:30.160 | how to rewind the mechanical swing.

00:04:34.160 | What about activities?

00:04:35.160 | Well, you take your infant to baby gymnastics, baby swing,

00:04:39.160 | baby story hour on the first baby.

00:04:42.160 | Second baby, you take your infant to baby gymnastics.

00:04:45.160 | Third baby, you take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaners.

00:04:50.160 | How about getting out?

00:04:51.160 | On the first baby, the first time you leave your baby with a sitter,

00:04:55.160 | you call home five times.

00:04:57.160 | On the second baby, just before you walk out the door,

00:05:00.160 | you remember to leave a number where you can be reached.

00:05:02.160 | On the third baby, you leave instructions for the sitter

00:05:05.160 | to call only if she sees blood.

00:05:09.160 | And what about being at home?

00:05:11.160 | On the first baby, you spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.

00:05:15.160 | On the second baby, you spend a bit of every day

00:05:18.160 | watching to be sure the older child isn't squeezing, poking, or hitting the child.

00:05:22.160 | On the third baby, you spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children.

00:05:28.160 | That seems to be the evolution of what happens with parents in regards to children.

00:05:34.160 | Well, we want to talk about this, and especially we want to talk about this

00:05:38.160 | in relationship to parenting in the 21st century.

00:05:42.160 | And we've chosen to start off this way because I believe that children

00:05:47.160 | are facing unique experiences today that you and I did not face when we were their age.

00:05:55.160 | In fact, your children will face experiences at a much younger age

00:06:00.160 | and make decisions about those experiences that you did not have to face

00:06:03.160 | until you were much older.

00:06:05.160 | Most Christian young people today experience so much so young,

00:06:11.160 | and the habits and responses that they're learning

00:06:16.160 | and they're forming in reaction to those experiences

00:06:19.160 | end up staying with them for the rest of their lives.

00:06:23.160 | As parents, I think our most critical role is to help our children develop

00:06:30.160 | the intellectual capacity to make informed, biblical decisions

00:06:35.160 | that really honor the Lord with their lives.

00:06:38.160 | This is what Ecclesiastes 12, 1 talks about,

00:06:41.160 | where to remember our Creator in the days of our youth.

00:06:45.160 | Before the evil days come, and the evil days there is really a reference to growing old

00:06:50.160 | when things get really hard and difficult.

00:06:54.160 | Before evil days come, and it becomes more and more difficult

00:06:59.160 | to establish godly or biblical habits.

00:07:07.160 | What we're saying here is that Christian parenting, really in the 21st century,

00:07:11.160 | presents a whole new set of challenges.

00:07:14.160 | If you're going to pastor or you're going to counsel couples that have children

00:07:20.160 | that are facing a variety of different struggles,

00:07:24.160 | you've got to understand the broader context in which they are growing up.

00:07:29.160 | Even though you and I have been 7 years of age, or 11, or 13, or 17,

00:07:34.160 | there is a sense in which we have never been the age that our children are or will be.

00:07:40.160 | Because you and I have not faced some of the choices that they've had to face.

00:07:45.160 | So how do you counsel parents in an MTV generation with Xbox and iPods

00:07:51.160 | and instant messaging in the midst of rapidly changing societal customs,

00:07:57.160 | homosexuality, lesbianism, not only accepted but even praised,

00:08:01.160 | new designer drugs and specialty alcoholic drinks,

00:08:04.160 | and ever-changing cultural morality,

00:08:08.160 | that obviously has a huge impact upon the Christian family.

00:08:15.160 | Because even though they may be very devoted and very holy

00:08:21.160 | and committed to raising their children in a godly way,

00:08:28.160 | it's difficult. They realize it's a difficult challenge.

00:08:32.160 | In fact, grab your Bible just for a moment and I want you to go over to 2 Timothy 3.

00:08:39.160 | This is not unanticipated in Scripture.

00:08:43.160 | It's always amazing to me when Paul describes the last days.

00:08:50.160 | Of course, as a pre-millennialist,

00:08:53.160 | I'm very committed to the fact that this is a description of what the last days will be like.

00:08:59.160 | Verse 1, "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come."

00:09:06.160 | Literally, the Greek here is dangerous times.

00:09:09.160 | Times or seasons or epochs will come.

00:09:12.160 | And then he gives a description of why these were going to be difficult.

00:09:16.160 | And it says here, "Men will be," first thing on the list, "lovers of self."

00:09:23.160 | And by the way, I believe that that little phrase,

00:09:25.160 | because of the way the Semitic mind usually puts together groupings of things,

00:09:30.160 | actually characterizes everything else in this list.

00:09:33.160 | Men will be lovers of self, and so as a result of that, they'll be lovers of money.

00:09:37.160 | They love self, so they'll be boastful.

00:09:40.160 | They love self because, and they'll be arrogant.

00:09:43.160 | They'll love self, they'll be revilers.

00:09:45.160 | They love self, and they'll be disobedient to parents.

00:09:49.160 | And because they love self, they'll be ungrateful.

00:09:52.160 | They'll be unholy, they'll be unloving in relationship to others, irreconcilable.

00:09:57.160 | Malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal.

00:10:00.160 | Haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited.

00:10:03.160 | Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

00:10:05.160 | Holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.

00:10:09.160 | And then it says, "Avoid such men as these."

00:10:12.160 | So, this is not unanticipated in Scripture.

00:10:16.160 | The fact that we live in a very dangerous day and age.

00:10:20.160 | There's a sense in which the challenges, in terms of the specifics, have changed.

00:10:27.160 | But children have not, and the way that children respond to things have not changed.

00:10:33.160 | And so, as Christian pastors, as Christian counselors, it's imperative that we help people.

00:10:42.160 | That we minister the Word of God to view the Scriptures, not as one of the answers.

00:10:46.160 | But as the answer for rearing children in the 21st century.

00:10:50.160 | I think that's vital.

00:10:51.160 | This is not just one answer among many.

00:10:53.160 | This is the authoritative answer, based upon the fact that this is the sufficient, inerrant, authoritative Word of God.

00:11:01.160 | Inspired by God.

00:11:05.160 | It is the ultimate answer.

00:11:08.160 | Now, in order to deal with this particular issue, let's go back to the Old Testament.

00:11:16.160 | And we've got to go to a particular text that I think has caused a lot of problems in misunderstanding.

00:11:28.160 | In Christian parenting and rearing children.

00:11:30.160 | And we're interested in Proverbs 22, verse 6.

00:11:35.160 | Proverbs 22, verse 6.

00:11:40.160 | This verse, probably, is one of the most quoted verses in the Bible when it comes to child rearing.

00:11:44.160 | And the way that you understand, or use this verse in counseling,

00:11:49.160 | has a huge effect on the way that people will really rear their children.

00:11:54.160 | If they're conscientious Christian people who love the Word of God, it will have a huge effect.

00:12:01.160 | And the question is, how do we understand this particular verse?

00:12:06.160 | Or, we could ask it like this.

00:12:09.160 | What does the verse mean?

00:12:10.160 | Does it guarantee that if I bring up my child in the right way, when he or she is older, they will not depart from it?

00:12:18.160 | Well, the New American Standard Version translates this.

00:12:23.160 | Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old, he will not depart from it.

00:12:34.160 | So, when we ask the question, what does this verse mean?

00:12:37.160 | This is really a huge question.

00:12:40.160 | Does it really guarantee that if I bring up my child and give them the right kind of environment,

00:12:46.160 | and the right kind of circumstances, and the right kind of education, that my child will grow up loving the Lord?

00:12:55.160 | That's certainly one way you can take it.

00:12:58.160 | Or, in the past probably 10 years, I've also heard a new twist on this verse where this has to do,

00:13:03.160 | and this is usually a psychological twist, has to do with personality.

00:13:08.160 | You bring up a child and you let him go according to his own personality.

00:13:14.160 | For example, if you have a child that has a great appreciation for aesthetics or music,

00:13:20.160 | then you let him go down the route where they become musical.

00:13:24.160 | Or, if they have a great ability in the area of athletics, then you let him follow that propensity towards athletics.

00:13:37.160 | Does it have to do with the giftedness of a child?

00:13:40.160 | Does it have to do with the personality of a child?

00:13:42.160 | That's a good question too.

00:13:46.160 | But by far, probably the most common interpretation of this is that if you bring up a child,

00:13:58.160 | and in the right way, with the right kind of discipline, the right kind of environment,

00:14:04.160 | when they grow up, they will not depart from the right way.

00:14:10.160 | In other words, it would be viewed as a guarantee.

00:14:17.160 | And there are a lot of Christian parents who view this verse this way.

00:14:21.160 | They think if you're able to shield your child from society and only provide them with the right kind of Christian influences,

00:14:27.160 | then they will grow up as good, solid Christians.

00:14:31.160 | And so, the tendency then is to shield the child away from all the negative influences that are out there in the world

00:14:39.160 | and just bring them up in a totally, just purely Christian environment.

00:14:44.160 | Obviously, you understand the problem with that thinking.

00:14:47.160 | The assumption is that all the bad influences are out there.

00:14:52.160 | When in reality, if you really understand what the Bible says about a child,

00:14:56.160 | the bad influences really don't begin out there.

00:14:58.160 | The bad influences begin in their own heart.

00:15:02.160 | It begins with their own propensities, their own passions, their own desires that tend towards evil.

00:15:11.160 | And if you just define the environment as being the cause for the way in which the children go wrong,

00:15:18.160 | sort of like Skinner, though a child's life is like a tabula rasa, it's just a blank slate,

00:15:28.160 | and negative marks on that particular slate cause that child to grow up in a negative fashion.

00:15:38.160 | Well, Skinner would be proud of this kind of Christian parenting because it's all about the environment.

00:15:43.160 | It's the environment that causes the child to go wrong.

00:15:48.160 | It's the environment that marks that child's life for good or for bad.

00:15:51.160 | So, you bring up a child in the good environment, the child will grow up good.

00:15:55.160 | You bring up a child in the bad environment, the child's going to grow up bad.

00:16:02.160 | That is traditional approach to child-rearing that is very behavioristic.

00:16:10.160 | And you can see this in a lot of Christian organizations across the country

00:16:13.160 | that promote a "Christian form of child-rearing."

00:16:17.160 | You read a lot of Christian books that are out there that promote a Christian form of child-rearing.

00:16:21.160 | A lot of that is very behavioristic, or if you take a look at exactly what they're saying, it's very Skinnerian.

00:16:28.160 | Now, we're not saying that you ignore the behavior of your child.

00:16:32.160 | We're not saying that at all.

00:16:34.160 | But is it what we are establishing, is it the environment that determines the child's life?

00:16:40.160 | Is that really what determines life?

00:16:42.160 | It's interesting that here in the state of California several years ago, they did a series of studies.

00:16:48.160 | In fact, they invested millions of dollars into taking career criminals

00:16:53.160 | and using this Skinnerian idea, giving them the best education possible, providing them with everything.

00:17:00.160 | So the theory is if you put those career criminals in a good environment with a good education,

00:17:06.160 | then they will be naturally responsible citizens in society.

00:17:12.160 | And what they found out at the conclusion of their study, to their shock by the way,

00:17:16.160 | that they just had at the conclusion, once they graduated and gotten all their degrees and so on,

00:17:22.160 | they just now had really smart criminals.

00:17:26.160 | But they were still criminals.

00:17:28.160 | Their character had never changed.

00:17:30.160 | Their hearts had never changed.

00:17:32.160 | They were just more clever about what they were able to do.

00:17:38.160 | And that's the thinking here of a lot of Christians.

00:17:41.160 | You give your child the right environment, they're going to grow up right.

00:17:45.160 | And so a lot of Christian parents are very Skinnerian in their parenting, and they don't even know it.

00:17:51.160 | Well, it's true that if you read the English translation of the verse, you could take it that way.

00:17:59.160 | But it can also be properly understood another way.

00:18:03.160 | And it seems that the key phrase in this verse is a little phrase that's used in the English.

