Chapters: 1. Why Don't Men Obey God?
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10 PARENTAL
DISCIPLINE
"Mary," my father told my mother one day in New Castle, "we
must go back to Parker City."
"But, Eldon," she replied. "Why?" She felt that they were
working where God wanted them.
"I need to go back to get some finance so that I can give
our eldest son an education," Dad replied. "God is calling
Loran. (And when I share this with you, the power of God goes
right through me.) He needs to have an education. We must
return to Parker."
It broke my mother's heart, for she didn't want to leave the
pastorate; but we returned to Parker in September, 1927. My
father borrowed three hundred dollars from Mr. Mark Broadwater to
buy a little old tank truck and start out to sell White Lightning
gasoline.
Dad's finance was quite limited during the next two years,
but he and Mother continued to pray and trust. He sold very
little gasoline, because he had to start in at the very beginning
again. But he and Mother held on in prayer day after day, and
God began to bless. After a time he was hired as the agent of
the Sinclair Refining Company, but his predecessor had been
selling only two thousand gallons a month; scarcely enough to pay
the light bill and the taxes.
One day my mother answered a knock on the door. A man said
to her, "Tell your husband to come and see me." My father signed
him as a customer, and earned four hundred dollars a month from
him alone. In depression times, four hundred dollars would be
equivalent now to about fifteen
75 hundred dollars. Only one account! The Lord began to honor the
trust of my parents by this great increase in their business.
Praise the Lord for supplying.
Mother has shared that, because of God's watchful care of
us, in the midst of the depression my father was able to buy
boxes of groceries and have them sent to needy homes. He would
buy baskets of supplies and tell the grocer, "Take these
groceries to so-and-so, but don't tell them where they came from.
I don't want anyone to know that they came from me." God was
blessing him so wonderfully, and he had to share with others some
of the increase.
Mother was suffering greatly from time to time during this
period, troubled both with gall bladder and heart ailment.
Raising six boys when their mother was ill was not an easy task
for my father, but he handled the assignment well. He was a
strong and powerful man. He seldom told us something more than
once. What he said, he meant, and we learned that we had best do
what he said, exactly as he said it.
I wanted to please my father in everything. If he told me
to give so much corn to the hogs, I wanted to provide just that
amount. If he ordered so much hay for the cows, that is exactly
what I wanted to give them, no more and no less. When he showed
me how to hoe beans, I tried to do it just as he showed me. I
never enjoyed gardening. My second brother liked to work in the
garden, but it was real work for me. I believe the Lord had work
for me in another garden--the garden of the soul; plowing up
hardened hearts, planting the seed of God's love, and hoeing out
the weeds of doubt, fear, hatred, and animosity.
The six of us boys were taught to obey quickly and
cheerfully. Whenever we were out of line, our father brought us
back in line quickly. After we were older, Mother taught us to
sing, and we would sing in various churches. Looking back on
that early training period we have said, "Mother taught us to
sing, and Dad kept us in tune."
76 He employed a special method in tuning us up. He had a
buggy tug about eight to ten inches long. Right up where the
buggy tug went over the singletree it was hard leather, and there
were three holes in it. Do you remember that? In about every
buggy tug there were three holes, and about an inch or two up
from the last hole the leather was very limber. Dad cut it off
about eight inches up beyond that third hole, split it down the
middle, folded it up and carried it in his hip pocket. Whenever
any us six boys got out of line, he took that whip and laid it on
us real well.
I remember that when my father whipped me, he whipped me
hard. He would discipline me because he loved me. The more you
love someone, the more you want them to go straight. I know this
is true not only because of experience, but also because the Word
says, Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." When we get out of
line, if we are really His children, God will apply the rod to us.
My father disciplined each of us boys differently, but when
he punished me, I didn't want to do that which caused the
whipping anymore. But, because I needed much help and
instruction, I would receive another tanning in two or three
weeks about something else. He disciplined all my brothers as
well. If he had failed to do this, we could have missed what we
are in the world for. If I had not had a father who disciplined
me, and who was willing to be severe and consistent with me, I do
not believe that I would have been called as God has called me
(and when I tell you this, I receive the witness of the Holy
Spirit that this is true).
