Train Up A Child Day 5

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Train Up A Child Day Five

5.  Train your child to a knowledge of the Bible.
   
You cannot make your children love the Bible, I allow.  None but the Holy Ghost can give us a heart to delight in the Word. But you can make your children acquainted with the Bible; and be sure they cannot be acquainted with that blessed book too soon, or too well.
   
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is the foundation of all clear views of religion.  He that is well-grounded in it will not generally be found a waverer, and carried about by every wind of new doctrine.  Any system of training which does not make a knowledge of Scripture the first thing is unsafe and unsound. 

You have need to be careful on this point just now, for the devil is abroad, and error abounds.  Some are to be found amongst us who give the Church the honour due to Jesus Christ.  Some are to be found who make the sacraments saviours and passports to eternal life.  And some are to be found in like manner who honour a catechism more than the Bible, or fill the minds of their children with miserable little story-books, instead of the Scripture of truth. 

But if you love your children, let the simple Bible be everything in the training of their souls; and let all other books go down and take the second place.  Care not so much for their being mighty in the catechism, as for their being mighty in the Scriptures.  This is the training, believe me, that God will honour.  The Psalmist says of Him, ” Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy name” (Ps.  138:2); and I think that He gives an especial blessing to all who try to magnify it among men.
   
See that your children read the Bible reverently.  Train them to look on it, not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, written by the Holy Ghost Himself, — all true, all profitable, and able to make us wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
   
See that they read it regularly.  Train them to regard it as their soul’s daily food, — as a thing essential to their soul’s daily health.  I know well you can not make this anything more than a form; but there is no telling the amount of sin which a mere form may indirectly restrain.
   
See that they read it all.  You need not shrink from bringing any doctrine before them.  You need not fancy that the leading doctrines of Christianity are things which children cannot understand.  Children understand far more of the Bible than we are apt to suppose.
   
Tell them of sin, its guilt, its consequences, its power, its vileness: you will find they can comprehend something of this.
   
Tell them of the Lord Jesus Christ, and His work for our salvation, — the atonement, the cross, the blood, the sacrifice, the intercession: you will discover there is something not beyond them in all this.
   
Tell them of the work of the Holy Spirit in man’s heart, how He changes, and renews, and sanctifies, and purifies: you will soon see they can go along with you in some measure in this. In short, I suspect we have no idea how much a little child can take in of the length and breadth of the glorious gospel.  They see far more of these things than we suppose. 
   
Fill their minds with Scripture.  Let the Word dwell in them richly.  Give them the Bible, the whole Bible, even while they are young.

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One of the most irritating things to me is reading the curriculum of modern day Bible Study classes for children. The lack of depth, the way they dance around the truth, the way they treat children as though they have no ability to understand the things of God… when Christ Himself told the grown men of Israel to come to Him as children… it honestly makes me sick.
Then to see the youth materials and even the college… oh my… it’s like these writers sit in their smugness of knowledge and tell them they are just too ignorant to understand it all in it’s true depth… perhaps our current day of mediocrity has also swept into the church… or more likely the mediocrity began in the church and made it’s way as an ideal into our society. 
I am a firm believer that as goes the church goes the nation.
And as goes the home goes the church.
Children understand much more of the Word than we want to give them credit for, and they are usually hungrier for it.
Give them the meat.
They can handle it.
We never wasted our time with storybook bibles… we read to our girls straight from the real deal. We explain the words as we go, if we didn’t know it, the girls learned how we looked it up to discover the meaning. We also don’t avoid certain chapters because they will have us discussing uncomfortable subject matter. I can think of no better way to discuss or approach uncomfortable stuff than to do it with God’s Word.
So how much time in your home is devoted to you as a parent teaching your children the Scriptures? 
How often do you read the Scriptures with them?
When a problem arises do your children see you seek answers and direction from the Word of God?
When your children have a question do you answer them from your own opinion or do you say, “well let’s see what God has to say about this?”
It’s really just that simple 🙂
Our Bekah began having nightmares. She began to fear that someone would come in during the night and hurt her while we all slept. This fear had crept into her mind and she could not get it out. How were we to help her?
We sat down with her and we opened the Bible. We shared Scriptures with her that showed her how God was with her. We looked at several different verses and had her read them to us. Then we prayed with her.
We taught her how to get help from the Word of God, from God Himself…
A few mornings later she came running into our bedroom and joyfully exclaimed, “Momma, God took all those bad dreams away!” She had experienced the mighty hand of deliverance of her God and she knew it was God who had done it and not us and not her own strength or mere mind power or chance. God had once again showed Himself to be God.
As a Bible study teacher I have finally come to realize the truth that Mr Ryle points out in the beginning of this post, I cannot force anyone to fall in love with the Word of God and love studying it the way I do… but that doesn’t mean I stop teaching.
That doesn’t mean I stop trying.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t keep asking… have you had your quiet time this morning? 
I can’t force love of the Bible, but I can lay a foundation of it’s truth, and teach my children to respect it.