00:18:08.160 | It says, "In the way that he should go."

00:18:10.160 | The question is, what does that phrase mean?

00:18:14.160 | In fact, a similar Hebrew phraseology is used over in Proverbs 29 15.

00:18:22.160 | So if you want to grab your Bible just for a moment, put a marker here,

00:18:26.160 | because we're going to come back to Proverbs 22 6.

00:18:30.160 | But let's go over to Proverbs 29 15.

00:18:33.160 | And you notice the way the English translators here have chosen to translate this.

00:18:39.160 | It says, "The rod and reproof give instruction, but a child who," and here's our little phrase again,

00:18:44.160 | "who gets his own way brings shame to his mother."

00:18:48.160 | And in fact, that little phrase is footnoted, and you go to the footnote, and it says,

00:18:52.160 | "A child left to himself," and I really like that.

00:18:57.160 | That's probably getting at the core idea of this phrase.

00:19:02.160 | "But a child left to himself brings shame to his mother."

00:19:06.160 | That's the idea.

00:19:09.160 | "A child that's left to himself brings shame to his mother."

00:19:17.160 | Well, if that's the case, and you plug that back in, let's go back to Proverbs 22 6,

00:19:22.160 | and you were to take this similar phrase and train up a child and leave him to himself,

00:19:28.160 | and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

00:19:32.160 | Now that changes the entire sense of the verse, we could say.

00:19:41.160 | "If it is teaching that a child that is parented in such a way that the child is essentially left to himself

00:19:46.160 | or allowed to do his or her own thing."

00:19:51.160 | You know, I've had parents say that to me before in counseling.

00:19:54.160 | They've said that to me, but their whole philosophy of parenting is,

00:19:57.160 | "Well, you know, I'm just letting my kid learn in the school of hard knocks."

00:20:01.160 | That's the idea.

00:20:03.160 | "I'm just kind of letting that kid just learn by doing it the hard way."

00:20:07.160 | That's, in a sense, a laissez-faire approach to counseling.

00:20:13.160 | Or approach to parenting, I should say.

00:20:17.160 | They're not getting involved in that child's life.

00:20:20.160 | They're not directing them in the right way.

00:20:26.160 | This also so changes the concept of the verse that we begin to sense that then it wouldn't be a guarantee.

00:20:37.160 | Instead, it would be a warning.

00:20:43.160 | It would be a warning.

00:20:46.160 | In fact, if you take a look at the Hebrew, it would go something like this.

00:20:54.160 | "Train up a child or really dedicate a child on the mouth of his way,"

00:20:59.160 | literally is the Hebrew, "on the mouth of his way."

00:21:03.160 | "And then when he is old, he will not turn aside from it."

00:21:08.160 | And that little phrase, "on the mouth of his way,"

00:21:11.160 | is an interesting little phrase there because it is an old Hebraism.

00:21:19.160 | Very, very old. It goes way back, ancient Hebrew.

00:21:24.160 | That means you let a child grow up according to what he wants to do

00:21:29.160 | or he says he will do on the mouth of his way.

00:21:33.160 | And when he is old, he will not depart from it.

00:21:36.160 | You let him grow up according to his own opinion of himself and his environment and people.

00:21:45.160 | When he is old, he will not depart from it.

00:21:52.160 | The word for "train," the Hebrew word "hanach," means to dedicate.

00:21:58.160 | And it was actually used to dedicate a house or an image or the temple in the Old Testament.

00:22:08.160 | And only here in Proverbs 22, 6 is the only place in the English Bible

00:22:13.160 | that we translate this word, "hanach," as "train."

00:22:19.160 | But the idea seems to be to dedicate or start.

00:22:27.160 | The concept behind the word means setting aside or narrowing or hedging in.

00:22:32.160 | So child training involves a narrowing of a child's conduct away from evil and towards godliness,

00:22:38.160 | starting him in the right direction.

00:22:45.160 | Or in some cases, it could be starting him in the mouth of his own way in the wrong direction,

00:22:52.160 | which is the propensity of his own heart.

00:22:54.160 | And that's the way I tend to see this.

00:22:57.160 | On the mouth of his way, according to what he wants to do.

00:23:08.160 | For example, this little phrase "upon the mouth of his way" is an old Hebrew idiom

00:23:13.160 | that means "according to" or "in accord with."

00:23:16.160 | A servant will respond upon the mouth or at the command of his superior, his master, back in ancient times.

00:23:25.160 | So, in this case, it would be the child responding to his own desires.

00:23:32.160 | You let a child grow up responding to his own desires,

00:23:36.160 | and when he is old, he will not be able to stop responding to his own desires.

00:23:44.160 | So, let's identify a principle here, if we can.

00:23:49.160 | We would say then that Proverbs 22.6 is not a promise.

00:23:55.160 | It is a warning for parents to be actively involved in their child's rearing.

00:24:04.160 | In fact, if we were to take it as a promise, that sort of violates the nature of a Hebrew proverb.

00:24:11.160 | A proverb really is a literary device whereby a general truth is brought to bear upon a specific situation.

00:24:18.160 | Many of the proverbs are not intended to be absolute guarantees,

00:24:22.160 | like other parts of Scripture would be or other genres of Scripture would be.

00:24:26.160 | They are expressed truths that are necessarily conditioned by prevailing circumstances.

00:24:35.160 | We can see several examples of that in Proverbs, where Proverbs is stating a general truth.

00:24:42.160 | Generally, this is true. There are exceptions to it, and God usually always gives the exceptions.

00:24:47.160 | Sometimes in the graduate program, I'll teach a class on Proverbs in counseling or Ecclesiastes in counseling,

00:24:55.160 | and one of the things I like to say is that Proverbs presents all the general rules,

00:25:01.160 | and Ecclesiastes all the exceptions to those rules.

00:25:08.160 | Now, if you take this as a promise, what you do is you place upon yourself exceptions or expectations

00:25:16.160 | that even the perfect parent would not.

00:25:20.160 | By the way, who is the perfect parent?

00:25:24.160 | God, right? God's the perfect parent.

00:25:29.160 | Well, what does God say about His own parenting?

00:25:35.160 | Grab your Bible just for a moment and go over to Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 2.

00:25:45.160 | "Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth, for the Lord speaks.

00:25:48.160 | Sons I have reared and brought up, but they have revolted against Me."

00:25:52.160 | Wow, that's the perfect parent speaking.

00:25:56.160 | "Sons I have reared and brought up, but they have revolted against Me."

00:26:00.160 | Did God ever do anything that was wrong towards His children? No.

00:26:06.160 | So He always responded to them perfectly.

00:26:13.160 | There are some parents who want to say, "If I had only been the perfect parent,

00:26:17.160 | then my kid wouldn't have turned out this way."

00:26:19.160 | No, they would have still turned out that way.

00:26:23.160 | Because it was in their heart to be that way.

00:26:28.160 | Now, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do well by our children.

00:26:33.160 | That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to do our best and be as good a godly parent as possible.

00:26:40.160 | But God is basically saying here, there are no guarantees.

00:26:44.160 | We bring them up the best way we know how, and then that kid, he or she, has a choice

00:26:54.160 | of whether or not they're going to follow the ways of the Lord,

00:26:57.160 | or whether or not they will not follow the ways of the Lord.

00:27:08.160 | So, He always, that is God always, did everything perfectly for His children,

00:27:15.160 | and yet His sons revolted against Him.

00:27:20.160 | So, challenging the sinful heart of your child is going to be hard work that leaves no absolute guarantees.

00:27:30.160 | How many times have I sat across the desk from a Christian parent

00:27:35.160 | who really loved their kids and have done the best they possibly could.

00:27:39.160 | They weren't perfect, but they did the best they possibly could for their children.

00:27:44.160 | And their children grew up and ended up rejecting their father and mother's value system,

00:27:49.160 | rejecting what they stood for, rejecting even their father and mother's God

00:27:54.160 | and their commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:28:01.160 | And in the process, just walked away from things of the Lord,

00:28:05.160 | and how much grief that brought to those parents' hearts.

00:28:09.160 | Well, if you're a parent who takes Proverbs 22, 6 as a guarantee,

00:28:13.160 | then you begin to question the reliability of the Bible, or the credibility of the Bible.

00:28:20.160 | I mean, if the Bible guarantees me that my kids are going to turn out right

00:28:24.160 | if I bring them up the right way, then what's happened here?

00:28:28.160 | Well, the problem is that's not what the Bible does. The Bible doesn't do that.

00:28:32.160 | The Bible warns us that we need to do our best to parent our children,

00:28:38.160 | but there's no guarantees here. It's merely a warning.

00:28:44.160 | Secondly, I want you to see that there is a real balance here.

00:28:51.160 | Biblical child-rearing must include a wise, progressive balance

00:28:56.160 | between structural and verbal discipline.

00:29:00.160 | And this is the text that we took a look at just a few moments ago

00:29:03.160 | over in Proverbs 29 and verse 15.

00:29:08.160 | He talks about the rod and reproof give wisdom.

00:29:15.160 | Both the rod, which is the physical punishment, children need that,

00:29:20.160 | and the verbal correction, which is the verbal punishment or verbal rebuke,

00:29:28.160 | are to be used in balance in child-rearing.

00:29:34.160 | Parenting requires a wise admonition of both types of discipline

00:29:38.160 | during the growth of a child, both rod and reproof.

00:29:44.160 | But a child, in contrast to that, who is left to himself or gets his own way,

00:29:49.160 | will shame his mother.

00:29:50.160 | In other words, this is a child who hasn't had the proper rod

00:29:53.160 | and the proper reproof and instruction.

00:29:57.160 | The rod, in a sense, addresses the behavior.

00:30:00.160 | The reproof addresses the heart, the internal child.

00:30:09.160 | So you're addressing both.

00:30:13.160 | And failure to establish and maintain this balance

00:30:16.160 | will ultimately result in an unruly and frustrated child.

00:30:25.160 | A child who is not disciplined and is left to himself

00:30:29.160 | or allowed to do as he pleases and whatever he wants

00:30:34.160 | will become an unruly person.

00:30:36.160 | This kind of child will bring disgrace upon his parents.

00:30:42.160 | Now, there's a New Testament parallel to this.

00:30:45.160 | So grab your Bible just for a moment.

00:30:46.160 | Let's go over to Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 4.

00:30:56.160 | Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 4.

00:31:02.160 | "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger

00:31:05.160 | and bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord."

00:31:11.160 | You can see this same progressive balance here

00:31:17.160 | between structural and verbal discipline.

00:31:22.160 | The word "discipline" here in the New American Standard Bible

00:31:27.160 | is the Greek term paideia,

00:31:31.160 | which has to do with structural correction.

00:31:36.160 | This is equivalent to the rod there in Proverbs 29:15.

00:31:40.160 | It's the same thing.

00:31:43.160 | And then "instruction" is our word "nuthesia."

00:31:49.160 | That's where we get our word "nuthetic" from

00:31:51.160 | or "nuthetic counseling."

00:31:54.160 | It's a verbal correction by encouragement and reproof

00:31:58.160 | and warning and counsel.

00:32:01.160 | God has created every child with a conscience

00:32:03.160 | can be responsive to both the corrective training

00:32:06.160 | as well as the verbal admonition.

00:32:10.160 | That word "nuthesia" can mean admonish, warn, counsel.

00:32:18.160 | It can mean any of those ideas,

00:32:21.160 | but that's what you want to do with the child,

00:32:23.160 | which helps to address that child's heart.

00:32:28.160 | Now, one of the best ways I like to illustrate this,

00:32:30.160 | especially in counseling for parents,

00:32:33.160 | is by putting out a chart something like this.

00:32:37.160 | From the time that a child is a little baby

00:32:39.160 | until they're a full-grown adult,

00:32:41.160 | probably around 20 years of age--

00:32:43.160 | that doesn't necessarily assume

00:32:45.160 | that they're totally mature as an adult,

00:32:47.160 | but at least they're 20 years of age--

00:32:50.160 | from that particular time,

00:32:52.160 | if we were to take this balance

00:32:54.160 | between the structural discipline

00:32:56.160 | and the verbal discipline,

00:32:58.160 | then it should look something like this.

