DELINQUENT PARENTS!--Make Delinquent Kids!       DO 1708  12/83

         [HomeARC note (9/98): The Charter is the source of current Family policy and rules regarding the discipline of minors.]

         1. PARENTS WHO CAN'T RULE THEIR OWN HOUSE & THEIR OWN CHILDREN DON'T BELONG IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE CHURCH OF GOD! They're a dandy bad example! Ah, on what infinitesimally small things do God's omnipotent wheels turn! Behold what a great fire a little flame kindleth & what a great sad defeat one little neglect causes!--Something they thought was little, apparently, such as disciplining their own child.
         2. LOVE IS THE ANSWER, IT'S PLAIN AS DAY IN THE SCRIPTURE, "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth & scourgeth every son whom He receiveth!" (Heb.12:6) A parent who loves his children is going to chasten them & scourge them until they're able to be received. Parents with undisciplined children have disobeyed the law!--My laws, God's laws, Family laws, & they're even dangerous to have around!
         3. DON'T BLAME IT ON THE POOR LITTLE KID! HE'S JUST THE PRODUCT OF THEIR LACK OF DISCIPLINE & THEIR LACK OF OBEDIENCE, THAT'S ALL! He's the fruit of their failure. It's all right there in the Bible! "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him!" (Pro.22:15)
         4. WHY DO YOU THINK WE HAVE SUCH A GOOD UNIT & SUCH WELL-BEHAVED CHILDREN?--I keep a strict, hard, tight control on everything & nobody gets away with anything! Right? And that's how you have to run an army that's fighting a war, which we are! And I'm disgusted with people who have not kept the articles of war & the laws of this Family & the laws of God & my rules!
         5. WE CAN'T HAVE ROTTEN APPLES AT THE TOP OF THE BARREL! It's bad enough that there are some at the bottom & we're certainly not going to tolerate them at the top of the barrel where we can see their corruption. We certainly can't have bad children polluting & corrupting other children, nor bad delinquent parents & leadership mixing with other personnel, teaching them bad habits. We're just not gonna put up with it, that's all! One or two or three rotten apples can rot the whole bunch!
         6. I HAVE NEVER CHANGED MY STAND ON DISCIPLINE NOR HAVE THE FAMILY'S RULES CHANGED! If parents cannot discipline & control their own children, they have no business in any important job in God's Work. If the children are rotten they're apt to pollute & corrupt others, so you can't dare have them around for fear of the bad effect they'll have on others. If you don't discipline a child from the time it's a baby, it's going to be a failure & a flop & a mess & a problem by the time it gets to be a year old!
         7. THE CHILD IS A PRODUCT OF THE PARENTS & their nature & character & spirituality or lack of it, including all of their faults. Delinquent children are the products of delinquent parents! I don't think you can blame me or Maria nor our Family nor our rules nor God nor the Bible.--It's your fault!
         8. (MARIA: WELL, WHY DON'T PARENTS WANT TO DISCIPLINE THEIR CHILDREN WHEN THEY KNOW HOW MUCH TROUBLE IT'S GOING TO CAUSE IF THEY DON'T?) Because discipline is very hard work & it is a constant grind! You don't ever dare let up, not for a minute, not for one occasion, not on any score whatsoever, you've got to keep at it to make it consistent & constant. And that is hard to do!
         9. 99 TIMES OUT OF 100 UNDISCIPLINED KIDS ARE A RESULT OF DELINQUENT PARENTS, BECAUSE THE PARENTS ARE GOD-DAMN LAZY!--Just plain lazy & don't want to go to the trouble of disciplining their children. "A child left to his own devices bringeth his parents to shame!" (Pro.29:15) They just don't want to go to the trouble of strict hard continuous discipline!
         10. IF YOU ARE TOO BUSY TO TRAIN & DISCIPLINE & CONTROL YOUR CHILDREN & ENFORCE OBEDIENCE, YOU ARE TOO BUSY! You'd better not have any children then. You'd better give'm to somebody that knows how to take care of kids. God does not put up with parents or children who are only controllable part of the time! He cannot take a chance on people who possibly will fail when they are most needed. It's either all or nothing at all with God! God will not tolerate any percentage of disobedience!
         11. IF YOU DON'T CHASTEN YOUR CHILDREN IN OBEDIENCE TO GOD'S LAWS & DRIVE THAT CHILD'S FOOLISHNESS FAR FROM HIM, IF YOU SPOIL THAT CHILD , YOU DON'T LOVE THAT CHILD!--You hate that child! You don't care anything about that child! You pretend to love it with spoiling, because you're God-damned lazy & you don't want to go to the trouble & the hardship & the constant grind & the suffering & the hurt you suffer of watching your child suffer for his sins & the fact that you have to administer the punishment!
         12. BUT FAILURE TO DISCIPLINE A CHILD IS DOWNRIGHT WILLFUL DISOBEDIENCE! Don't tell me you can't!--You won't! Even if the parents are a mess at least they can try to make something out of the child! But that's the trouble, messy parents usually make messy children!
         13. PEOPLE WHO HAVE CHILDREN THAT ARE UNDISCIPLINED, SOME OF THOSE PARENTS SOMETIMES CANNOT STAND DISCIPLINE THEMSELVES! Parents who fail to discipline their children are a constant hazard, because if they have let the Devil get in like that through their disobedience & their neglect & their downright rebelliousness against us & our Family laws & the laws of God & His Word, they are untrustworthy, they cannot be relied upon.
         14. NOBODY IS INDISPENSABLE UNLESS THEY OBEY GOD, & if they are disobedient, rebellious, stubborn, willful, unwilling to take correction themselves, then we can't take a chance on them hardly anywhere. Unless they stop it, they're going to have to live with that in everlasting shame & contempt to see the damage their neglect & their disobedience & their rebelliousness caused & the suffering it caused their children.
