As the Family goes so does the Local Church. Where you will find
a strong Baptist church there will be without a doubt strong Christian
families. In this paper we will look at fifty (50) somewhat different
aspects of Biblical truth related especially to the Family. If these
aspects are not only examined and studied, but also applied and
practiced then one will head on up the right course to a more
Christlike family. This in time will effect the Church that Jesus
built for the glory of God.The major sources used for the compiling of this paper are: The
King James Bible (1611) and The children for Christ, Dr. Andrew
Murray, Bethany Fellowship, Inc., Minneapolis, MN (1952).1. The Family as God Created It
"(27)God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (28)And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (Genesis 1:27-28).
[God's purpose in the creation of man was to reveal to the universe His own unseen glory and perfection. Look to God as the author of your family life; count upon Him to give all that is needed to make it what it should be.]
"(1)In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him....(3)And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth" (Genesis 5:1,3).
"Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him" (Genesis 4:8).[God created man in His own likeness; Adam, the fallen, brought forth sons in his own likeness, after his image. By one fell blow sin, in conquering Adam, had conquered the race. The child's (Cain) sin was the fruit of the father's (Adam). How often parents can trace in the sins and evil tempers of their children their own shortcomings and transgressions! The root of all sin is selfishness. Let father and mother lead a life marked by love to God and man.]
3. The Family as Grace Restores It
"And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation" (Genesis 7:1).
['By faith Noah prepared an ark for the saving of his house,' and was made a witness to future ages that the faith of a believing, righteous parent obtains a blessing not for himself only but for his children too. By Noah's deliverance from the flood, God manifested the great principle of the economy of grace: mercy in the midst of judgment; life through death; repentance and faith as the means of deliverance, the one channel through which the blessing comes. Let believing parents understand and remember this: the father who is righteous in God's sight is dealt with not only as an individual, but also in his relation as parent. Noah pictures the believing parent--walking with God, believing His Word, obedient to His command. The ark typifies the blessed Lord Jesus, a sure and a safe hiding place for the parent and his child.]
"(4)And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him [Abraham], saying, ...he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir....(6)And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness" (Genesis 15:4,6).
"Ye are the children...of the covenant" (Acts 3:25).[The promise and the gift on God's part, and on our part the reception and the birth of our children, is a matter of faith, a matter in which God takes the deepest interest. It is especially as a parent, in reference to the promise of a child, that Abraham's faith is exercised and found well pleasing to God. In the power of faith the natural longing for a child becomes the channel of most wonderful fellowship with God. The covenant child before his birth is to be the object of God's care and the parent's faith. God thought a long time was necessary for the strengthening and ripening of faith before Abraham received the promised child. The faith which was sufficient to justify Abraham was not sufficient to receive the blessing for his seed. The parental relationship is one of the best schools for the life of faith.]
5. The Promise of the Covenant
"And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee" (Genesis 17:7).
"...the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed" (Romans 9:8).[Many persons see that God's promises of mercy to sinners are free and sure, and have found, in believing them, that they have come true; they know that they have been accepted. They know that the only sure ground for faith is God's Word. God has established a general connection between seedtime and harvest, between faithful parental training and the salvation of the children. In neither case--the seedtime nor the training is absolute certainty of success secured. It is enough that the promise expresses the tendency and ordinary result of proper training. I believed the promise; I came and was accepted; I found the promise true. The children of the flesh do not automatically become the children of the promise.]
6. The Outward Seal of the Covenant
"(11)And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. (12)And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations" (Genesis 17:11-12).
["he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith" (Romans 4:11). The parent must meet God as Abraham did, as a believer. It is faith and faith alone that can enter into the covenant, that pleases God. He must believe for himself in that Christ who is the surety of the covenant, who is himself the covenant.]
"For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him" (Genesis 18:19).
[The higher the faith of the parent rises, the more the family will come under its power and be permeated by the spirit of godliness. Parental faith in God's promise will always be known by parental faithfulness to God's will. Think what need there is of this faithfulness. Parents are more than friends and advisers: they have been clothed by God with a holy authority to be exercised in leading their children in the way of the Lord. There is an age when the will of the child is to a great extent in their hands, and when the quiet, loving exercise of that authority will have a mighty influence. The blessing of such parental faithfulness is sure and large. Believing parent, see here two sides of a parent's calling. Be very full of faith, be very faithful.]
