Children are not morally and ethically neutral. The Bible teaches that the heart is “deceitful and desperately wicked” (Jer 17:9). The child’s problem is not information deficit. His problem is that he is a sinner. There are things within the heart of the sweetest little baby that, allowed to blossom and grow to fruition, will bring about his eternal destruction.
The rod functions in this context. It is addressed to the needs within the child. These needs cannot be met by mere talk. Proverbs 22:15 says, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.” God says there is something wrong in the child’s heart. Folly or foolishness is bound up in his heart. This folly must be removed, for it places the child at risk. Throughout the Proverbs, folly or foolishness is used to describe the person who has no fear of God. The fool is the one who will not hear reproof. The fool is the one who mocks at the ways of God. The fool lacks wisdom (fear of God).
The fool’s life is run by his desires and fears. This is what you hear from your young children. The most common phrases in the vocabulary of a three-year-old are, “I want …” or “I don’t want …” The fool lives out of the immediacy of his lusts, cravings, expectations, hopes, and fears.
It is a question of authority. Will the child live under the authority of God and therefore the authority of his parents, or under his own authority – driven by his wants and passions?
This is the natural state of your children. It may be subtly hidden beneath a tuft of rumpled hair. It may be imperceptible in the wry smile of a baby. In their natural state, however, your children have hearts of folly. Therefore, they resist correction. They protest against your attempts to rule them. Watch a baby struggle against wearing a hat in the winter. Even this baby who cannot articulate or even conceptualise what he is doing shows a determination not to be ruled from without. This foolishness is bound up within his heart. Allowed to take root and grow for fourteen or fifteen years, it will produce a rebellious teenager who will not allow anyone to rule him.
God has ordained the rod of this discipline for this condition. Spanking process undertaken in a biblical manner drives foolishness from the heart of a child. Confrontation with the immediate and undeniably tactile sensation of a spanking renders an implacable child sweet. I have seen this principle countless times. The young child who is refusing to be under authority is in a place of grave danger.
The rod is given for this extremity. “Punish them (children) with a rod and save them from death” (Proverbs 23:14). Your children’s soul are in danger of death – spiritual death. Your task is to rescue your children from death. Faithful and timely use of the rod is the means to rescue.
This places the rod in its proper setting. The rod is not a matter of an angry parent venting his wrath upon a small helpless child. The rod is a faithful parent, recognizing his child’s dangerous state, employing a God-given remedy. The issue is not a parental insistence on being obeyed. The issue is the child’s need to be rescued from death – the death that results from rebellion left unchallenged in the heart.