00:33:02.160 | Because as a child is very young,

00:33:04.160 | that child, you can do all the verbal admonition you want.

00:33:07.160 | That child's not going to understand what you're saying.

00:33:11.160 | What they need is lots and lots of structural discipline.

00:33:15.160 | That's what they need.

00:33:19.160 | So, but as that child grows older,

00:33:23.160 | slowly there's less and less structural parameters,

00:33:27.160 | physical correction, and much more verbal correction.

00:33:34.160 | So, and this is where the rebuke comes in.

00:33:38.160 | The admonition, the instruction, the verbal correction,

00:33:42.160 | to the point where eventually that child has really all the--

00:33:49.160 | you've lost all opportunity to have

00:33:51.160 | any kind of physical correction in their life,

00:33:53.160 | but certainly you have the opportunity

00:33:56.160 | for a lot of verbal input.

00:33:59.160 | All of my children are at that age now.

00:34:01.160 | I have no physical correction left in their life.

00:34:05.160 | They're all adults, they're all functioning,

00:34:08.160 | and two daughters that have graduated from college

00:34:11.160 | and are married, and now two sons

00:34:13.160 | that are about ready to graduate from college.

00:34:17.160 | But the opportunity for continuing admonition,

00:34:20.160 | instruction, and verbal correction is still there,

00:34:23.160 | and that's real key.

00:34:25.160 | We'll talk about that in a few minutes.

00:34:30.160 | So, as a child grows, there's less and less

00:34:33.160 | physical discipline and more and more

00:34:35.160 | moral or verbal discipline.

00:34:38.160 | And as a child grows and learns his or her environment,

00:34:41.160 | the child has to grow in their understanding

00:34:43.160 | of how their own sinful heart is interacting

00:34:53.160 | with that environment, with those challenges,

00:34:58.160 | the lusts and the cravings that tend to come up

00:35:01.160 | from that heart, and ultimately the difference

00:35:03.160 | that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ

00:35:05.160 | makes in their life.

00:35:08.160 | It starts in salvation but continues

00:35:10.160 | as the child grows in grace.

00:35:13.160 | So it's critical for Christian parents to learn

00:35:15.160 | how to gradually let up on making all the decisions

00:35:18.160 | for the child and instruct him or her

00:35:21.160 | on how to make godly decisions on their own.

00:35:25.160 | They may fail in their decision making,

00:35:27.160 | but the Christian home needs to be the kind of environment

00:35:29.160 | where they can be lovingly picked back up

00:35:31.160 | and instructed on ultimately what went wrong.

00:35:36.160 | So, as a child is very young, much more rod

00:35:39.160 | than there is rebuke.

00:35:41.160 | But as the child grows older, much more rebuke

00:35:44.160 | and less and less rod.

00:35:52.160 | Now, remember this.

00:35:54.160 | Every disciplined event becomes an opportunity

00:35:56.160 | for the gospel.

00:36:00.160 | Why?

00:36:01.160 | Because every time a child is disciplined,

00:36:03.160 | it's important that you help parents understand this.

00:36:06.160 | Every time a child is disciplined,

00:36:08.160 | a Christian parent should be saying to that child,

00:36:12.160 | "What is it that God expects of you?

00:36:16.160 | What is it that God expects of you?"

00:36:18.160 | And the answer always is perfection.

00:36:23.160 | God expects that child to be perfect.

00:36:29.160 | We see, when a child is very young,

00:36:31.160 | that child assumes they can do that.

00:36:34.160 | "I can do that.

00:36:36.160 | I can be perfect."

00:36:38.160 | But as time goes on and as more and more punishments come,

00:36:41.160 | because of their wicked sinful heart,

00:36:44.160 | they eventually, at some particular point,

00:36:46.160 | throw up their arms when you say,

00:36:47.160 | "What is it that God expects of you?"

00:36:49.160 | That child throws up his arms and says,

00:36:53.160 | "But I can't be perfect!"

00:36:56.160 | In frustration.

00:36:59.160 | And then, you understand,

00:37:01.160 | the doors are thrown wide open for the gospel.

00:37:05.160 | That's why you need Jesus Christ.

00:37:11.160 | That's why you need Jesus and His death on the cross.

00:37:17.160 | You're right.

00:37:19.160 | You can't be perfect.

00:37:21.160 | And it's like the lights come on for the kids.

00:37:26.160 | It's like, "Whoa!"

00:37:29.160 | Because up to this particular point,

00:37:31.160 | they think that Jesus is just an additive to their life.

00:37:35.160 | Now they understand that Jesus is not just an additive.

00:37:38.160 | It's not just a nice thing that I add to my life.

00:37:41.160 | Jesus Christ is my only hope.

00:37:46.160 | I can't be perfect.

00:37:48.160 | And my mom and my dad have reminded me

00:37:50.160 | that that's what God expects.

00:37:52.160 | Absolute, 100% perfection.

00:37:57.160 | Wow.

00:38:01.160 | Now, what we get in society and culture is something like this.

00:38:06.160 | And we get a lot of this today.

00:38:08.160 | We have homes that are not growing up in a biblical way,

00:38:11.160 | or they're not using this in the right way.

00:38:14.160 | And those homes look something like this.

00:38:16.160 | This is, in a sense, the laid-back style of parenting

00:38:20.160 | that has been popularized by Benjamin Spock.

00:38:23.160 | In American European culture, maybe you don't remember,

00:38:27.160 | but certainly I remember and my parents remember.

00:38:31.160 | Benjamin Spock, back in the 1950s, 1960s, and '70s,

00:38:34.160 | had a huge influence upon American parents.

00:38:40.160 | Benjamin Spock, impressionistic child psychologist today,

00:38:43.160 | this is their view of what the home should be like.

00:38:46.160 | That is, lots and lots of verbal correction,

00:38:49.160 | little or no rod or consequences.

00:38:55.160 | In fact, this is what we would call

00:38:57.160 | probably the permissive home.

00:39:00.160 | This is the permissive home.

00:39:04.160 | Parents are afraid to do anything

00:39:06.160 | that would wound the psyche of their children,

00:39:08.160 | so they rarely punish them.

00:39:10.160 | But they're always trying to provide positive reinforcement

00:39:12.160 | for good behavior, which is Skinnerian.

00:39:15.160 | There's often lots of verbal instruction and admonition

00:39:18.160 | that's going on, seldom any worthwhile consequences

00:39:21.160 | for sinful behavior.

00:39:25.160 | And more often than not, if you find in your church

00:39:28.160 | or your counseling ministry single-parent homes,

00:39:32.160 | especially where mom is the custodial parent,

00:39:36.160 | it becomes this kind of a home frequently.

00:39:39.160 | Not always, but frequently.

00:39:41.160 | She believes that children have already suffered enough

00:39:43.160 | with the loss of their father, either by divorce or by death,

00:39:46.160 | and she can't stand to implement

00:39:48.160 | any kind of painful consequences on the children,

00:39:50.160 | and frequently these children actually, as they grow up,

00:39:53.160 | lose respect for their mother

00:39:55.160 | and eventually grow up actually hating her.

00:40:01.160 | So sometimes you get homes that are extremely permissive,

00:40:04.160 | really laid-back homes,

00:40:07.160 | where there's very little rod,

00:40:10.160 | lots and lots of verbal admonition.

00:40:15.160 | Or you may get the opposite.

00:40:17.160 | You may find yourself in a church

00:40:19.160 | with a lot of homes this way.

00:40:21.160 | And this is the harsh home,

00:40:24.160 | and it has a very flat view of Christian parenting.

00:40:28.160 | For a couple like this,

00:40:30.160 | parenting is a set of do's and don'ts.

00:40:33.160 | Lots and lots of rod, very little verbal correction.

00:40:37.160 | In fact, if the kids ask the parents,

00:40:40.160 | "Why should I do that?"

00:40:42.160 | Well, the answer comes always, "Because I said so."

00:40:47.160 | All right?

00:40:51.160 | This type of home routinely produces an angry,

00:40:55.160 | exasperated child, like the previous home.

00:41:00.160 | And once this child is outside of the home,

00:41:02.160 | he or she are going to throw off all restraint

00:41:04.160 | and fully indulge their sinful natures.

00:41:07.160 | Mom and dad is usually often very demanding,

00:41:10.160 | very dictatorial with the children.

00:41:13.160 | Living in a home like this

00:41:14.160 | is like living in a military boot camp.

00:41:17.160 | Very difficult.

00:41:19.160 | Very little time is given to interaction with the children.

00:41:22.160 | The parents are viewed as cops

00:41:24.160 | that are lurking around the corner,

00:41:28.160 | trying to find every little infraction of the law.

00:41:34.160 | And homes like this have parents

00:41:36.160 | that sometimes are in very high-demanding jobs

00:41:41.160 | or military-type situations,

00:41:44.160 | and they produce young girls

00:41:46.160 | with anorexia neurosa or bulimia

00:41:48.160 | because this is the only area of their life

00:41:50.160 | that these girls find out

00:41:51.160 | that they can have any control in.

00:41:56.160 | So you can have the permissive home,

00:41:58.160 | you can have the dictatorial home,

00:42:00.160 | or here's a type of home you can have as well.

00:42:06.160 | This particular home will produce a child

00:42:08.160 | that brings its mother shame

00:42:11.160 | or will be provoked to wrath or anger.

00:42:16.160 | This is the dictatorial home.

00:42:20.160 | There's another one.

00:42:22.160 | This particular home.

00:42:26.160 | And I often ask, "What's going on here in this home?"

00:42:30.160 | Well, usually, lots and lots of freedom

00:42:33.160 | right up to this particular age,

00:42:35.160 | and this is just a hypothetical age,

00:42:37.160 | so you can move this line either direction on this timeline

00:42:40.160 | of how this child has grown up.

00:42:43.160 | But what has happened here?

00:42:45.160 | Well, the parents get saved.

00:42:50.160 | Prior to their salvation, everybody--

00:42:53.160 | this is just kind of a loose home.

00:42:57.160 | But all of a sudden, they get saved,

00:42:59.160 | and these parents begin to think,

00:43:00.160 | "I've got to make up for lost time."

00:43:02.160 | And so, boy, they throw in the rules and regulations.

00:43:06.160 | And it's not uncommon for children in this type of home

00:43:09.160 | to wish their parents were back in their pagan days.

00:43:12.160 | Life has become miserable for them.

00:43:15.160 | Mom and dad have good intentions,

00:43:17.160 | but they are inadvertently teaching their children

00:43:19.160 | that Christianity really is a bunch of rules

00:43:22.160 | and harsh regulations.

00:43:24.160 | They hate it, and they ultimately will reject

00:43:27.160 | their parents' God.

00:43:29.160 | This type of home also will eventually produce a child

00:43:32.160 | that will bring shame or will be provoked to anger

00:43:36.160 | or--there in Ephesians 6:4, some translations have translated

00:43:40.160 | that Greek term "exasperation."

00:43:44.160 | Pure exasperation.

00:43:55.160 | Parogizomai--it's a present active imperative--

00:43:59.160 | has the idea to make anger or to bring one along

00:44:02.160 | to a deep-seated anger.

00:44:06.160 | And the preposition here in the compound

00:44:09.160 | indicates really an ongoing type of motion.

00:44:17.160 | So Paul warns, "Don't bring up your child in such a way

00:44:22.160 | that you provoke that child to anger."

00:44:26.160 | You can do that if you have a pet like a dog.

00:44:30.160 | If you have a dog, and that dog is a generally

00:44:33.160 | well-mannered dog, and you take a stick

00:44:36.160 | and you keep poking that dog and poking that dog,

00:44:38.160 | that dog is going to get angry at you and eventually bite you.

00:44:42.160 | Well, the same thing is true with a child like this.