"(8)And Judah said unto Israel his father, Send the lad with me...(9)I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him" (Genesis 43:8-9).
[Judah sought to persuade his father to send Benjamin with him to Egypt. That he realized what his suretyship for the child meant and was ready at any sacrifice to fulfill its duties is evident from his pleadings before Joseph: 'Thy servant is become surety for the child with his father,' and offered himself as a slave in his brother's place. Consider the duties of such a suretyship. Judah was thoroughly in earnest with the engagement he had undertaken. When the governor of Egypt had commanded that Benjamin should be kept as a slave, he at once came forward as a substitute. Everything gives way to the thought, 'My father entrusted him to me, and I am surety for the lad.'
Christian parents are to be surety for their child! How often, when our children are in danger from the prince of this world, when temptations of the flesh or the world threaten to make them prisoners and slaves, holding them back from ever reaching the Father's home--how often are we found careless or unwilling to sacrifice our ease and comfort in seeking to rescue them from their danger! How often the spiritual interests of the child are considered subordinate to worldly prospects or position or profit.]
"and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months." (Exodus 2:2)
"By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment" (Hebrews 11:23).[It was faith that saw the goodliness of the child; it was faith that feared not the king's wrath; it was faith that hid the child and saved his life. Christian parent, hide your child. And where? Hide him in "the shadow of the Almighty." The education (Christian home school) Moses' mother gave her son during the years of his childhood was such that all the years of training (Secular state school) in Pharaoh's court could not obliterate it. His parent's faith bore fruit in his faith when he, at every cost, chose suffering with the people of God and was not afraid of the wrath of the king.]
"(3)take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: ...(23)when he seeth the blood...the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses" (Exodus 12:3,23).
"The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).[Of all the Old Testament sacrifices, there is none that gives a clearer or richer revelation of the person and work of our Lord than the Passover. Christ, our Passover, is slain for us. Even to the most minute particular, the foreshadowings of the Paschal Feast were fulfilled in Him. Every year in Israel parents had to renew the sprinkling. But the blood of the Lamb has been shed once for all.]
11. The Father--Priest and Prophet
"(26)And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? (27)That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD'S passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses" (Exodus 12:26-27).
[It is the parent, who has himself already experienced the salvation of God, who is appointed to lead the child to know God. And as parents in Israel every year had to renew the remembrance of that deliverance, so now it is the parent who lives in the fresh experience of the power of redemption who can with ever-deepening earnestness teach his child the truth of God. A parent made partaker of God's love and grace himself, accepted and blessed with the promises of the covenant and the Spirit, and then sent forth, in the power of consecrated parental affection, to make all the influences and relationships of domestic life the auxiliary to the great work of gaining the child for God--this surely is one of the most wondrous exhibitions of God's grace upon earth.]
"(1)And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, (2)Sanctify unto me all the firstborn....(13)all the firstborn of man among thy children shalt thou redeem. (14)And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the LORD brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage: (15)And it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the LORD slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, ...therefore I sacrifice to the LORD all that openeth the matrix, being males; but all the firstborn of my children I redeem" (Exodus 13:1-2,13-15).
[God has claim on our best children for His own direct and immediate service. There is hardly a missionary agency engaged in teaching and rescuing the ignorant and the lost that has not complained of want of laborers. The call is being sounded forth louder every year that the doors to the hundreds of millions of heathen are opened wide, and yet how few, how sadly few, is the number of laborers. And why? (I've been getting a lot of conviction here at this point in the paper.)]
13. The Sabbath and the Children
"the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter..." (Exodus 20:10).
[The Sabbath was first of all appointed as a family ordinance. The parent's obedience of this command precedes the training of the child to do so. Here is the principle which lies at the root of all true education: what I am to develop in my child I must first be myself. Take a day out of each week to specifically speak of God's command and of Christian duty with your family.]
14. The Children's Commandment
"Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee" (Exodus 20:12).
"Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right" (Ephesians 6:1).
"Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord" (Colossians 3:20).[The child must honour the parent by obedience. "obey your parents" is the N.T. version of "Honour your father and thy mother[.]" The will of the child, no less than his mind and affections, is given into the parent's hands to mold and guide. The superior judgment, the calmer deliberation, the fuller experience of the parent are to decide for the child whose will has been entrusted to his care. Not because the child approves or agrees but because the command is given by a parent--this is the true reason for its being obeyed. In his attitude and conduct, too, the child is to be trained to honour the parent.]
"(1)Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: (2)That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; ...(5)thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart....(6)And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: (7)And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up" (Deuteronomy 6:1-2,5-7).
[God gave His commandments to all people throughout all history. Each one who received the commandments of God was to strive not only to keep them himself but to hold himself responsible for their maintenance among his children. Parental instruction must be from the heart. This instruction must likewise be diligent and earnest. It must also be persevering and continuous.]
"as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD" (Joshua 24:15).
[Joshua is to us here the very model of a godly parent, and in him we can see what parental religion ought to be. Let it be a personal religion. "as for me and my house"--he began with himself. But let yours be as distinctly a family religion. Take a stand for all who belong to you: "as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." The words of Joshua teach us more. Let yours, like his, be a practical religion: "we will serve the LORD." All redemption is for service. God wills not that He should be worshipped without being served. And then let your be a confessed religion. It was in the presence of thousands of the children of Israel that Joshua witnessed a good confession: "choose you this day whom ye will serve; ...as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."]
"And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him?" (Judges 13:12).
[Notice the deep sense of responsibility for the holy work of training a child as a Nazarite unto God. The angel had already given Manoah's wife the needful instruction; but Manoah is so deeply impressed with the holiness of their calling as parents of this child that he asks for the angel to come again and teach them. What a contrast to the thoughtless self- confidence with which many Christian parents undertake the training of their children. Manoah's story teaches here that God loves to answer a parent's cry. Blessed fellowship of love and faith, of prayer and worship between husband and wife, to which the coming and the training of a child can lead!]
"(27)For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of him: (28)Therefore also I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the LORD" (I Samuel 1:27-28).
[Hannah has received a child from the Lord in answer to her prayer. The love and joy of her heart can find no better way of expressing themselves than in giving her child to the Lord again, to be the Lord's as long as he lives. Knowing that my child is His gives me the confidence that all the grace and wisdom I need for training will be given. The grace promised for training a child, though most certain, is not given at once; but just as the grace for our own personal life it is given day by day. God needs servants for His temple.]
"(29)Wherefore...honourest thy sons above me[?]...(30)them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed" (I Samuel 2:29-30).
"I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not" (I Samuel 3:13).[In family life every parent has to rule, whether he be fit for it or not. Nor does the fact of his unfitness take away his responsibility; the terrible consequences of his failure to rule are still visited upon himself and his children. Some of the cures for parental weakness: the determined purpose, by God's grace, to do God's will. My duty is never measured by what I feel is within my power to do but by what God's grace makes possible for me. He must rule his children. Remember that not to rule and restrain his children means both parent and child are dishonoring God by not doing His will. The honest effort to do God's will cannot remain without its reward. Next, let the parent who has failed study some of the simplest laws in the art of ruling. Ignorance and neglect of these are often the cause of failure. Ruling must be learned. Some rules: Do not give too many commands at once; begin, if need be, with only one. Do not command what you cannot enforce or what the child has not power to obey.]
"And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually" (Job 1:5).
[Job fears lest his children sin against God or forsake Him in their heart. He is so deeply conscious of the weakness of their nature that, even when he does not know of positive transgression, the very thought of their having been in circumstances of temptation make him afraid. He so fully realizes his position and privilege as father that he sends for them to be sanctified, and takes upon himself the continual offering of the needed sacrifice. A deep fear of finding sin in himself or his children is one of the marks of a godly parent. Very special watchfulness, where there is special temptation, will be the natural result of such fear of sin. A godly parent has power with God to intercede.]
"(11)Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD. (12)What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good? (13)Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. (14)Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it" (Psalm 34:11-14).