Think of the seriousness of this! The Holy Spirit
witnesses to the fact that, unless my father had lovingly
disciplined me-whipped me severely upon each disobedience,
and consistently put me in line--I would have missed the
glorious Church and never known the purpose for which I
was put on earth.
You see, the need of our flesh is greater than we know. It
requires a heart firm in discipline to walk the path of self-
denial under the cross. Without self-denial after conversion,
77 we never reach the cross. And unless we take up a cross, we
never truly become a disciple of Jesus, for He said in
Luke 14:27: "...Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after
me, cannot be my disciple."
The cross is not some trial, struggle, or tragic situation
which may befall you. The cross is an instrument of death upon
which Self is crucified. It is never forced upon me or you.
Each person must personally resolve in his heart to unalterably
pursue the way of the cross, even as Jesus steadfastly set his
face towards Jerusalem where His ignominious death awaited Him.
The cross is actually the life lived in accordance with God's
perfect will, and we must volunteer to seek and do
only God's will.
Once we choose God's way entirely, we are pointed in the
direction of the cross, but we have not yet taken up the cross to
follow Jesus. The only hands which grip the cross are "self-
denial" and "obedience." The spiritual hands which actually
apprehend and maintain a life lived according to God's will are
"self-denial" and "obedience." Unless we deny Self and
obey God moment by moment, we'll not even be able to take hold of
the cross. If we do not daily deny ourselves--what we want
and desire--to wait upon God until He is able to teach us what
the Holy Spirit wants us to do, we are missing what Christianity
is all about.
Do you begin to see how narrow this Way is? And, because it
is more narrow than the fleshly mind is either willing to admit
or even able to comprehend, we must be consistently disciplined
in order to prepare our hearts to remain on the Narrow Way once
we begin.
I recall a class discussion in college regarding how soon we
should discipline our children. Some said at the age three
years, others said at two months, six months, a year. But a
voice spoke up, saying; "We probably should begin with the
grandparents fifty years before the child is born." He was
suggesting that we need generation after generation of
disciplined individuals. We need discipline in the home,
78 in the church, in the school, and at work. We need to press to
uprightly and circumspectly before God, with clean hands and a pure
heart; not lifting up our heart to vanity nor swearing deceitfully.
If we are going to walk with clean hands, it will surely
be because we have been disciplined and because we are continuing to
be disciplined. We must go to the cross and remain humbly under the
load of God's holy assignment. We must discipline ourselves to
live lives of self-denial before the Throne in prayer, crying,
"Oh, God, lead me, help me, direct me," otherwise we will bypass
the cross and not know it. It is a great challenge to live a
life of self-denial. It is a continual pressing, and we must
discipline ourselves rigorously. Now this is simple, but it is
worth the entire book if you are willing to hear and assimilate
this in your heart.
We must also discipline our children or we will lose them.
Sometimes we work so earnestly to save other children that we
lose our own. Many people in the church are working unsparingly
to win souls, but lose their own children by not chastening them,
by not disciplining them. We lose our young people as well by
praying inconsistently, by criticizing people before them, by
failing to be a true witness of Jesus in our daily lives. It is
not what we preach and teach that really matters so much: it is
how we treat our companion, how we really love our neighbors, and
what we actually do or say that tells our children what we truly
believe in our hearts. What we are in our hearts springs out of
our everyday life, and we are not aware of it.
About twenty or thirty years ago, an idea began to receive
popular acceptance which said, "Let the child express himself.
Let him do as he pleases. If he wants to mark on the wall, let
him mark on the wall. If he wants to sit on the floor, let him
sit. Whatever he wants to do, permit him self-expression." We
have been in a whirl ever since.
Susanna Wesley, mother of nineteen children and the woman
who gave the world John and Charles Wesley, re-
79 corded, upon request, her principles of child-rearing which
produced such monumental success in forming Christian character.