00:44:47.160 | You keep poking the child and poking the child,

00:44:49.160 | it brings anger and exasperation out in this child.

00:44:53.160 | So this is what we call the new Christian home.

00:44:59.160 | So we would say this.

00:45:01.160 | Thirdly, then, the use of the rod involves the option

00:45:05.160 | of corporal punishment as well as other types

00:45:07.160 | of physical restraint and chastisement.

00:45:14.160 | Most older parents understand that the use

00:45:17.160 | of corporal punishment gradually has diminishing returns

00:45:20.160 | as the child physically grows older.

00:45:23.160 | When applied under control, not giving full vent

00:45:27.160 | to a person's anger, as Proverbs 29:11 talks about,

00:45:32.160 | the rod is effective while children are still young,

00:45:37.160 | small, juniors.

00:45:40.160 | As a child becomes the parent's physical equal

00:45:43.160 | in high school and college, the rod becomes

00:45:45.160 | an ineffective punishment.

00:45:47.160 | However, there are things that can equal the rod.

00:45:51.160 | Nowadays, you take away a child's cell phone

00:45:54.160 | and they think they've died.

00:45:58.160 | You take away their Nintendo or their iPod.

00:46:03.160 | You think this is a fate worse than death.

00:46:09.160 | In fact, God used a variety of methods

00:46:11.160 | to chastise his children.

00:46:13.160 | Proverbs' use of the rod can be taken in Hebrew poetry

00:46:16.160 | to be a metaphorical reference to other types

00:46:18.160 | of punishment as well.

00:46:20.160 | It doesn't always have to be literally a rod.

00:46:24.160 | A loving parent, Proverbs 13:24,

00:46:27.160 | will inflict temporary discomfort on the children

00:46:30.160 | by spanking them, sometimes with a rod,

00:46:32.160 | or by causing them to be discomforted

00:46:35.160 | by something else similar.

00:46:43.160 | Proverbs 19:18, here the verse is an imperative.

00:46:50.160 | It says, "Discipline your son."

00:46:52.160 | It's a command.

00:46:53.160 | It's a strong warning against parental passivity.

00:46:57.160 | We have a responsibility to do that.

00:47:00.160 | So a child that's guilty of misdeeds has to be punished.

00:47:07.160 | That's Proverbs 19:18.

00:47:15.160 | To neglect this kind of discipline is going

00:47:17.160 | to contribute to the child's death, the Bible says.

00:47:22.160 | Now, we're not sure exactly what that death refers to.

00:47:25.160 | Maybe it referred to capital punishment under the law,

00:47:29.160 | Deuteronomy 21, verses 18 through 21,

00:47:31.160 | or to the danger of some kind of natural consequences

00:47:34.160 | that accompany a child's foolish behavior,

00:47:37.160 | like a law that says, "I don't want you to go

00:47:39.160 | and play in the street.

00:47:41.160 | Otherwise, you're going to get run over."

00:47:44.160 | Ultimately, because of this misdeed and behavior,

00:47:48.160 | it ends up killing him.

00:47:53.160 | Children need discipline.

00:47:54.160 | In fact, grab your Bible for a moment.

00:47:56.160 | Let's go over to Proverbs 23.

00:47:59.160 | A little bit later on there in Proverbs,

00:48:03.160 | in verse 13, he says, "Do not hold back discipline

00:48:09.160 | from the child.

00:48:10.160 | Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die.

00:48:13.160 | You shall strike him with the rod and rescue his soul

00:48:17.160 | from Sheol."

00:48:21.160 | So the pain here that's caused by spanking can make

00:48:25.160 | the parent and the child think the child's going to die.

00:48:31.160 | But that's not so.

00:48:32.160 | The punishment will actually deliver the child from death,

00:48:35.160 | not cause his death.

00:48:38.160 | That punishment will help the child.

00:48:44.160 | So it's important to be willing to discipline a child,

00:48:48.160 | and that discipline is to be greater and more frequent

00:48:53.160 | when that child especially is younger.

00:48:57.160 | But then the other side of it has to do

00:48:59.160 | with verbal correction.

00:49:01.160 | Verbal correction then is just as important

00:49:04.160 | as that child especially grows up.

00:49:10.160 | Now, Proverbs really is full of parental pleas

00:49:13.160 | for the son to listen to his father's counsel.

00:49:16.160 | Clear back in chapter 2, verses 1 through 10,

00:49:18.160 | you can see that strong if/then long extended sentences

00:49:26.160 | are set up there in Proverbs chapter 2.

00:49:29.160 | Simply punishing a child for misbehavior and announcing,

00:49:33.160 | now don't do that again, it's poor parenting.

00:49:37.160 | Parents should not be mere behaviorists.

00:49:44.160 | Lazy parents won't take the time to address

00:49:46.160 | the internal issues of a child's heart.

00:49:49.160 | Your goal is to speak to a child's heart.

00:49:53.160 | Help that child understand what's going on in their heart.

00:49:59.160 | Help them identify the desires that tend to rule his heart

00:50:02.160 | and in a sense become his functional gods

00:50:08.160 | that he bows down to.

00:50:13.160 | Several years ago, I'll never forget,

00:50:15.160 | I have twin boys and the boys were exposed

00:50:17.160 | to Nintendo for the first time.

00:50:21.160 | I'll never forget that experience

00:50:23.160 | and how the boys, they got into a fight with one another

00:50:30.160 | and I heard them yell and I went downstairs

00:50:32.160 | and I saw one twin with his fingers

00:50:34.160 | around the neck of the other one.

00:50:38.160 | So, you want to see depravity in your children,

00:50:40.160 | just give them Nintendo.

00:50:44.160 | Now, it'd be very easy to say, "All right, now stop that.

00:50:47.160 | I don't want to hear either of you two

00:50:48.160 | and give them a good whack and go on about your business."

00:50:51.160 | But to sit down with each one of those boys

00:50:53.160 | and to address their hearts.

00:50:57.160 | What was it in your heart that you wanted so much

00:50:59.160 | that you were willing to strangle your brother

00:51:01.160 | in order to get it?

00:51:06.160 | Or what about the other boy who was being strangled?

00:51:09.160 | What is it in your heart that you were willing to do

00:51:11.160 | to entice your brother to act in such a violent way towards you?

00:51:16.160 | What is it that you wanted so bad?

00:51:18.160 | I wanted to win that game more than anything else.

00:51:22.160 | That was more important than my relationship to my brother.

00:51:26.160 | That became, at that particular point, your functional God.

00:51:29.160 | That became the God that you bowed down to and worshipped.

00:51:32.160 | That's the desires that ruled your heart at that point.

00:51:36.160 | Help them identify how those impure desires

00:51:39.160 | dictate their attitudes and behaviors.

00:51:41.160 | How does that happen?

00:51:44.160 | That takes more time.

00:51:47.160 | Behavioristic parenting is very easy.

00:51:51.160 | That's for lazy parents.

00:51:54.160 | But when you're trying to address the internal issues

00:51:56.160 | of a child's heart, that takes a lot.

00:52:00.160 | A lot of time.

00:52:02.160 | So this is going to include rebuke, admonition,

00:52:06.160 | encouragement, help, entreaty, persuasion,

00:52:10.160 | all of those good biblical words

00:52:13.160 | to help a child understand the issues of his or her heart.

00:52:19.160 | Let me see if we can help you to understand this

00:52:23.160 | in terms of a chart here.

00:52:26.160 | I think this will help you.

00:52:31.160 | As that child grows,

00:52:36.160 | there's nothing you can do about it.

00:52:39.160 | You're going to lose your authority with that child.

00:52:43.160 | You can be a big, strong, mean parent,

00:52:46.160 | but you're still going to lose your authority.

00:52:50.160 | You can try to turn your home into a military boot camp

00:52:53.160 | and control every decision your child makes,

00:52:56.160 | and eventually your children are going to go AWOL

00:53:00.160 | when they get old.

00:53:02.160 | Maintaining tough discipline over the child

00:53:04.160 | as they grow older is not going to help.

00:53:08.160 | It's not going to help.

00:53:10.160 | Maintaining tough discipline over the child

00:53:12.160 | as they grow older will only build resentment.

00:53:18.160 | There are a lot of parents who do that.

00:53:20.160 | They have almost a military-type home

00:53:23.160 | from the time that child is born

00:53:25.160 | until that child becomes 20,

00:53:27.160 | and then when they turn 20, the parents send them off

00:53:30.160 | to probably a Christian school

00:53:32.160 | that is known for all its rules and regulations

00:53:34.160 | to try to hold on to them and maintain their life again.

00:53:37.160 | None of those children end up growing up

00:53:39.160 | or graduating from those schools

00:53:41.160 | and then rejecting everything.

00:53:44.160 | They never internalize their faith.

00:53:51.160 | But really, what should be happening,

00:53:53.160 | if you're properly admonishing your child on a verbal level,

00:53:56.160 | what should be happening is, as time goes on,

00:53:59.160 | your influence grows even though your authority decreases.

00:54:06.160 | If you want your children to respect you in the future

00:54:08.160 | and seek you out for advice,

00:54:10.160 | then you have to start building into their lives

00:54:14.160 | an understanding of their own heart motivations

00:54:17.160 | that is critical for godliness.

00:54:19.160 | They've got to be convinced from a young age

00:54:22.160 | that you have their best long-term values in mind

00:54:25.160 | every step of the way.

00:54:30.160 | I like the illustration that Ted Tripp uses

00:54:32.160 | in his book "Shepherding the Heart of a Child"

00:54:34.160 | when he talks about presidential advisors.

00:54:36.160 | He says, "Presidential advisors have no constitutional authority

00:54:39.160 | "in the United States Constitution."

00:54:41.160 | No constitutional authority at all.

00:54:43.160 | Nothing on the books.

00:54:45.160 | But they have plenty of influence

00:54:47.160 | in the decisions of a president.

00:54:49.160 | Same thing's true with parents of older children.

00:54:52.160 | Many of them have no authority at all

00:54:54.160 | in those kids' life any longer.

00:54:56.160 | Those children are adults now.

00:54:58.160 | But they have loads of influence

00:55:01.160 | because over the years they've built that in

00:55:04.160 | through constant, very patient admonition.

00:55:10.160 | Where you take the time to address their soul, their heart.

00:55:15.160 | You teach them how to make wise, godly decisions

00:55:18.160 | by taking stock of their own desires of their heart.

00:55:23.160 | It's that kind of thing.

00:55:28.160 | I know that as a parent with two daughters

00:55:34.160 | that are grown and married now,

00:55:36.160 | when my daughters and son-in-laws call my wife and I up

00:55:40.160 | and they're trying to make a decision

00:55:42.160 | and they seek our opinion about that decision,

00:55:45.160 | it's a great honor.

00:55:47.160 | What do you think about this, Mommy and Dad?

00:55:49.160 | Because they believe we'll give them the wisest decision

00:55:52.160 | we could give them from our perspective.

00:55:56.160 | But you know what?

00:55:57.160 | That doesn't happen automatically.

00:55:58.160 | There are some parents who think they expect their children

00:56:00.160 | to do that just by sheer fact that they're their parents.

00:56:04.160 | But the children don't respect them.

00:56:08.160 | You have to build that into your children over the years.

00:56:13.160 | Well, there's a final principle here

00:56:14.160 | and then we'll take a break.

00:56:15.160 | Harmony in your marriage is really vital

00:56:18.160 | to effective parenting.

00:56:19.160 | This is really critical to point out in counseling.

00:56:22.160 | Harmony in your marriage.

00:56:23.160 | Proverbs, let's go back to Proverbs 17, 1 again.

00:56:28.160 | "Better is a dry morsel and quietness with it

00:56:30.160 | than a house full of feasting with strife."

00:56:34.160 | This whole chapter of Proverbs 17

00:56:37.160 | relates closely to loosely or loosely to strife and peace.

00:56:42.160 | And here it starts off about strife and peace in the home.

00:56:47.160 | And we know this.