[Children are invited to come and learn the secret of a happy life. The call appeals to the desire for happiness: Who is he that would "see good"? The teacher promises to show the path to the enjoyment of true well-being. That path is, "Depart from evil, and do good[.]" God has so ordered our nature that well-being will follow well-doing: to do good is the sure way to see good. Parents need not be afraid of promising their children that all shall be well with them if they do indeed fear God. Let us seek in the hearts of our little ones to link inseparably well-doing and well-being. "Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD[.]" A child's truthfulness and integrity may be the beginning of his walking in the truth of God. Train your little ones to flee from evil, to depart, to come away from everything naughty and forbidden.]
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6).
[A child's training can decide what his later life will be. There may be no doubt or hesitancy; "the way of the Lord" must be heartily accepted as the only way in which their children should go. "Train" is a word of deep importance for every teacher and parent to understand. Training is not only telling a child what to do, but showing him how to do it and seeing that it is done, taking care that the advice or the command given is put into practice and adopted as a habit. Consider how a young horse is trained. Training may be defined: Accustoming the child to do easily and willingly what is commanded. Doing right, doing it habitually, doing it from choice--this is what we aim it.]
"before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good..." (Isaiah 7:16).
[Of all the wondrous powers with which God has endowed man, his will is the most wonderful. God gave man to a very large extent the power of deciding and making himself. And it is to the parent that the solemn task is entrusted of teaching the child how to use this will aright. Conscience can only tell to do the right; what the right is it cannot always teach. The mind may be wrong in its view of good and evil, and faithfulness to conscience may even lead to choose evil and refuse the good. One of the most precious influences of a godly education is not so much the knowledge of what the Bible contains as the consent of the heart to take God's Word as the standard of good and evil, desiring to let it decide in every choice. To "know to refuse the evil, and choose the good" will be to choose Christ and holiness and eternal life.]
24. God's Spirit in Our Children
"(3)...I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: ...(5)One shall say, I am the LORD'S; ...and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the LORD..." (Isaiah 44:3,5).
[Among all earnest parents there is the desire that as their children grow up, they may come forward to make personal confession of the faith in which they have been raised. One of the great aims of parental training is to rear our children for such a Biblical profession.]
25. From Generation to Generation
"my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation." (Isaiah 51:8)
[Parents who know God show His praise, and His strength, and His wonderful works to their children. Children are to be taught not to forget the works of God, but to first set their hope on Him and then keep His commandments, to trust and to obey Him. And so His righteousness, which is from everlasting to everlasting, becomes salvation from generation to generation. Parents, it is God's perfect will that His salvation should be from generation to generation in your family too, that your children should hear from you and pass on to their children the praise of the Lord.]
"I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy..." (Joel 2:28).
[God's perfect will is that the Holy Spirit should take possession of our sons and daughters for His service; that our sons and daughters should be filled with the Holy Spirit, consecrated for power for service. Just imagine believing parents entering fully and heartily into this perfect will of God, acting upon it as a settled fact that they are training their children for the service of God's Spirit. The children training: Cultivate every mental power, keeping in view the preparation of a sharp instrument for the Master's use; Cultivate natural virtues with the high aim of having the child more fit for the work to be done; Cultivate every moral power to be the form prepared for the Holy Spirit's filling.]
27. The Heavenly and the Earthly Father
"If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" (Matthew 7:11).
[Jesus wants us to rise from and through the experiences of fatherhood on Earth to know the Father in Heaven aright. God is the true Father: from eternity, in His very nature, He is the God of love. Fatherhood was the glory and the blessedness of the Divine Being. And our fatherhood on Earth has been given as a reflection of His, to lead us to a participation in its honor and joy. We, too, are to taste the blessedness of begetting a son in our likeness, having in him the object of our love, the reflection of our image, a companion and helper in all our work. The fatherhood in Heaven will cast its light on the fatherhood of Earth and teach us what it ought to be. The parents who desire to bring a full blessing to their children must make God's fatherhood their model and their study. The earthly Father must so reflect Him that the child may naturally rise from him whom he sees to the unseen One whom he represents.]
