PROFITING FROM PROVERBS

“Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine” (Proverbs 23:13-15).

Twice in these two verses the word “rod” is used, it is important to God. If you want to save your child from the pitfalls of life, and ultimately make him responsive to the Gospel, you need to apply corporal punishment. You need to associate pain with wrongdoing in order to teach him a healthy respect for right behavior.

Now, this doesn’t go along with modern psychiatry or modern ethics. All that modern psychology has produced is a race of mongrel teenagers that do not recognize authority, they cannot rule themselves, and they are frustrated by the time they are twenty, so many of them blow their brains out. They are full of guilt. They are full of guilt because they have never been punished for their wrong, so they carry that guilt. Modern psychology doesn’t understand that. They think that guilt is something that is inflicted upon them by religion. No! Guilt is the product of human conscience and they have it before they ever hear of religion.

When a child does wrong, he knows he has done wrong, and when they are not punished for it, they bare the guilt—it doesn’t go away. Now, when they are punished, the guilt is gone. In their minds they know that they have dealt with the wrong. When a kid is not punished for doing wrong, he becomes a frustrated kid. Punishment absolves from guilt. Not only that, but children will test their limits just to be assured that those limits are still there, and they feel protected. Punishment erects those limits and are good.

“The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Proverbs 29:15).

What we have today in our society is a lot of teenagers that have been left to themselves and have raised themselves. They are called “latchkey” kids. Both parents work, so they are alone most of the time—and they gravitate toward peer pressure to establish the rules. Those “rules” are generally antisocial and lead to unrestrained wrongdoing. As a result, the kid brings shame to his parents and to himself. Many young women find themselves pregnant at an early age and their child carries on the same pattern. That is, if it isn’t destroyed for the convenience of the mother’s sex life.

“My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine.”

In Proverbs, a wise heart is a heart that is open to instruction. In this case, it is a father’s relationship to his son. If you have a son that listens to you, that is a real joy. They are still not perfect, and they don’t always do right, but if they will listen to you when you sit down to reason with them about their actions, that is a real joy.

“Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning” (Proverbs 9:9).

“A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother” (Proverbs 10:1).

Daily Bible study is necessary if we are going to begin our day with the right attitude and the right spiritual diet. Proverbs has 31 chapters, and most months have 31 days, so let’s read a chapter of Proverbs a day and see what God might have for us. As the Lord leads, share with us what God has shown you in a special way and by His grace let us build up a devotional repository. Let’s keep our knives and forks handy for some daily bread! Ideally, a chapter or two of Proverbs will fit in nicely with a good plan of reading our Bibles through each year.

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