00:56:49.160 | It's very interesting how many children manifesting

00:56:53.160 | ADD and ADHD-like symptoms

00:56:55.160 | come from homes filled with marital strife.

00:56:57.160 | Now, I don't say that.

00:56:59.160 | National and international statistics say that.

00:57:05.160 | Why?

00:57:06.160 | Because children are a barometer of the home and the marriage.

00:57:14.160 | Children are a barometer of the home and the marriage.

00:57:17.160 | Yes, a child has its own choice,

00:57:19.160 | and a child can grow up and choose an evil, wicked way.

00:57:24.160 | But when children are especially young,

00:57:27.160 | their attitudes and behaviors reflect

00:57:29.160 | what's going on in that home.

00:57:36.160 | And there are an awful lot of church families out there

00:57:38.160 | that have beautiful houses,

00:57:40.160 | but they do not have an attractive Christian home

00:57:44.160 | because of strife.

00:57:48.160 | Strife that has just torn them apart.

00:57:51.160 | You know, it's better to have just dry morsel with quietness.

00:57:58.160 | I used to pastor in a location where all around us

00:58:01.160 | were beautiful, beautiful homes.

00:58:02.160 | In fact, some of them were so nice,

00:58:04.160 | they had big iron fences around them.

00:58:05.160 | You had to go up and press a little buzzer at the gate,

00:58:09.160 | and then a maid would answer the gate buzzer.

00:58:15.160 | And I counseled a lot of the homes and the couples

00:58:18.160 | that lived in those homes, and they had beautiful homes,

00:58:21.160 | indoor pools, indoor bowling alleys in these homes,

00:58:25.160 | but their homes were full of marital strife,

00:58:29.160 | and all of the children reflected it.

00:58:32.160 | I remember some of the young teenage children saying to me

00:58:35.160 | in counseling, "I would far rather that we lived

00:58:38.160 | in a little shack and Mom and Dad were at peace

00:58:41.160 | with each other than to have the home that we live in."

00:58:48.160 | And I believe those kids really meant that,

00:58:51.160 | and they reflected the whole attitude of Proverbs 17:1.

00:58:56.160 | A house that's full of feasting,

00:58:58.160 | that you can have anything that you want,

00:59:00.160 | anything you want to eat.

00:59:01.160 | It's an abundant house.

00:59:03.160 | It's a wealthy house, and yet it's a house full of strife.

00:59:07.160 | So harmony in the marriage is vital,

00:59:11.160 | vital to effective parenting.

00:59:13.160 | Oftentimes, you'll find out in your own counseling ministry,

00:59:16.160 | the place where you start is not with how the parents

00:59:20.160 | are dealing with the children.

00:59:21.160 | In fact, oftentimes, parents will come in,

00:59:23.160 | and they'll drag their kids into counseling,

00:59:26.160 | and they'll say to you, "Fix my kid."

00:59:30.160 | You know, the kid doesn't need fixed.

00:59:32.160 | Mom and Dad needs fixed.

00:59:35.160 | They don't want to hear that, but that's the real issue.

00:59:41.160 | Okay, we want to talk about God's design

00:59:45.160 | for blended families next, and this is one of those topics

00:59:48.160 | where I wish we had several hours to work with,

00:59:51.160 | and we don't.

00:59:52.160 | We only have one hour to deal with this particular issue,

00:59:55.160 | but I do want to set some of the basic background framework

00:59:59.160 | for this, for counseling this kind of a situation.

01:00:06.160 | In fact, I think you're going to find out in your own

01:00:08.160 | counseling ministries that dealing with blended family

01:00:11.160 | conflicts is going to be one of the most challenging types

01:00:14.160 | of counseling that you'll face.

01:00:17.160 | Now, the whole label "blended families" is really

01:00:20.160 | a secular label that is somewhat misleading.

01:00:24.160 | In fact, the usage of the label by most people

01:00:28.160 | and psychologists create, I believe, a lot of ambiguity

01:00:33.160 | and typifies the reason why there's so much struggle

01:00:35.160 | and difficulty in resolving the problem that it represents.

01:00:41.160 | Two distinct people with their respective children

01:00:44.160 | who are properly married do not form a blended family.

01:00:50.160 | They form a family.

01:00:52.160 | Whether they or their children wish to acknowledge it or not,

01:00:56.160 | they are one family in God's eyes, not blended.

01:01:02.160 | So I think we have to resist the human tendency to think of them

01:01:05.160 | as two distinct families living under one roof

01:01:08.160 | who have to put up or cope with one another.

01:01:12.160 | If they're legitimately married, the Bible says,

01:01:15.160 | "What God has joined together, they're no longer two,

01:01:18.160 | but now they're one."

01:01:21.160 | And I realize they may not feel like they're a family,

01:01:24.160 | they may not function like they're one family,

01:01:28.160 | and they certainly may not consider themselves

01:01:30.160 | to be a family.

01:01:34.160 | But that does not change the fact that they are.

01:01:39.160 | I spent six years in the military,

01:01:43.160 | and when I first got in the military,

01:01:45.160 | I didn't function like a soldier, I didn't think like a soldier,

01:01:48.160 | but that did not change the fact that I was a soldier.

01:01:54.160 | In other words, at the very core of their problems

01:01:57.160 | is the way that the members of this family

01:02:03.160 | thinks about themselves.

01:02:08.160 | Sometimes I prefer actually calling this,

01:02:11.160 | rather than blended family,

01:02:13.160 | a step-family with step-parenting

01:02:16.160 | and step-partnering problems,

01:02:18.160 | because ultimately that's where the real struggle lies.

01:02:25.160 | Now, what I would like to do is I'd like to give you

01:02:27.160 | a typical scenario that you may face in your ministry

01:02:30.160 | when counseling a family like this.

01:02:33.160 | And if this scenario sounds like any particular family you know,

01:02:36.160 | it's only by coincidence,

01:02:38.160 | because the case study's generally fictitious,

01:02:42.160 | but it is built upon my own counseling experiences.

01:02:50.160 | Now, according to national statistics on family life in America,

01:02:54.160 | the most typical step-family with problems

01:02:56.160 | have a divorced father whose biological children

01:02:59.160 | live with their biological mother, his ex-wife.

01:03:04.160 | And this divorced father now has remarried a divorced woman

01:03:07.160 | with an average of two biological children of her own

01:03:09.160 | still living with her.

01:03:11.160 | That's your average step-family.

01:03:17.160 | Now, the case study that I want to present to you

01:03:19.160 | is a slight variation on that theme.

01:03:22.160 | And I've specifically and deliberately picked the variations

01:03:29.160 | in order to highlight some important features here

01:03:32.160 | that I think will be important in your own ministry.

01:03:37.160 | So I want to take a look at a couple by the name of Larry and Judy.

01:03:43.160 | Larry and Judy.

01:03:46.160 | They are a couple who were previously married

01:03:48.160 | and they found each other at church and immediately hit it off.

01:03:52.160 | Larry had been divorced for less than two years,

01:03:55.160 | but Judy had been widowed for almost eight years.

01:03:59.160 | Everyone at home believed that they were the ideal couple.

01:04:02.160 | In fact, a couple of self-appointed matchmakers at their church

01:04:06.160 | took credit for putting the two together.

01:04:09.160 | And by the way, as a sideline parenthesis,

01:04:11.160 | it's always amazing to me how these matchmakers

01:04:13.160 | fade into the background when it becomes obvious

01:04:15.160 | this new couple is having problems.

01:04:21.160 | Judy has two teenage daughters and a nine-year-old son

01:04:25.160 | from their first marriage living with her.

01:04:28.160 | Larry has a daughter of 13 years and a son of 10

01:04:32.160 | that lives with his ex-wife.

01:04:36.160 | During their courtship, everybody was excited

01:04:38.160 | except for Judy's teenage daughters,

01:04:41.160 | who stood afar off from the whole thing,

01:04:43.160 | and they were very polite, but they were confused

01:04:46.160 | and didn't know what to think.

01:04:48.160 | On the one hand, they were both happy that Mom seemed to be so happy,

01:04:51.160 | happier than they could remember her for years.

01:04:53.160 | And on the other hand, they were not comfortable with the fact

01:04:55.160 | that Judy--or that Larry was taking so much of Mom's time

01:05:00.160 | and was beginning to act a little like a father figure with them.

01:05:04.160 | He wasn't their father.

01:05:05.160 | Their father was in heaven,

01:05:07.160 | and he could never take their father or replace their father.

01:05:14.160 | Any suggestion of that was really repulsive to them.

01:05:17.160 | Judy's son didn't seem to mind Larry's sudden intrusion into their home

01:05:21.160 | because he was only one when his father had died,

01:05:24.160 | and he always wanted a dad.

01:05:28.160 | Larry's ex-wife had left him for another man,

01:05:32.160 | who she was living with and refused to return

01:05:34.160 | even after going through church discipline.

01:05:37.160 | The divorce seemed to be fresh in the minds of Larry's two children

01:05:40.160 | when he introduced them to their future stepmother, Judy.

01:05:45.160 | They disliked her from the beginning.

01:05:47.160 | After all, they still hoped Mom and Dad would eventually get back together again,

01:05:51.160 | and this new stepmother was a serious threat to that dream.

01:05:55.160 | At least their biological mom had not married her boyfriend.

01:05:59.160 | Both Larry and Judy noticed the awkwardness and the tension

01:06:02.160 | when they first took a picnic with the two sets of children.

01:06:05.160 | Both attributed it to adjustment jitters,

01:06:08.160 | which would only be a temporary thing.

01:06:12.160 | Once everyone got settled in, everything would work out, they reasoned.

01:06:17.160 | Even Larry's ex-wife didn't like the idea of Judy,

01:06:19.160 | not because she wanted to come back to Larry,

01:06:21.160 | but if Larry married Judy, then the courts would view that as a more stable home

01:06:26.160 | and she potentially could lose custody of her daughter and her son.

01:06:31.160 | Well, in spite of all these red flags and the excitement of their romance

01:06:35.160 | and believing that would eventually blow over,

01:06:37.160 | Larry and Judy decided to marry.

01:06:40.160 | With the exception of Judy's youngest son,

01:06:43.160 | both sets of children did not want to come to the wedding.

01:06:46.160 | In fact, one of Judy's daughters showed up in a black dress

01:06:49.160 | to protest the marriage.

01:06:52.160 | By the way, that actually happened in the counseling situation.

01:06:58.160 | Judy was angry and hurt, but withheld her comments

01:07:02.160 | to try to preserve the happiness of the occasion.

01:07:04.160 | She tried to smooth it over with Larry by saying,

01:07:06.160 | "You know, teenagers, changes are always hard on them.

01:07:10.160 | She'll get over it soon."

01:07:12.160 | Regardless of Judy's efforts to smooth it over, Larry did worry.

01:07:17.160 | After a dreamy honeymoon on the Isle of Maui,

01:07:20.160 | the newlyweds returned to a tension-filled household.

01:07:24.160 | Both Larry and Judy were determined to make it work.

01:07:27.160 | Larry found out that Judy's daughters greeted him with a silence treatment.

01:07:30.160 | He decided to make the best of it by treating them kindly

01:07:33.160 | until six weeks had passed and things were only worse.

01:07:37.160 | Every time they had a problem with homework,

01:07:40.160 | they would always go to their mother.

01:07:42.160 | When Larry was home alone with them, they refused his help.

01:07:46.160 | Larry was reaching the boiling point.

01:07:49.160 | He found that he and Judy were arguing more and more about the children.

01:07:53.160 | And to make matters worse, when Larry's children visited,

01:07:55.160 | they didn't like Judy's cooking and would often refuse to eat.

01:07:59.160 | On weekends, when they were in the home,

01:08:01.160 | a turf war between the two sets of children would break out,

01:08:04.160 | and Judy's girls let Larry's daughter know

01:08:06.160 | that she was not welcome in their home.

01:08:10.160 | Furthermore, even though Judy's 10-year-old son

01:08:14.160 | enjoyed having Larry as his new father,

01:08:17.160 | he resented Larry's biological son coming on weekends.