         15. AND THE HUSBAND IS JUST AS MUCH TO BLAME, IT'S HIS CHILD & HE CAN'T MAKE ANY EXCUSES, "Well, I can't do anything with the little boy because the mother spoils him & she lets him run riot & when he's with his mother she spoils him & lets him do anything he wants to do!" Well, why in the Hell doesn't he get in there & paddle his wife! Why doesn't he get in there & chastise her & make her obey & make her take care of the kid!
         16. YOU CANNOT HAVE ANY LINK BROKEN IN THE CHAIN OF DISCIPLINE, BECAUSE ONE PERSON WHO FAILS TO DISCIPLINE THE CHILD CAN UNDO ALL THE GOOD TRAINING that all the others have put into him. Lack of unity & cooperation between parents or among parents & teachers destroys any possibility of training & discipline. If any one person having to do with the care or discipline of that child fails to be firm in their term of childcare & lets that child get away with things that the others wouldn't let him get away with, that child is going to develop that weakness in that spot with that person which is going to destroy all the rest of the discipline, because if he thinks he can get away with it once, maybe he can get away with it other times, other places, with other people. That's where the lack of cooperation between parents on child discipline, the lack of unity destroys any possibility of training that child & disciplining that child, if parents disagree.
         17. THE LEADER OF A COMBO WITH ALL THESE FAMILIES THAT HAVE DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS HAD BETTER BE A TOUGH MILITARY GENERAL with the kind of toughness that can enforce the rules or out you go! If the top leader cannot unify his family & cannot control them & cannot rule his own house well, he doesn't deserve to be a top leader! (Maria: You have to have all the parents, all the childcare workers, all agree to stick to the same rules, same standard.) Of course! They absolutely have to be agreed with standard rules & standard obedience.
         18. MOST CHILDREN CAN BE FORCED TO BE GOOD. If all those caring for them use strict discipline, faithful, consistent, continuous unrelenting discipline, they learn very soon that crime doesn't pay. It's not the poor kid's fault, that's the sad part about it, it's the parents' fault.
         19. THE MOST VITAL PART OF THIS WORK IS OUR CHILDREN. Our children are the Future & we must preserve & protect the Future. If we have failed our children, we have failed our Future & our whole work will fail through that failure, our failure & the failure of our children because of our failure.
         20. (MARIA: THE BIGGEST LESSON FOR THE ENTIRE FAMILY, THE BIG SHOCKER & what's really going to wake them up is to realise that what seems like a little thing, just a little lack of discipline behind closed doors in the evenings, in this case is so serious that it could completely damage & upset the whole Work of God!) Yes! Be sure your sins will find you out! Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap! (Gal.6:7) It's a pretty important problem in the Family of God.--And people had better realize how serious it is!
         21. NO MATTER HOW FAITHFUL YOU ARE IN EVERY OTHER AREA & every other job & every other thing, if you have failed with your children you have failed God in the most important job He has given you to do!--And that's to prepare & save the Future, which is your children! And if you don't get it done now you're not going to save this Future, but in a future time you are still going to have to do it, come what may, whether it takes the Millennium & all Eternity, God is going to hold you to it!
         22. BUT THIS DAY IS GONE FOREVER & CAN NEVER BE RECLAIMED! What you have failed to do in the past & today or even in the future is going to be unredeemable, irreclaimable, gone forever, lost to eternity, & some of you are going to have to suffer everlasting shame & contempt for it forever, for the failures, the things you could have done & didn't do, & things you did you shouldn't have, & all the damage & problems it's caused!--If you don't stop it NOW!
         23. IF YOU FAIL IN YOUR CHILDREN YOU HAVE FAILED! He can hardly say to you when you arrive at His feet, "Well done, thou good & faithful servant" if you have failed in the care of your children! It doesn't matter how faithful you've been in anything else if you've failed in your most important job--your children!
         24. LORD JESUS, HELP US, LORD! HELP OUR FAMILY EVERYWHERE! Help its leadership to deal sternly & toughly but in love, but with the love of the lash. "If ye be without chastening then ye are not sons but bastards!" (Heb.12:8)
         25. LORD, HELP ALL OF OUR PARENTS to see their failures, their mistakes & rectify them, change, repent of them & do better & not be afraid to apply the rod & spare the child, rather than spare the rod & spoil the child!
         26. PLEASE HELP THEM TO DO A BETTER JOB ON THEIR CHILDREN & REALIZE THAT THEY ARE THEIR BIGGEST JOB & OUR CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE & we must preserve them for Thee & Thy use by training them right, teaching them right & teaching them to behave & obey, disciplining them to make them behave & be good examples, good testimonies for Thy Kingdom, good citizens, obedient, subdued, quiet, faithful, children to be proud of & thankful for, because we have been faithful parents, diligent disciplinarians & we have trained up our children in the way they should go, so that when they are old they will not depart therefrom! In Jesus' name, amen.--How about you?--And yours?


Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family