"But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness" (Matthew 8:12).
[To parents God has entrusted the high commission of leading their children on from the place where their title is yet only a name and a conditional promise to the life of possession and full enjoyment. The atmosphere of the home must be the spirit of heaven. Christ's command "seek ye first the kingdom of God" must be the ruling principle of all its conduct. As long as we are content with just enough religion to save ourselves and our children, we must not be surprised if they (our children) remain unsaved. The spirit of the world ruling in the parents, perhaps even unconsciously, destroys all that they hope to effect by their purposes, their percepts, or their prayers.]
29. A Mother's Persevering Prayer
"(22)a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. (28)Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt" (Matthew 15:22,28).
[Is there any hope for a child grown up in sin and passing out from beyond the reach of a parent's influence? In Christ is a parent's hope for a wandering child. However hopeless the parent's case appears, there is One who is mighty to save, the parent's Friend, the children's Redeemer. Let them come to Him with their need and cry out in prayer, 'My child is grievously vexed with a devil.' Let them make full confession of their child's lost estate. Beware of excusing their sin by the thought of what is good or lovable about them, or by laying blame on circumstances or companions. Bring them to Christ and say that they are lost, under the power of Satan, that they have deserved and are on their way to eternal damnation. Hide not their wretchedness. Begin and continue to pray with great urgency.]
30. The Heavenliness of a Little Child
"(4)Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (5)And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me" (Matthew 18:4-5).
[The disciples had come to Jesus with the question, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? How utterly strange and incomprehensible must have been the answer Jesus gave to their question. He called a little child and set him in the midst of them. In creating a family, God sets a little child in the midst of a mother and father. The greatest will be he who thinks least of being greatest, because he loses sight of himself in seeking God and His kingdom. The great beauty of childlikeness is the absence of self-consciousness. The true child loses himself in that which is around him.]
31. The Children Come to Jesus
"But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:14).
[The child at once takes in what older people often cannot comprehend--that faith and salvation center in a living person--Jesus loving and to be loved, Jesus trusted and obeyed, Jesus Himself. The faith of the child is feeble and can so easily be hindered. Christian parents are appointed as guardians to watch and foster its growth.]
"And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief" (Mark 9:24).
[A father's tears have power. There must be confession and humbling wherever there is to be a strong faith. There must be the conviction and confession of the sin of unbelief--that it has been the cause of the blessing being withheld, and that we are truly guilty in being unbelieving. Unbelief has its reasons: it is an indication of the state of the heart. The worldly man cannot believe. The self-righteous men, the proud men, cannot believe. It is only the pure in heart, the humble, the soul that thirsts for God and forsakes all to follow Christ, that can be strong in faith.]
33. The Sacredness of Motherhood
"he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb" (Luke 1:15).
[Mothers rock the cradles that will rock the world and local churches for good or bad. Of John the Baptist's parents it is testified: "they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless" (Luke 1:6). It is of holy parents that God would take a holy child. Mother, God gives you this picture of Elizabeth and her child of promise with a double lesson: live as she did, believe and receive what she did.]
"And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word" (Luke 1:38).
[Just as Jesus Himself is in everything our example, so we may naturally expect that in His mother God has given us one of His servants who may be an example to other mothers. If the child Jesus be an example to our children, there will be something for mothers to learn from His mother. Were there more mothers like Mary there would be more children like the holy child Jesus. What constitutes the most marked feature of Mary's motherhood? It is the childlike simplicity of faith in which she surrenders herself to the divine purpose. She calls herself the Lord's handmaid; she gives her will, herself, up to Him, to do what pleases Him; in quite trust and expectancy she will look to Him to do what He has said. Mary teaches a mother to yield herself to God for the service of His kingdom, that in her His purpose and glory may be manifest. Every mother who searches Holy Scripture will find many a saying of God with reference to her sacred calling which, if truly received, will fill the heart with confidence and joy.]
"(46)And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, (47)And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. (48)For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden" (Luke 1:46-48).