01:08:20.160 | He felt that Larry favored his son

01:08:22.160 | and would leave him out of their times together.

01:08:25.160 | He looked for times to secretly remind Larry's son

01:08:30.160 | that he had his father most of the time

01:08:34.160 | and sought to drive a wedge between Larry and his son.

01:08:38.160 | And it was beginning to work.

01:08:40.160 | Larry noticed that his biological son

01:08:42.160 | was speaking more and more favorably about his ex-wife's boyfriend

01:08:45.160 | and all the fun that they were having,

01:08:47.160 | going to amusement parks and ball games.

01:08:49.160 | This left Larry with a sinking feeling inside,

01:08:52.160 | especially since this boyfriend was not a Christian

01:08:55.160 | and refused to go to church.

01:08:57.160 | Then add to the fact that Larry's church

01:08:59.160 | had disciplined his new girlfriend for leaving Larry,

01:09:02.160 | so he was sour on Christians and church.

01:09:05.160 | To make matters worse, his influence on Larry's son

01:09:08.160 | was a bad one that resulted in a bad attitude and vocabulary.

01:09:12.160 | Every weekend, it seemed that Larry spent half of his time

01:09:15.160 | trying to correct bad attitudes and behavior

01:09:18.160 | in both his daughter and son.

01:09:20.160 | From Larry's perspective, he thought he would see some improvement

01:09:23.160 | after six months of marriage.

01:09:25.160 | But the opposite seemed to be true.

01:09:27.160 | Instead of peace, things in the family were beginning to unravel.

01:09:32.160 | Judy noticed the same thing.

01:09:34.160 | She was beginning to realize that she didn't like the way

01:09:36.160 | that Larry ran the household.

01:09:38.160 | It was not the way that she and her children were used to.

01:09:41.160 | They didn't like his rules.

01:09:42.160 | They were rigid and flexible.

01:09:43.160 | She found herself siding with her daughters

01:09:45.160 | when they denounced, "That's not the way that mom does it."

01:09:49.160 | Larry, too, noted they had very different parenting styles,

01:09:53.160 | and her daughters didn't accept his new role

01:09:55.160 | as head of the household.

01:09:57.160 | Increasingly, he discovered that if he tried to exercise discipline

01:10:00.160 | or use any kind of parental authority over them,

01:10:02.160 | he was overruled when they appealed to their mother.

01:10:06.160 | All their dreams of having a loving Christian home

01:10:08.160 | were quickly vanishing.

01:10:11.160 | After a year, so much resentment and bitterness had built up

01:10:15.160 | that it was impossible to have fun together as a family.

01:10:19.160 | The tension in the household was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

01:10:26.160 | Larry was spending more and more of his time at the office,

01:10:29.160 | and Judy and the kids seemed to be happy with that.

01:10:32.160 | Their dream had turned into a horrid nightmare.

01:10:34.160 | Even people at church knew something was wrong.

01:10:37.160 | Judy's daughters could say nothing good about their stepdad.

01:10:40.160 | They would always refer to him with disgust as "That Larry,"

01:10:43.160 | not as a father, dad, or even stepdad.

01:10:47.160 | People could also see that Larry and Judy

01:10:49.160 | were not the happy Christians they used to be.

01:10:51.160 | It seemed like they were dying on the inside.

01:10:53.160 | There was no joy in their lives, just mere existence.

01:10:56.160 | Their goal became a simple one--

01:10:58.160 | just make it through another day.

01:11:02.160 | 18 months into their marriage, Larry and a close friend

01:11:05.160 | were playing some golf when Larry dropped a bomb

01:11:07.160 | by announcing that he was thinking of divorcing Judy.

01:11:10.160 | "She doesn't respect me. Her daughters despise me.

01:11:13.160 | My children hate her.

01:11:15.160 | The only person that seems to remotely like having me around is her son."

01:11:20.160 | "Do you know what is ironic?" he said stoically to his golfing buddy.

01:11:24.160 | "After my first divorce, I was determined to never allow this to happen again.

01:11:29.160 | I wanted to have the best Christian home possible.

01:11:32.160 | I really tried, but I was overruled and frustrated at every turn.

01:11:36.160 | I almost can't believe that I'm saying this."

01:11:40.160 | "Do you love Judy?" his friend prodded.

01:11:43.160 | "I don't know. I don't feel anything anymore.

01:11:46.160 | All my emotions are gone. I'm cold and empty inside,

01:11:49.160 | going about my responsibilities every day like a robot.

01:11:53.160 | I know this is not the way that the Christian life is supposed to be.

01:11:56.160 | Frankly, I've given up hope for this marriage,

01:11:58.160 | and if I read Judy right, she has too.

01:12:02.160 | I've tried everything, but I believe that we'd both be happier living apart.

01:12:08.160 | At least I know her children would be."

01:12:11.160 | "Everything" is a pretty big statement.

01:12:14.160 | "Have you tried everything?" his friend remarked.

01:12:17.160 | "Have you and Judy tried going to one of the pastors

01:12:20.160 | to get some biblical answers for your problems?"

01:12:23.160 | "No," he shot back.

01:12:25.160 | "I know what they're going to tell me to do,

01:12:27.160 | pray about it and have devotions with the family.

01:12:29.160 | I did that, and Judy's daughters fought me every step of the way.

01:12:33.160 | It was war every time I tried to be a spiritual leader."

01:12:36.160 | "Hey, give our pastors more credit than that.

01:12:39.160 | There are hard issues here that need to be addressed,

01:12:41.160 | and I think that you need to try to get some good biblical help.

01:12:44.160 | After what happened in your first marriage,

01:12:46.160 | I'd hate to see you give up so easily."

01:12:49.160 | Larry's friend was right.

01:12:53.160 | So Larry and Judy sit in front of you for their first counseling session.

01:13:02.160 | Tension is thick.

01:13:05.160 | What are you going to do?

01:13:08.160 | [laughs]

01:13:10.160 | Victoria says, "I'm going to defer to Andrew."

01:13:14.160 | All right, let me give you some background.

01:13:16.160 | First of all, when you come upon situations like this,

01:13:18.160 | you've got to understand that one of the top things

01:13:21.160 | that stepfamilies need is hope.

01:13:24.160 | Usually, most of them, when they finally come into counseling,

01:13:27.160 | they are at their wits' end.

01:13:30.160 | In other words, they are hopeless.

01:13:36.160 | The first order of business,

01:13:38.160 | after you have thoroughly listened to the situation

01:13:42.160 | and gathered good data,

01:13:46.160 | is to give this couple hope.

01:13:49.160 | This problem is not bigger than God.

01:13:52.160 | This problem did not catch God by surprise.

01:13:55.160 | We're not open theists.

01:13:58.160 | Neither is the Bible.

01:14:01.160 | This problem is not beyond God's help,

01:14:04.160 | and God has provided concrete answers

01:14:07.160 | for problems like this in His Word,

01:14:10.160 | and they need hope,

01:14:12.160 | and they need it in the first counseling session.

01:14:17.160 | One of the things you need to do

01:14:19.160 | is help them start broadly with broad hope.

01:14:23.160 | There are great passages in the Bible,

01:14:25.160 | like Romans 8, 28, and 29.

01:14:30.160 | "All things work together for good to them

01:14:32.160 | that are called according to His purpose."

01:14:35.160 | 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 13.

01:14:39.160 | "There is no temptation taken you except for what is common to man,

01:14:42.160 | and God is faithful.

01:14:43.160 | He will not allow you to be tempted above what you're able,

01:14:46.160 | but with that temptation He will always provide a way of escape."

01:14:54.160 | And then there's Romans chapter 15 and verse 4,

01:14:58.160 | which talks about, through endurance

01:15:00.160 | and the encouragement of the Scriptures,

01:15:02.160 | "We might have hope."

01:15:06.160 | It says there.

01:15:09.160 | Through endurance.

01:15:10.160 | That has to do with persevering in terms of obedience.

01:15:17.160 | And the encouragement,

01:15:18.160 | that comes from the very promises of Scripture.

01:15:23.160 | Verse 4 says, "For whatever is written in earlier times

01:15:25.160 | is written for our instruction,

01:15:26.160 | so that through perseverance

01:15:27.160 | and the encouragement of the Scriptures,

01:15:29.160 | we might have hope."

01:15:32.160 | And then later on in verse 13, He says,

01:15:34.160 | "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace

01:15:37.160 | and believing so that you will abound in hope

01:15:39.160 | by the power of the Holy Spirit."

01:15:41.160 | Now I realize the context here

01:15:42.160 | is not about blended family strife.

01:15:44.160 | That's not the context.

01:15:47.160 | But certainly He is developing a broad theological principle

01:15:51.160 | that is applicable even to step family problems.

01:16:00.160 | And then, of course, there's 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 3.

01:16:14.160 | "Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ,

01:16:17.160 | who according to His great mercy

01:16:18.160 | has caused us to be born again to a living hope

01:16:22.160 | through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead."

01:16:26.160 | That's a living hope.

01:16:29.160 | That's what we have.

01:16:35.160 | I mean, imagine,

01:16:36.160 | what's the greatest problem that man faces?

01:16:38.160 | I think the answer will be death, the curse of death.

01:16:43.160 | And our God has conquered that in Christ.

01:16:47.160 | That's the biggest mountain out there.

01:16:48.160 | And so if God has conquered that bigger mountain,

01:16:51.160 | then certainly this lesser mountain

01:16:53.160 | of blended family problems can be conquered as well.

01:17:01.160 | Yes?

01:17:02.160 | [indistinct]

01:17:20.160 | Well, usually, the question you're asking me,

01:17:23.160 | how do you give people hope

01:17:24.160 | who are really totally hopeless?

01:17:26.160 | You've got to understand that people like this

01:17:28.160 | are focused entirely on the problem,

01:17:30.160 | and they've been focused on this particular problem

01:17:32.160 | for such a long time

01:17:34.160 | that that's all they see is the problem.

01:17:37.160 | They don't see anything beyond that.

01:17:39.160 | They just see the problem.

01:17:41.160 | And when you're taking them to these broad-based verses,

01:17:44.160 | you're causing them to step back

01:17:46.160 | and see the bigger picture.

01:17:48.160 | When all they see is the problem,

01:17:50.160 | God is not in the picture.

01:17:51.160 | But when they step back and see God operating

01:17:53.160 | through his control and his sovereignty

01:17:55.160 | in the events of their lives,

01:17:57.160 | then all of a sudden hope begins to come back,

01:18:00.160 | that yes, God is still at work here

01:18:03.160 | even though things seem to be so hopeless,

01:18:06.160 | like with Larry and Judy's home.

01:18:09.160 | And he is.

01:18:10.160 | He is very definitely at work here.

01:18:13.160 | Or like I like to say in counseling,

01:18:16.160 | God is up to something.

01:18:18.160 | He's up to something good.

01:18:22.160 | So you're causing them to step back

01:18:23.160 | and take a look at the bigger picture,

01:18:25.160 | not just focusing on their problem.

01:18:27.160 | They're looking at God.

01:18:29.160 | Sometimes I like to say it like this to counselees.

01:18:31.160 | I know this problem looks like a huge mountain in your life,

01:18:34.160 | but I want you to step back and look.

01:18:36.160 | God is standing behind and above this mountain.

01:18:38.160 | He's bigger than this problem.

01:18:43.160 | I want them to have a concept of God's absolute sovereignty

01:18:47.160 | over all these events for their good.

01:18:53.160 | This is what Joseph did, wasn't it, in Genesis 50-20?

01:18:56.160 | You intended all this for evil, Joseph said to his brothers,

01:18:59.160 | but God has intended it for good,

01:19:04.160 | the saving of many lives.

01:19:07.160 | So Larry and Judy needs to have a faithful biblical counselor

01:19:11.160 | take these verses apart and minister hope

01:19:14.160 | to their despairing hearts.

01:19:17.160 | Now, not only that,

01:19:20.160 | but stepfamilies also need specific hope.