She is a very brief and to the point:
"When turned a year (and some before), they were taught to
fear the rod and cry softly; by which means they escaped the
abundance of correction they might otherwise have had....
"In order to form the minds of children, the first thing
to be done is to conquer the will and bring them to an
obedient temper."*
She tells, to some extent, how she did this. Her children, once
strong, were confined to three meals a day. They were never
permitted to eat between meals and made to eat whatever was set
before them. They were corrected early in order to avoid a
stubborn nature, which, once ingrown, would have taken excessive
punishment to remove. She called those parents "cruel" who
playfully develop patterns and habits in the children which later
must be broken.
She insisted that once a child is corrected, he must be
conquered. He is to be brought early to revere and stand in awe
of his parents. No willful transgression was ever permitted to
escape without chastisement. She wrote:
"I insist upon conquering the will of children betimes,
because this is the only strong and rational foundation of a
religious education; without which both precept and example
will be ineffectual. . . . I cannot dismiss this subject.
As self-will is the root of all sin and misery,
so whatever cherishes this in children insures thereafter
wretchedness and irreligion. Whatever checks and mortifies
it (self-will) promotes their future happiness
and piety."
This woman of the eighteenth century put her finger on the
very culprit which is now crowding our divorce courts,
overflowing our prisons, discouraging our precious teachers, and
causing many of our police officials to resign-- SELF-WILL.
She cites Self-Will alone as the cause of all
misery and all sin.
*Quotation from: "Children Can Be Taught To Obey," William W.
Orr, Scripture Press Publications, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois.
(Emphasis inserted by the editor.)
80 Declaring herself absolutely an enemy of this innate perversion,
she determines to drive it from the heart of her children before
it crushes the principle and substance of goodness from them.
To many, this may sound severe and stern. This is because
our minds have been instructed by the counselors of this world.
We have been bent to the ideas of the earth, whereas God wants us
lifted to the heavenly pattern of His Word.
She continues very soberly:
"This is still more evident if we further consider that
religion is nothing else than doing the will of God, and not
our own; that the one grand impediment to our temporal
and eternal happiness is this self-will. No indul-
gence of it can be trivial, no denial unprofitable.
"Heaven or hell depends upon this alone. So
that the parent who studies to subdue it in his child, works
together with God in the renewing and saving of a soul. The
parent who indulges it does the devil's work, makes religion
impractical, salvation unattainable, and does all that in
him lies to damn his child, soul and body, forever."
So this sacred assignment of raising children is much more
serious than we can imagine. It isn't an easy task, although it
is a wonderful privilege, filled with great joy and innumerable
delights.
Mrs. Wesley also confessed:
"No one can, without renouncing the world in the most
literal sense, observe my method (of child-rearing);
and there are few, if any, that would entirely devote above
twenty years of the prime of life in hopes to save the souls
of their children, which they think may be saved without so
much ado; for that was my principle intention, however
unskillful and unsuccessfully managed."
And my father made "much ado" about our obeying. He didn't
have many who sympathized with his efforts, even as Susanna
Wesley predicted. He had to renounce the opinions of most of the
world. His relatives and church people thought him much too
strict. But I want to testify, and my
81 five brothers would likewise declare, that it paid off
marvelously to the credit side.
If I had had any trouble with the school teacher, I would
have had trouble with my dad as well. Therefore, I saw to it
that I didn't have any trouble at school. I didn't look for the
faults of my teachers, I looked for the good qualities. If they
had any faults, I didn't dare think much about them.
But if I hadn't been disciplined, I wouldn't have been that
way. I would have brought back tales of how the teacher didn't
like me and made things hard for me. I would have whined, found
fault, and criticized her to my parents; that is, if they had
listened or sympathized with me.
One of the biggest things we do to our children is pamper
and pet them with sympathy toward the flesh, which passes for
Christian compassion. What we are actually doing is training our
child to feel sorry for himself in disappointment and find excuse
for the satisfying of his own desires. When he is older, he will
retreat from any situation demanding fortitude and courage; he
will by-pass human activities requiring inner steadiness and
maturity of mind.
