MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 13:24
THE CHILD AND THE ROD
I. Pain is a necessary instrument in human training. The rod is to be included in the means of education. Some natures need an experience of pain to quicken their mental capabilities. Sometimes children are like untilled land (see Proverbs 13:23), they have large capabilities lying dormant, which will not awaken unless they are subjected to severe discipline and punished for their shortcomings. And what is necessary in intellectual training is also necessary in moral training. Children must be made to feel that pain is the outcome of transgression, and evil habits must if possible be crushed while in the bud. They can be overcome then at the expense of far less suffering than when they have taken firmer hold, and the pain is as nothing compared with that which the habits themselves will inflict if they are allowed to go on through life and enthrall the soul entirely. A thorn which has but just entered the skin can be extracted with a very small amount of suffering, even by an unskilful hand; if left for a few days it may produce a festering wound; if not extracted at all, it may end in mortification. The fear of suffering is also a great preventive of sin. The Great Father of men uses it as an instrument to dissuade men from breaking His laws. He warns them, over and over again, of the suffering which they will bring upon themselves if they disobey His commands and their experience of the suffering that has followed sin in the past often leads them to avoid it in the future. And what is effectual in the training of men is effectual also with children. They will often avoid the repetition of an act which they know has brought them punishment before and will do so again. This fear of pain is not the highest motive for abstinence from wrong-doing, but in both the child and the man it may be the foundation of an upbuilding of character which shall by-and-by go on growing in goodness without this instrumentality.
II. That infliction of pain is compatible with the highest love, and is often a token of it. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that God scourges His children whenever He sees that they need it. And yet they have become His children only by the exercise of His own Infinite love. But we know that He chastens not for His pleasure, but for our profit (Hebrews 12:10); that He has love and wisdom enough to see the “far-off interest of tears.” So it is the father or mother, who truly loves his or her child, who is willing to undergo the present suffering of inflicting pain in order to ensure a future blessing to their children. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). What is true of the Divine parent is true also of the human. It follows—
III. That the neglect of chastisement is a proof of the want of real love. “He that spareth his rod hateth his son.” What should we think of a father who would see his child bleed to death rather than bind up the wound, because in so doing he would inflict some present bodily pain upon the child, and some mental suffering upon himself? Or of the physician who would not use the knife to stop the progress of mortal disease because the patient shrinks from the incision, and he himself is averse to the sight of blood? We should say they were destroyers of life which had been entrusted to them to preserve. But what shall we say of a parent who is so fond of his child that he cannot inflict pain upon him now for deeds that, if repeated until they become habits, will ruin him for time and for eternity? Such sickly sentimentalism in a parent makes him unworthy of his name, and turns him who should have been his child’s highest earthly blessing into his direst curse. Many inmates of our gaols are there because they have been the victims of this so-called love; and when God sums up their misdeeds a large portion of the guilt will fall elsewhere than on the child cursed by such a parent.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Fond parents think it love (that spares the rod), but Divine wisdom calls it hatred.—-John Howe.
The discipline of our children must commence with self-discipline. Nature teaches us to love them much. But we want a controlling principle to teach us to love them wisely. The indulgence of our children has its root in self-indulgence.—Bridges.
This phrase “betimes,” or “early in the morning,” admonisheth parents to procure the means of their children’s welfare before all other matters; and, as it were, as soon as they rise out of their beds. The Lord be merciful to us for the neglect of this duty; for if we have any worldly business to do we go first about that, and then teach and instruct our children at our leisure. O reckless carelessness about the chiefest matters! Oh that as we use to feed our children in the morning so we could once be brought to instruct them also betimes.—Muffet.
Justice must be observed in the correction of children.
1. That there is a fault committed.
2. That the fault so committed deserveth punishment.
3. That the punishment do not exceed the quality of the fault, which will otherwise seem to rage and revenge rather than to chastise for amendment.—Spencer.