01:19:28.160 | And when I say that, specific hope,

01:19:30.160 | I'm talking about the fact that they need to own

01:19:33.160 | their own personal responsibility

01:19:35.160 | for their attitudes and actions.

01:19:40.160 | And I'm afraid that this is not what contemporary psychology does.

01:19:43.160 | Contemporary psychology always makes you a victim of your problem.

01:19:48.160 | Contemporary psychology does not help people own responsibility

01:19:52.160 | for their own feelings and actions.

01:19:56.160 | Most psychologists, Christians and otherwise,

01:20:00.160 | will label this family dysfunctional.

01:20:03.160 | This is a dysfunctional stepfamily.

01:20:06.160 | Even systems therapy will do the same thing.

01:20:11.160 | Ackerman's whole view on this thing is that

01:20:14.160 | this family is essentially dysfunctional,

01:20:17.160 | which gives the impression that a unique combination of people

01:20:20.160 | in this particular stepfamily,

01:20:22.160 | with their destructive or distinctive personalities,

01:20:26.160 | combined to form an incompatible set of relationships

01:20:29.160 | that is beyond their ability to change.

01:20:32.160 | Since these personalities from contemporary psychology

01:20:36.160 | are fixed and established or ingrained,

01:20:43.160 | it's believed they have to learn to accept the differences

01:20:46.160 | and make the best of them.

01:20:48.160 | So the unique combination of adversarial personalities

01:20:50.160 | are the cause of the problem.

01:20:52.160 | It's sort of like making a family of pit bulls

01:20:54.160 | live in harmony with a family of poodles.

01:20:56.160 | It's not going to be pretty.

01:21:01.160 | So you have to just kind of help them

01:21:04.160 | to accept one another, adjust to one another,

01:21:07.160 | you'll hear them say.

01:21:11.160 | One article from Minarth Meyer Publications says this,

01:21:14.160 | and by the way, this article goes on for several pages

01:21:16.160 | without a single reference to the Bible or Scripture

01:21:19.160 | in counseling "blended families."

01:21:22.160 | It says this, "If the parents do their job

01:21:25.160 | "and face their issues, the family will come through

01:21:27.160 | "the crisis and work to make adjustments."

01:21:29.160 | That's really key.

01:21:31.160 | "Work to make adjustments that they learn

01:21:33.160 | "through counseling must be made.

01:21:35.160 | "These adjustments include negotiation of roles."

01:21:38.160 | Wait a minute.

01:21:40.160 | I thought roles were fixed in Scripture.

01:21:42.160 | Negotiation of roles.

01:21:44.160 | Relationship building.

01:21:46.160 | I don't have a problem with that.

01:21:48.160 | Validation of family rules, traditions, and customs.

01:21:50.160 | I will have a problem with that if those traditional rules

01:21:54.160 | and customs are not biblical.

01:21:56.160 | Validation of the new family unit.

01:21:59.160 | Okay, that's okay with me.

01:22:02.160 | Now, the key where I think, though, in that definition

01:22:06.160 | is the word "adjustment."

01:22:08.160 | Families need to adjust to one another.

01:22:10.160 | Not a single word is given in the article,

01:22:12.160 | the personal responsibility for change when it comes

01:22:14.160 | to interaction with other members of the family.

01:22:17.160 | And you see, what I'm saying is that kind of a treatment

01:22:19.160 | of the problem predicates the peace and harmony of the home

01:22:23.160 | upon everyone making external adjustments,

01:22:27.160 | seeking to change and grow.

01:22:30.160 | And I believe that kind of counsel strips stepfamilies

01:22:34.160 | of genuine hope.

01:22:36.160 | If the family is truly dysfunctional due to unchangeable

01:22:39.160 | personalities, then it's stuck in a hopeless quagmire

01:22:42.160 | of endless adjusting and coping.

01:22:46.160 | That amounts to nothing more than age-old heresy

01:22:52.160 | of asceticism.

01:22:54.160 | It means you just resign yourself to a notion that you

01:22:57.160 | have to suffer through the indignities of the other

01:23:00.160 | members of your stepfamily by practicing personal

01:23:03.160 | self-abasement.

01:23:07.160 | That kind of attitude's not biblical at all.

01:23:09.160 | Colossians 2:23 says, "These things are matters which have

01:23:12.160 | to be sure the appearance of wisdom and self-made religion

01:23:14.160 | and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body,

01:23:17.160 | but they are of no value against fleshly indulgences."

01:23:20.160 | In other words, all the self-abasement, self-restraint

01:23:23.160 | is externalism that will never bring the passions of the flesh

01:23:27.160 | under control, the desires of the heart.

01:23:30.160 | They'll be of no value against fleshly indulgences.

01:23:33.160 | There's no complete change that really needs to be there

01:23:39.160 | that starts in the heart.

01:23:42.160 | If, however, the members of the family, beginning with Larry

01:23:44.160 | and Judy, are willing and convinced that they can change

01:23:48.160 | and grow from the heart, then hope returns, a sense of

01:23:51.160 | expectation and re-energized commitment returns.

01:23:55.160 | By the end of your first session in counseling Larry and Judy,

01:23:59.160 | they should be ready to re-engage this battle and begin

01:24:03.160 | to make changes in their own personal lives as individuals

01:24:09.160 | that desperately need to be made.

01:24:13.160 | In counseling, you have to win that battle up front.

01:24:16.160 | It's a fleshly battle, and the battle front is in the heart.

01:24:22.160 | You have to view your role as that of an ideological warrior.

01:24:29.160 | He talks about speculations here, that which is lifted up,

01:24:35.160 | higher exalted.

01:24:36.160 | It has to do with high-sounding ideas that are not based upon

01:24:39.160 | truth but more related to man's ideas about life rather than

01:24:43.160 | God's ideas.

01:24:45.160 | And every lofty thing, to lift oneself up, it means to exalt

01:24:50.160 | oneself, one's own ideas or something that belongs to you.

01:24:55.160 | For our purposes, we could say that many step-parents exalt

01:24:58.160 | their biological children or family to a higher plane of

01:25:01.160 | priority than God gives them.

01:25:08.160 | In other words, I realize that 2 Corinthians 10, again, is not

01:25:12.160 | within context of dealing with step-family strife either, but

01:25:19.160 | there is a theological principle that is related here, and that

01:25:22.160 | is that we have a tendency in dealing with stress and

01:25:26.160 | circumstances of life, which 2 Corinthians 10 is about, to

01:25:33.160 | elevate human ideas and human ways of thinking above God's

01:25:37.160 | ideas and God's way of viewing those things.

01:25:40.160 | And you're going to find step-families to do the same

01:25:43.160 | thing.

01:25:44.160 | They will elevate their ideas on how to deal with this

01:25:48.160 | particular problem above God's ideas.

01:25:53.160 | And I'll give you some examples of this.

01:25:57.160 | So there's a sense in which, as a counselor, you are an

01:26:00.160 | ideological warrior.

01:26:06.160 | Like the Apostle Paul who sees himself as going to war in his

01:26:09.160 | ministry of the word to bring such a foreign enemy of thought

01:26:13.160 | into captivity and to make it obedient to Christ in verse 5.

01:26:18.160 | One of the first battle fronts in this war is that most

01:26:21.160 | biological parents in step-family relationships operate

01:26:27.160 | with a low view of marriage.

01:26:32.160 | They don't think so.

01:26:33.160 | In fact, if you confront them, they'll never admit this, but

01:26:36.160 | step-parents have to be taught a high view of marriage.

01:26:43.160 | So one stronghold to be assaulted by the counselor is

01:26:45.160 | this false doctrine held by many step-parents, whether by

01:26:48.160 | statement or by practice, they advance the notion here, "My

01:26:52.160 | children come first."

01:26:55.160 | That reveals a low view of marriage, high view of kids,

01:26:58.160 | low view of marriage.

01:27:02.160 | Another way to say this, sometimes you'll hear people

01:27:04.160 | say, "Blood is thicker than water."

01:27:10.160 | Or there was a national campaign a few years back that

01:27:15.160 | was entitled, "Children First."

01:27:20.160 | And a lot of step-family problems are rooted in this

01:27:23.160 | kind of thinking, this kind of ideology, and it prevails, and

01:27:28.160 | it's very, very strong.

01:27:31.160 | And they don't even realize that it's a problem because

01:27:34.160 | like fish in water, fish don't know they're in water because

01:27:37.160 | they're used to water all the time.

01:27:39.160 | Well, they live in this culture and they don't even realize

01:27:41.160 | that this is a problem in terms of their thinking.

01:27:44.160 | They don't even understand it.

01:27:47.160 | So you've got to engage this wrong notion with the

01:27:49.160 | Scripture.

01:27:50.160 | The Bible teaches us from the beginning that marriage takes

01:27:53.160 | precedence over children.

01:27:56.160 | Wow, that's really critical.

01:27:59.160 | Where do we get that?

01:28:00.160 | Well, you get that back in Genesis 2 and verse 24 from the

01:28:03.160 | very beginning in the first relationship.

01:28:06.160 | We looked at this earlier.

01:28:08.160 | "For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother

01:28:10.160 | and be united to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."

01:28:13.160 | So from the very beginning, even before Adam and Eve were

01:28:18.160 | parents, God is admonishing them that it's the role and

01:28:23.160 | responsibility of children to leave their parents and to

01:28:26.160 | cling to their spouse.

01:28:28.160 | So the parent-child relationship is a temporary one.

01:28:32.160 | The husband-wife relationship is a permanent one.

01:28:38.160 | It's a permanent one.

01:28:46.160 | Reuben's going to be asking his girlfriend to make a

01:28:49.160 | permanent commitment tonight, a break, a change.

01:28:55.160 | All right, that's a pretty serious commitment.

01:29:00.160 | So from the beginning, the Bible teaches that marriage

01:29:08.160 | takes precedence here.

01:29:11.160 | But I've got to warn you that most of them believe even

01:29:13.160 | though their marriage is threatened, they still have a

01:29:15.160 | high view of marriage.

01:29:17.160 | I've never found a situation in counseling this kind of

01:29:20.160 | problem where their concept of marriage was too high.

01:29:24.160 | I've never seen that.

01:29:26.160 | In fact, just the opposite.

01:29:28.160 | So let me make eight observations here about this to

01:29:32.160 | help you in dealing with stepfamilies.

01:29:35.160 | Number one, husband-and-wife relationship is intended by

01:29:39.160 | God to be the permanent relationship, and just because

01:29:43.160 | this is your second marriage does not make it any less of a

01:29:46.160 | marriage in God's eyes.

01:29:51.160 | The husband-wife relationship is intended to be a permanent

01:29:57.160 | relationship.

01:30:02.160 | "For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother,"

01:30:05.160 | Genesis 2:24.

01:30:08.160 | And that's to be for good, for life.

01:30:14.160 | You remember when God gave this admonition in Genesis 2:24,

01:30:17.160 | they were going to live forever.

01:30:20.160 | So this was a forever type of commitment originally.

01:30:26.160 | Now because of sin and now death reigning, it's for life as

01:30:32.160 | we know it.

01:30:36.160 | So the husband-wife relationship, even though this

01:30:38.160 | is the second marriage, is always to take priority.

01:30:46.160 | Secondly, the parent-child relationship is intended by

01:30:49.160 | God to be temporary relationship.

01:30:54.160 | Now here's what often happens.

01:30:56.160 | Because the mother or the father have a longer standing,

01:31:00.160 | oftentimes years of relationship with their children prior to

01:31:04.160 | this second spouse coming into their life, their tendency is

01:31:09.160 | to always gravitate towards the children and prefer their

01:31:13.160 | children over their spouse.

01:31:15.160 | That's always the tendency because there's already a

01:31:18.160 | history there.

01:31:20.160 | You already have a history of relationship.

01:31:23.160 | This other person, no matter how much initially they say

01:31:26.160 | that they love that other person, is still new to them

01:31:29.160 | comparatively.