I tell you, friends, there are things in us that need to be
taken out, and if we don't take them out of our children--if we
don't break our children when they are little--they will break
us and grind us down when they are twelve or older. Unless
we severely discipline our children, they may not make it to
Heaven. In fact, the chances are slim that an
undisciplined child will ever continue to walk with God even if
Jesus can bring him to conversion, for the heart bent in
childhood to self-satisfaction and self-desire will seldom bend
to the will of God following conversion.
Now I know that many believe that once you have been
converted, your reward in Heaven is secure. But God's Word tells
us very plainly through the voice of Jesus in Matthew
7:21: "Not everyone that saith Lord, Lord shall enter into the
Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which
is in Heaven." These precious ones feel that
82 the will of God is just to be converted. But the Holy Spirit has
revealed to me that God's will is to direct us and to lead us in
our daily lives. This means that we are to obey God in every
aspect of our lives. It declares plainly that we are to be holy,
yielded, and submissive to God's will and to His plans.
This is the cross --it is accepting gladly and doing
willingly not what we wish or what we choose or what we select,
but doing what God wishes for our day by day activities.
This is what the Christian life is about. It is obeying Jesus
just as He obeyed God.
But the undisciplined heart will by-pass the cross; it will
resist self-denial, and will insist on having its own way. Once
we choose our own way, we are headed the opposite way from God's
Kingdom and from Heaven. You say to me, "Why Brother Helm, this
is serious!" Yes it is: more serious than I can ever say. Not
many people want to hear it, but I must declare the truth to all
persons faithfully, always.
I recall coming home one time and my wife informed me that
one of my brothers was having difficulty with his son, two to
three years of age. It seemed that every time they brought him
into a church he would just scream and yell and carry on. So,
they had to simply take him out of the sanctuary and go home.
They couldn't bring him into the church or else he would make
such a commotion. I asked my brother, "May I give you a little
advice?" He said that I might and I suggested to him, "Next
Sunday morning when your little one starts carrying on like that,
you take him down in the basement and tune him up so well that he
won't ever want to go back."
He said, "Oh, I hadn't thought of that." The next Sunday,
the little son began the same thing--screaming, crying, yelling--
and my brother took him out. The child stopped crying right
away, of course, because he thought he was going home again. But
he wasn't. His dad carried him to the base-
83 ment and gave that little fellow a tanning. He punished him
soundly.
(Many parents give their children two or three spanks and
feel they have corrected them. However, this simply irritates
the child. Children need to be switched until the rebellious
spirit is broken and their crying is no longer angry, but
repentant. We are not to carnally correct our children, but
firmly administer the rod or some other proper chastening in a
right manner. Many parents are undecided about how to correct
their son or daughter; consequently, the little child has the
father and mother under his control. He is saying to them
essentially, "I am going to do what I want to do."
(I never once told my father that. If I had said anything
back to him, I would have been on my back quickly, and that is
where I should have been. It would have been good for me.
(If our children aren't corrected early, they are going to
grind us to powder someday. People will tell me, "I just can't
control my twelve-year-old son." If you can't control your
twelve-year-old son, he will have you in the courts one of these
days. He will go his own way and break you to pieces. Our
children must be disciplined, but we must discipline ourselves
first.)
When my brother brought his little son back upstairs to the
sanctuary, he sat him beside him on the pew and that little
fellow sat quietly. He started once to make a little move and my
brother said, "You be quiet." Looking up at his father, that
little guy knew that he would get another whipping if he didn't
mind. He sat right back on the pew and behaved like a reasonable
child from then on whenever he was in church.
When I look into the faces of little ones, I often see
things in their lives which frighten me. It is difficult for
parents to see these harmful attitudes lurking under the surface
of their child's personality. But as we discipline ourselves to
the walk with God, the Holy Spirit will begin to help us detect
84 elements in our own natures which need the correction from our
Heavenly Father. While we are being corrected, occasionally we
are granted better understanding of how we need to discipline our
own children.
