“Judgments are prepared for scoffers and beatings for the backs of fools” (Proverbs 19:29).
At birth, all humanity is ignorant. A newborn knows very little. Each of us has to learn his name, a vocabulary, how to count, and a multitude of other things.
In like manner, every newborn is ignorant and innocent of sin. Bound up in the heart of every child is the foolishness of thinking he knows best (Prov. 22:15, 14:12). It is the job of parents to continually battle this ignorance and foolishness by teaching, reproving, correcting, and training their offspring in righteousness, so that their children grow and thrive in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
A child who prefers foolishness over wisdom has to have sufficient motivation from his parents to change this fatal preference. “Gentle parenting” and multiple conversations with a toddler about “making good choices” are not the counsel of Scripture. Before the window of opportunity closes (Prov. 19:18), folly and stubborn disobedience have to be purged.
Corporal punishment (the vigorous application of the “board of education to the seat of learning”) is the method Jehovah prescribes for addressing and correcting this situation. When used prudently and consistently, the rod of correction will drive foolishness out of the heart of a child (Prov. 22:15). “Blows that hurt cleanse away evil” (Prov. 20:30). It is a form of spiritual surgery which every parent must perform to save his child’s soul.
Left unchecked the cancer of folly will metastasize into scoffing. A scoffer always discounts what Jehovah says because he thinks himself smarter than God. The path he has chosen to travel into eternity ends in the second death—God’s eternal judgment on evil.
The urgent need for godly parents is immense.