01:31:31.160 | They haven't had the years of relationship.

01:31:33.160 | They haven't gone through any struggles with this person.

01:31:36.160 | And so there's not the kind of history that you have with

01:31:38.160 | your children.

01:31:40.160 | Not to mention the fact you're biologically related to your

01:31:43.160 | children.

01:31:44.160 | You're not biologically related to your spouse.

01:31:50.160 | So somehow in human thinking, that makes that a more

01:31:54.160 | permanent bond.

01:31:57.160 | But in God's thinking, that relationship with the child is

01:32:02.160 | not as permanent as the relationship to the spouse.

01:32:10.160 | And in fact, we have a biblical responsibility to make our

01:32:14.160 | relationship to our spouse permanent and to rear our

01:32:17.160 | children in such a way as to leave the home, not stay in

01:32:21.160 | the home.

01:32:23.160 | And we help them to do that when we make our priority to

01:32:27.160 | our spouse number one.

01:32:31.160 | So the parent-child relationship is intended by God to be a

01:32:34.160 | temporary relationship.

01:32:38.160 | Thirdly, your biological children, and in this

01:32:43.160 | particular case, stepchildren, must be reared to leave the

01:32:48.160 | home, not stay in the home.

01:32:54.160 | They must be reared to leave the home.

01:32:57.160 | Most stepparents, however, treat their children as if their

01:33:02.160 | children are always going to be a part of that home.

01:33:05.160 | They've already lost their spouse through death or

01:33:08.160 | divorce, and that has hurt them a lot.

01:33:11.160 | So they're going to hold on to their children even more

01:33:14.160 | tenaciously than a normal home, intact home would, or normal

01:33:20.160 | parents would.

01:33:22.160 | So this is very, very difficult.

01:33:25.160 | After losing a spouse by death or divorce, to turn around and

01:33:31.160 | to let go of your kids, which is the last remnants of that

01:33:35.160 | original home, is very, very tough for a stepparent to do.

01:33:42.160 | Not impossible, but it's going to be tough.

01:33:49.160 | Yet I want you to understand that this is exactly what the

01:33:51.160 | children need to see, which brings us to number four.

01:33:56.160 | Your example of setting their stepfather or stepmother ahead

01:34:00.160 | of them as children is the model that they need to see for

01:34:04.160 | their own future marriage.

01:34:07.160 | We see this in creation in Genesis 2, verse 18, through

01:34:10.160 | chapter 4 and verse 1.

01:34:12.160 | We see it in Paul's description of the Christian home in

01:34:14.160 | Ephesians 5, verse 22 through 6, 5.

01:34:18.160 | We see it in the qualification of elders in 1 Timothy 3.

01:34:21.160 | The priority is always given to the husband and wife

01:34:25.160 | relationship first.

01:34:27.160 | The children are always second.

01:34:34.160 | Now, I see theological significance there, much the

01:34:37.160 | same way that the Apostle Paul saw theological significance

01:34:40.160 | in the order of creation when he was talking about women who

01:34:46.160 | need to remain silent in church in 1 Timothy 2.

01:34:52.160 | And he says in verse 13, "For it was Adam who was first

01:34:55.160 | created and then Eve."

01:34:57.160 | So the Apostle Paul saw theological significance in the

01:35:00.160 | order of creation, creating Adam first and then Eve.

01:35:04.160 | I see theological significance in the order of all of these

01:35:09.160 | passages preferring the husband and wife relationship over the

01:35:13.160 | parent-child relationship.

01:35:15.160 | So there is, I believe, theological significance in that

01:35:19.160 | alone.

01:35:23.160 | And it's something that these stepchildren and your

01:35:26.160 | biological children need to see.

01:35:29.160 | They need to see their dad putting their stepmother first.

01:35:35.160 | They need to see their mother putting their stepfather first

01:35:41.160 | because that becomes the model that they need to carry into

01:35:44.160 | their future relationship and permanent relationship in the

01:35:47.160 | home.

01:35:51.160 | Well, as we said, there's that old saying, "Blood is thicker

01:35:54.160 | than water," but really from a biblical perspective, marriage

01:35:58.160 | is thicker than blood.

01:36:01.160 | You may be blood-related to your children, but your

01:36:05.160 | commitment to them is temporary.

01:36:10.160 | However, even though you are not blood-related to your spouse,

01:36:13.160 | your commitment to them is for a lifetime.

01:36:25.160 | And this comes in the big and the small choices of life, how

01:36:32.160 | you treat your wife or your husband that is your children's

01:36:38.160 | step-parent in preferring them, honoring them, esteeming them,

01:36:48.160 | talking about them, in doing loving things for them, in

01:36:54.160 | caring for them has to be seen by the children and has to be

01:36:58.160 | seen by your spouse.

01:37:04.160 | This is where the belief that marriage is thicker than blood

01:37:08.160 | becomes so important here.

01:37:14.160 | Number six, the powerful and very natural parental compulsion

01:37:20.160 | to love their children must be surrendered to the higher

01:37:23.160 | priority of being a godly mate and loving spouse.

01:37:34.160 | It's going to be very easy for them to follow their flesh on

01:37:38.160 | this, and their flesh will say, "Love your children first,"

01:37:42.160 | because everything in their natural tendencies will tell

01:37:45.160 | them to do that.

01:37:47.160 | Love your children first.

01:37:52.160 | But it's like anything else in life.

01:37:54.160 | Are we going to let our passions rule us, or our natural

01:37:57.160 | desires will rule us, or are we going to allow what God says

01:38:00.160 | rule us?

01:38:02.160 | It's like everything else in life.

01:38:04.160 | And it's important for your counselee to understand that.

01:38:11.160 | Sometimes I'll actually have them make a list of specific

01:38:14.160 | ways that they can show their children and their stepchildren

01:38:18.160 | that they love their father or mother.

01:38:22.160 | And how are you going to do that?

01:38:24.160 | How are you going to demonstrate it?

01:38:25.160 | In fact, when they really start doing this and start doing this

01:38:27.160 | seriously, if these stepchildren are really observant,

01:38:30.160 | they're not going to like it at all because they realize they're

01:38:33.160 | losing status with their biological parent.

01:38:37.160 | And they get angry.

01:38:38.160 | They get upset.

01:38:40.160 | They start causing more problems.

01:38:42.160 | And you have to prepare these parents on how to deal with

01:38:47.160 | those problems when they start to come up.

01:38:51.160 | But you cannot give in to these natural parental compulsions to

01:38:55.160 | love your children more than your spouse.

01:38:58.160 | You'll get yourself into trouble.

01:39:03.160 | Number seven, not only that, but a child-centered home,

01:39:09.160 | whether it is a first or second marriage,

01:39:11.160 | will always experience trouble because children will eventually

01:39:14.160 | grow up and leave.

01:39:16.160 | You can't stop that.

01:39:19.160 | That leaves you as a couple with a relationship in shambles.

01:39:22.160 | Little or no investment or time or energy has been given to it

01:39:27.160 | over the years.

01:39:33.160 | And we talked about this earlier in our class about how when you

01:39:38.160 | have a husband and wife who make their children the center of the

01:39:42.160 | home, then there have been many marriages who have existed for

01:39:46.160 | 20, 25 years, who even call themselves Christian marriage.

01:39:49.160 | And once the children grew up and left the home,

01:39:51.160 | there was no reason for the husband and wife to be together.

01:39:53.160 | And to the shock of everybody in the church,

01:39:55.160 | this couple's getting a divorce.

01:39:56.160 | And they say, I don't understand it.

01:39:58.160 | I mean, we thought that they had a happy Christian home for

01:40:01.160 | years.

01:40:02.160 | But the problem is they made their children the center of the

01:40:04.160 | home.

01:40:05.160 | And once you move that center out,

01:40:06.160 | there's no reason for mom and dad to be together.

01:40:08.160 | That's never to be the case.

01:40:10.160 | The husband and wife relationship is always the center of the

01:40:12.160 | home.

01:40:13.160 | The children revolve around that.

01:40:15.160 | And if the children grow up and leave,

01:40:17.160 | you still have an intact home.

01:40:23.160 | Then number eight, the fleshly and sinful passions and desires

01:40:32.160 | of your biological children.

01:40:34.160 | Well, because Proverbs 22, 15 says,

01:40:36.160 | "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child."

01:40:39.160 | Will always pit you as a biological parent against their

01:40:43.160 | step-parent, your spouse, if you allow your home to be

01:40:47.160 | child-centered.

01:40:50.160 | They will naturally, the children will naturally work

01:40:54.160 | that against your marriage.

01:40:57.160 | They will prey on your parental affections and use them to

01:41:00.160 | drive a wedge between you and your spouse for their own

01:41:03.160 | self-centered purposes.

01:41:05.160 | And when you allow yourself to be manipulated,

01:41:07.160 | you are pandering their sinful nature.

01:41:10.160 | And in this way, you're hurting both your marriage and your

01:41:13.160 | children.

01:41:19.160 | This is why I say the contemporary approach in

01:41:22.160 | psychology, if you read the step-family,

01:41:25.160 | blended-family materials that are out there,

01:41:27.160 | the contemporary approach in psychology today is undermining

01:41:31.160 | the step-family as a couple because they're making them

01:41:37.160 | victim of dysfunctional elements,

01:41:40.160 | relationships, personalities that seem to be fixed.

01:41:43.160 | They're making them victims of what's going on and just

01:41:46.160 | learning adjustment and coping mechanisms on how to deal with

01:41:49.160 | people.

01:41:50.160 | I hate those words, adjustment and coping.

01:41:53.160 | It's like I've got to adjust and cope with you, all right?

01:41:57.160 | That means put up with you.

01:41:58.160 | But in my heart, I really don't want to do that.

01:42:00.160 | That's terrible.

01:42:01.160 | That's just turning everybody in the home into Pharisees.

01:42:05.160 | No, we're not--the Bible's not teaching people to adjust and

01:42:08.160 | cope with one another.

01:42:10.160 | The Bible is teaching them how to be godly with one another,

01:42:13.160 | how to be Christ-like with one another,

01:42:15.160 | how to assume biblical roles and be content in those biblical

01:42:18.160 | roles, how to genuinely love one another,

01:42:21.160 | even if that other person happens to be,

01:42:24.160 | like Matthew 5, 43 through 48, your enemy.

01:42:29.160 | Even that's the case.

01:42:33.160 | So instead of being a dysfunctional home,

01:42:35.160 | it's a sinful home where people are allowing their sinful

01:42:38.160 | passions to rule.

01:42:41.160 | In this case, the kids don't want anybody from outside their

01:42:46.160 | immediate biological relatedness to their parent to interrupt

01:42:51.160 | what they've got going on.

01:42:55.160 | And the parent wants to favor their biological child because

01:42:59.160 | their child's already suffered enough through death or divorce.

01:43:03.160 | So sinful passions tend to rule rather than God's priorities

01:43:06.160 | ruling.

01:43:10.160 | So we would say something like this.

01:43:12.160 | The genuine Christian home, remember this,

01:43:15.160 | the genuine Christian home rejects the notion,

01:43:19.160 | "My children come first."

01:43:25.160 | God always comes first.

01:43:30.160 | Before the children, the spouse comes first.

01:43:37.160 | Your spouse has to be your first human priority.

01:43:45.160 | Now like I said at the beginning of this particular section,

01:43:48.160 | I wish we had lots more time in our particular class to work on

01:43:54.160 | this issue because there are so many little side tributaries

01:44:00.160 | that we could go down literally and pursue from a biblical

01:44:03.160 | standpoint that blended families get into.

01:44:06.160 | But I wanted to give you, in a sense,

01:44:08.160 | a basic frame of work from which to counsel people.

01:44:13.160 | And hopefully you can build upon that with your own counseling

01:44:15.160 | ministry.

01:44:18.160 | Thank you.

01:44:19.160 | [end]

01:44:20.160 | [end]

01:44:21.160 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Lecture 14: Marriage and Family Counseling - Dr. John D. Street