[There is perhaps no moment of such exquisite joy, of deep, unutterable thanksgiving taking the place of pain and sorrow, as when a mother knows herself to be the living mother of a living child. "A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world" (John 16:21). The labor of bearing a child is but the beginning of that labor of love to which God has appointed and set apart the mother. The whole work of rearing and guarding and training the child is now to follow. The spirit of thanksgiving is the best preparation for the altar of consecration. If the mother is indeed to receive grace for the right and successful fulfillment of this new charge, she will need on her part a very distinct consciousness and confession of unfitness, a very definite giving up of herself to be henceforth the Lord's willing, loving servant for this holy work.]
36. Jesus, the Children's Surety
"(22)they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord; (23)(As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;) (24)And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord" (Luke 2:22-24).
[The object of this presentation of the children in the temple was especially to acknowledge God's claim upon them and to give them to Him as His property. Let the holy childhood of Jesus overshadow and sanctify the childhood of your little one. Let your children grow up in His friendship and footsteps. Live in everything as those who are going to train children to be like Jesus.]
"(49)there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master. (50)But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole" (Luke 8:49-50).
[Fear not; only believe! Faith can banish fear. In our children there is every reason for fear, in Jesus every reason for faith. Only believe must be written on the doorposts of our homes. The power to understand God's purpose with our children, to save our household, to obey God's will in all its rule, to offer our children to God, to bless our sons and to save them from the destroyer, all depends upon our faith. Living faith will teach us to see new beauty and worth in our children. Living faith will awaken in us new earnestness and desire in everything to hold and to train them for God alone.]
"And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth" (Luke 8:52).
[In God's great school of tribulation there are many classes. The chamber of death is to some the gate to Heaven; it was the death of a little one that first led them to truly know Jesus. As to Jairus with his dead daughter, the child's death was the parent's life. Jesus meets the sorrowing parent in the chamber of death. The lessons in the dying chamber of a child are not difficult to state. The parent is led to ask, Have I loved my child in the Lord, or have I looked upon him and treated him as my own possession? Has the spirit of my life and my home been truly an educating of my children for Heaven and its holiness? Is there worldliness, selfishness, or sinfulness of which this affliction must remind me?]
"(12)there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: ...(13)And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not" (Luke 7:12-13).
[A widow's training of her orphan children. There are few sights which attract and claim sympathy, both human and divine. Here is indeed one of the sorest trials that can befall a woman. The husband for whom she left her father's home, on whom she counted and leaned on as her guide and guardian, in whom her life and her love found their joy, to whom she looked as her help and strength in the training of her children--her husband is taken from her, and she is left alone and desolate. Pure religion teaches us to visit "the fatherless and widows" in their affliction, God never forgets the widow.]
"(46)there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. (47)...he went unto him [Jesus], and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death" (John 4:46-47).
[The sickness had brought the nobleman to Jesus in hope and expectancy; the healing perfected what had been begun. Parents, our sick children are God's messengers to lead us to Jesus and to faith in Him. The sickness has a message and a blessing. It calls us to search the heart and life and home.]
"Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs" (John 21:15).
["Feed my lambs," Jesus says, reminding us of the great care necessary for our children. These words remind us of the high value of the little ones. In the lambs the shepherd sees the possibilities of the future; as the lambs, so the coming of the flock. The local Church of the next generation, the servants with whom, in but a few years' time, Jesus will do His work of converting and saving and blessing men, are the children of today. "Feed my lambs"; The children's great need is here set before us. Food is the condition of growth. Food is something received from without, to be assimilated and taken up into our very life. Christian parents, see and accept your blessed calling; you are the shepherds of the divine love to tend and feed the lambs.]
43. The Holy Spirit in the Family
"For the promise is unto you, and to your children" (Acts 2:39).
[Christian parents must learn to look upon the aid and the presence of the Spirit in their daily training as absolutely necessary and indispensable but also as most positively secured to them. In all our praying for our children and living with them, we must learn to count upon and expect the direct working of the Holy Spirit. Let parents look upon themselves as the divinely appointed ministers of the Holy Spirit, to prepare and train their children under His influence from their youth up, and let them yield themselves wholly to His guidance and working. To train a child aright means training him to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, living ourselves in the power of the Spirit.]
"Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?" (Romans 2:21).