Sometimes your child will display a spirit of disobedience,
rebellion, stubbornness, harshness, impatience, or many other
carnal attitudes for which you will need to discipline him. In
the process of chastening your child, you will be chastened as
well by your Heavenly Father for a similar spirit hidden in your
own heart.
There is much for God to do within each of us, if we will
only yield to His all-wise hand. He knows that, unless a parent
is cleansed and filled with the Spirit, the discipline from that
parent is liable to be angry and carnal, which can do as much
damage to the child as no discipline at all. Our chastening
must be controlled by the Holy Spirit, not by anger or wrath, for
carnal tactics never help, but hinder. We must be
disciplined ourselves, and our little ones must be given loving,
consistent correction.
When our youngest daughter's child was only a few weeks old,
she would take her bottle so rapidly. It concerned me some, so I
told my daughter and son-in-law, "Why don't you simply take the
bottle out of her mouth every thirty seconds or so and let her
rest for a few moments. That way it will be better for her
digestion, and she will be learning disappointment at the same
time."
(I rarely tell anyone what to do, for a man of God is slow
to give advice to anyone, except to encourage them to love Jesus
with all their hearts and to obey His will. However, my youngest
daughter and her husband are striving to follow Jesus the best
they know how, and have asked me to tell them whenever God shows
me something concerning them. A number of other dear ones have
requested me to do this also. It has not always been easy for
me, but it has been good.)
At first, each time the bottle was removed from her mouth,
85 that little child screamed and fussed. She didn't like it one
bit. Of course, she was a darling child, but she simply wanted
her food at her time and at her speed. We are all exactly like
that. This is the Carnal Nature. This inborn self-will is what
we acquired from the Fall in the Garden, and it is much worse
than I could ever share with you. I know that I have only a very
limited view of the desperate wickedness of the heart, but what I
do see frightens me.
After ten days of having the bottle periodically withdrawn,
that little child became accustomed to taking her milk slowly.
Her parents could remove the bottle from her mouth and she would
simply rest and wait. It required ten days for her nature to
become accustomed to this denial. She knew by then that the
bottle would return. While she waited, her tummy was resting and
her nervous system was learning to be disappointed. If we do not
early learn to take disappointments in stride, we will grow into
adults who are immature in behavior. We will be at the mercy of
any sudden difficulty or every change of circumstance.
Because of this method of early disappointment, accompanied
with consistent chastening and correction, this child is able (by
God's grace only) to take disappointment with a minimum of
upheaval. She is pleasant to be around and a very happy two-
year-old. And--may I share something for the encouragement of
parents?--This little girl loves her mother about as much as I
have ever seen a child love a parent: yet, her mother has spanked
her severely ever since she knew that the infant could discern
between "yes" and "no". She was five months old when her mother
could recognize that she had a knowledge of obeying or
disobeying.
I am certain that when a child is grown he will seldom
return to his parents and say, "Mother and Dad, thank you for not
spanking me when I was growing up." But, most children who have
been lovingly and consistently disciplined will return to their
parents many times with the words, "I am so thankful you
chastened me hard, Dad, when I was a kid.
86 Mom, thanks for loving me enough to punish me. I needed more
whippings than I received."
There is a mystery in correcting a child, and it defies
analysis by the intellect. We know it is absolutely necessary,
because the wisest man in history (except for Jesus) gave us
several specific instructions regarding child-rearing. Most of
these tell us to use the "rod of correction" when the child is
disobedient. In fact, he said that if you "hate" your child you
will spare the rod; if you "love" him, you will chasten him before
it is too late. At another place he says, "Foolishness is bound in
the heart of a child; but the rod of correction will drive it far
from him."*
He counsels parents to chasten a child while there is yet
hope, and "let not thy soul spare for his crying." These
admonitions are recorded in the book of Proverbs, which also contains
the promise, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he
is old he will not depart from it." Many Christian parents cling to
this latter promise, but have failed to comply with the many specific
instructions to also chasten and correct the child sternly. Consistent
chastening is much of what it means to "train up a child in the way he
should go." Many think this scripture simply means to take their
children to Sunday school and church, and to teach them the doctrines
of salvation and repentance. But, to "train up a child in the way he
should go" means that we are preparing him to walk with God. The
"way he should go" is in lowly following of Jesus. We are to bring
that child's rebellious inner nature to an obedient and submissive
character.