To spare the rod in the first clause being opposed to chastening in the second, by the rod must be meant not only that particular instrument of punishment, but everything besides that may prove the means of our correction and amendment. And by chastisement is here intended every instrument of correction, every means of effecting what we intend by chastising, whether it be reproof, restraint of liberty, disappointment of our children’s wills, or corporal punishment. By loving and hating is not here meant the exerting actually those passions in the heart, for then the text would be untrue, but the acting agreeably to the reason, and not the blindness of those passions; the producing such effects as are in God’s account, and in wise men’s too, and in our own when freed from partial prejudices; the consequences and fruits of love and hatred acting regularly, such as are commonly esteemed the effects of those two causes, whether they indeed proceed from them or no. For if we are to reckon of love or hatred by the effects, then it is easy to discern when parents hate their children, namely, when, through neglect or fondness, they permit them to enter on a course of ruin, and so let them fall into such miseries as the utmost hatred of their inveterate enemies could neither wish nor make them greater, whatever love there may be at the bottom. A mother is as much a murderess who stifles her child in a bed of roses as she that does it with a pillow-bear (pillow-case). The end and mischief is as great, though the means and instrument be not the same.—Bishop Fleetwood.
He that spareth the rod from his son maketh him to be his rod, wherewith he whips himself, and wherewith God whips both of them. It is better thy son should feel thy rod than thou feel the sorrow of his wicked life. And do not hate him in not correcting of him, lest he hate thee by thy not correcting of him, and God shew His hatred against both by His wrath upon you.—Jermin.
The Koh-i-noor diamond, when it came into the Queen’s possession, was a mis-shapen lump. It was very desirable to get its corners cut off and all its sides reduced to symmetry; but no unskilful hand was permitted to touch it. Men of science were summoned to consider its nature and capabilities. They examined the form of its crystals and the consistency of its parts. They considered the direction of the grain, and the side on which it would bear a pressure. With their instructions, the jewel was placed in the hands of an experienced lapidary, and by long, patient, careful labour, its sides were ground down to the desired proportions. The gem was hard, and needed a heavy pressure; the gem was precious, and every precaution was taken which science and skill could suggest to get it polished into shape without cracking it in the process. The effort was successful. The hard diamond was rubbed down into forms of beauty, and yet sustained no damage by the greatness of the pressure to which it was subjected. “Jewels, bright jewels,” in the form of little children, are the heritage which God gives to every parent. They are unshapely and need to be polished; they are brittle, and so liable to be permanently injured by the pressure; but they are stones of peculiar preciousness, and if they were successfully polished they would shine as stars for ever and ever, giving off, from their undimning edge, more brilliantly than other creatures can, the glory which they get from the Sun of Righteousness. Those who possess these diamonds in the rough should neither stike them unskilfully nor let them be uncut … Prayer and pains must go together in this difficult work. Lay the whole case before our Father in heaven; this will take the hardness out of the correction, without diminishing its strength.—Arnot.
Correction is a kind of cure, saith the philosopher (Arist. Ethic. lib. ii.), the likeliest way to save the child’s soul; where, yet, saith Bernard, it is the care of the child that is charged upon the parent, not the cure, that is God’s work alone.—Trapp.
In order to form the minds of children, the first thing to be done is to conquer the will. To inform the understanding is a work of time, and must, with children, proceed by slow degrees, as they are able to bear it; but the subjecting of the will must be done at once, and the sooner the better; for, by neglecting timely correction, they will contract a stubbornness and obstinacy which are hardly ever conquered, and not without using such severity as would be as painful to me as to the child. I insist upon the conquering of the will betimes, because this is the only strong and rational foundation of a religious education, without which both precept and example will be ineffectual. But when this is thoroughly done, a child is capable of being governed by the wisdom and piety of its parents till its own understanding comes to maturity, and the principles of religion have taken root in the mind.—Mrs. S. Wesley.
It is his rod that must be used, the rod of a parent, not the rod of a servant.—Henry.