[Nothing is more inconsistent and vain than the attempt to teach others without teaching ourselves. Only what the teacher has really mastered and thoroughly made his own can be successfully communicated to others. What parents are (example) avails more than what they say (precept). If parents honestly watch themselves, they will often discover the causes or the helps to their children's failings in themselves. All schooling requires time and trouble, patience and payment. No one can become even fairly competent to train a child for eternity without making sacrifices.]
"...else were your children unclean; but now are they holy" (I Corinthians 7:14).
["Holy" expresses a relation. Whatever was separated unto God and made His property was called holy. "Holy" suggests a destiny. In Scripture, everything that is called holy had a use and purpose; every holy day and thing, place and person, had its service to fulfill. "Holy" is the pledge of a divine life-power. "Holy" describes a character. God's holiness is His infinite moral perfection- -that He hates and destroys the evil, that He loves and works the good. It is the work of the Christian parent to train his children in dispositions and habits, ways of thinking and feeling and acting, that will be in harmony with the fact that they are to be holy in Christ and belong to the Holy Spirit. "[H]oly in all manner of conversation" is what your children are to be--separated from the world, its spirit and its service; consecrated to God, His Spirit, and His will.]
"ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath" (Ephesians 6:4).
"Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged" (Colossians 3:21).
"(4)Charity suffereth long, and is kind; ...(5)seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked" (I Corinthians 13:4- 5).
"teach the young women...to love their children" (Titus 2:4).[The apostle had noticed in the houses he visited how sadly education often suffers from a want of love. Paul's words suggest three thoughts: a child is often very provoking, a father often allows himself to be provoked, the result often being that he again provokes the child to wrath. Instead of being the help and the strength of his child in seeking what is good, he discourages and hinders him. We need to give reproof or punishment in the right spirit. We need to have patience and wisdom and self-control. Fathers are expected to take a major part in the management of the children.]
"And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4).
[A certain spirit must pervade the upbringing of our children: Nurture them in the discipline and admonition "of the Lord." Our children are the Lord's. We train them for Him; according to His will and in His spirit. That our children may know and love Him, that they may be fitted to obey His will and to serve Him, must be the goal of our education. The nurture of the Lord is to bring up the child that he may be a vessel meet for the Master's use, with every faculty of spirit, soul, and body prepared for doing His will.]
"(2)A bishop then must be...(4)One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (5)(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)...(12)Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well" (I Timothy 3:2,4-5,12).
[From the household you can infallibly judge what the parents are; the parents make it. Here is the outgrowth and the expression of their life, the mirror in which often with startling faithfulness their hidden failings are revealed. We are to seek for causes of failure in the home rule. The wrong in the home reveals something wrong in its head. The reason will very possibly be found in neglect of the duty of ruling. Male leadership may be at fault. The lack of divine blessing must be found in the lack of true faith and consecration.]
"When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice" (II Timothy 1:5).
"(14)But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; (15)And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus" (II Timothy 3:14-15).[Scripture needs the believing parent as its messenger. The believing parent needs Scripture as the vehicle for the communicating of his faith. Teach your child to believe the Word of God. To the end teach your child to know the Word of God. Timothy had "known" the sacred writings as able to make him wise unto salvation. Teach your child to love God's word. Teach your child to obey the Word of God. God connects all believing, knowing, loving, with doing; obedience is God's test of uprightness and reality. As the song goes: O-b-e-d-i-e-n-c-e truly is the best way to show that you believe.]
"(5)ordain elders...(6)If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly" (Titus 1:5-6).
[God expects that the children of believers should be faithful ones too. Believing parents should educate faithful children. Parents who truly believe will understand that it is their privilege and their duty to train "faithful children[.]" Even children can be faithful. God expects our children to grow up faithful. The outward proof that our children are faithful will be their conduct. Paul writes, "elders...having faithful children not...unruly." If ours are not children that are faithful, let us seek the cause in none but ourselves.]
52. The Children Which God Has Given
"Behold I and the children which God hath given me" (Hebrews 2:13).
[These should be the words of the believing parent who presents himself with his children before the Lord in the consciousness of that wonderful unity of the Spirit in which the family is one before God.]