If the child is not taught to obey his parents, he will
have difficulty obeying God. It will not be easy for the
undisciplined child to comprehend God's absolute authority over
his life when he is converted. Jesus wants to lead all His
people, but so few are prepared as children by their parents to
obey without question or debate. This explains to a great
measure
*See end of chapter for other scriptures related to correction.
87 why God has seldom been able to find a people who will really
trust Him and obey Him. As children growing up, we have had our
own way for so long that we can scarcely grasp the fact, after
conversion, that God's desires supersede our own plans and
wishes.
We tend to treat God in a similar manner as we did our
parents. We expect God to give in to our wants and permit us to
run things along the lines of our own ideas. Because of early
self-assertive patterns, few in all the ages have been willing to
die out to Self sufficiently to really consistently do God's will
and not their own.
To correct a child from his own ways into an obedient and
submissive behavior is not easy. It cannot be done without God's
help, without His constant wisdom and counsel. To the observer,
correction appears cruel. But the mystery is that it is just the
opposite--it is ultimate kindness. Correction grows out of a
heart deeply rooted in divine love. To do less leads, sooner or
later, to tragedy.
As we begin to walk with God, leaving behind the ideas and
opinions of the earth, He will begin to teach us of the love
hidden in His chastening arm. He will begin to reveal the future
gifts that are ours because of His present denials. He will open
to our limited vision the great principle of His Kingdom:
"He that loses his life shall find it." He will make plain the
understanding that in having our own way, we always lose; but in
yielding to His inscrutable wishes, though it appears we are losing
all we had desired or hoped for, we are actually brought into a land
laden with more than we had ever dreamed possible, all for His
glory and honor.
My parents instructed me in many areas. Mother told me how
I should treat my wife if I were to be married: to be kind,
gentle, and thoughtful. I was never to say to her, "I wish you
would have prepared this like my mother," or, "I wish you could
do this like my mother." She taught me to consider ways of
expressing kindness to others.
All six sons were instructed in washing floors, dusting, and
88 keeping house. We were taught to cook simple meals and be
independent. Mother constantly advised us to keep our clothing
neat and to hang them carefully in the closet when we removed
them. She instructed me in integrity, cooperation, and
thoughtfulness.
My father taught me to be conscious of all my investments
and purchases. "Never purchase anything when you can't see your
way clear," he would say. I was shown never to be involved
financially above that which I was able to bear. "If a man loses
his credit, he has lost everything," Dad told me. "A man's
credit is his word, and his word should be as good as his note,
if not better."
I was taught to be truthful. My father said that he hated a
a liar more than a thief. "You can watch a thief, but if a man
tells you something that is untrue, you aren't sure whether he's
telling you the truth or not." He drilled into me that telling
untruths is a desperate, wicked thing.
Along this path of integrity and honesty, discipline and
responsibility, my parents led me and compelled me, for which I
am deeply in debt to Jesus.
The following are references from Proverbs, with which you
are perhaps already familiar, but which I include for encouragement
in what God's Word instructs us about child-rearing:
"A wise son heareth his father's instruction; but a
scorner heareth not rebuke." (13:1)
"In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is
found: but a rod is for the back of him that is void of
understanding." (10:13)
"He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that
loveth him chasteneth him betimes." (13:24)
"Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy
soul spare for his crying." (19:18)
"Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be
pure, and whether it be right...Train up a child in the way
he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from
it." (20:11, 22:6)
"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod
of correction shall drive it far from him." (22:15)
89 "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."
(23:13,14)
"The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to
himself bringeth his mother to shame." (29:15)
"Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he
shall give delight unto thy soul." (29:17)
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