>Reaping What Is Sown

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And he said to Laban,
“What is this you have done to me?”
Genesis 29:25
 
Galatians 6:7 says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.” Jacob practiced in deceit and trickery. Both Esau and Isaac had experienced Jacob’s ways of deception, which it seems he might have gotten from his mother’s side of the family.
 
Jacob had served his uncle Laban, his mother’s brother, for seven years for his beloved Rachel. The day of the wedding had finally arrived, and a huge ceremony was taking place. The dancing and food and, of course, the wine were in abundance. The time had come for Jacob to go into his bride, and he did, but when he awoke the next morning it was not Rachel beside him, but her sister, Leah.
 
If you look back just through the past twenty-eight chapters of Genesis, you can see time after time where drunkenness has led to huge, life-altering issues.
 
In Genesis 9:20–27, Noah’s drunkenness leads to his uncovering his nakedness in his tent, and his son Ham sees and ridicules him before Shem and Japheth, and he and his descendants are cursed for it.
 
In Genesis 19:30–38, the daughters ofLot make their father drunk and they allow him to go into them in order to get pregnant.Lot was so drunk that he did not realize he was going into his daughters. Jacob was so intoxicated that he did not realize that he was not consummating his marriage with the woman he had loved enough to work seven years to have.
 
Is there any wonder why Proverbs 20:1 says, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise”? Can you even imagine the humiliation that flooded these men of Scripture?
 
Perhaps you have experienced it yourself. Perhaps you have been the victim of someone else’s drunken state. I have experienced both. I know the humiliation well. I know the consequences well.
 
My friend, do not miss the fact that these men’s drunkenness did not affect only themselves. We do not live to ourselves. Our choices in life affect others. One of the biggest lies whispered to us by Satan is “you’re only hurting yourself.”
 
Therefore be careful how you walk,
not as unwise men but as wise,
making the most of your time,
because the days are evil.
So then do not be foolish,
but understand what the will of the Lord is.
And do not get drunk with wine,
for that is dissipation,
but be filled with the Spirit.
Ephesians 5:15–18
 
Oh Father,
 
The life of Jacob is such a reminder that we reap what we sow. Oh Father, help me not to sow to my own flesh and reap corruption, but to sow to the Spirit so that from the Spirit I may reap eternal life (Galatians 6:8). Forgive me for the times I have been a stumbling block. My Father in heaven, forgive me for the bad seed I have sown. Kill it before it has opportunity to spread and defile and dishonor Your glorious name. Help me, Father, to keep my way pure by keeping it according to Your Word (Psalm 119:9). Set a guard over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips and do not incline my heart to any evil thing and do not let my head refuse the reprove of the righteous (Psalm 141:3–5). Oh Father, might I never forget that I am always setting an example. Might I remember always that my choices affect those around me.
 
My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,
Amen.

Train Up A Child Day 4

 

Train Up A Child Day Four

4.  Train with this thought continually before your eyes — that the soul of your child is the first thing to be considered.
   
Precious, no doubt, are these little ones in your eyes; but if you love them, think often of their souls.  No interest should weigh with you so much as their eternal interests.  No part of them should be so dear to you as that part which will never die. The world, with all its glory, shall pass away; the hills shall melt; the heavens shall be wrapped together as a scroll; the sun shall cease to shine.  But the spirit which dwells in those little creatures, whom you love so well, shall outlive them all, and whether in happiness or misery (to speak as a man) will depend on you.
   
This is the thought that should be uppermost on your mind in all you do for your children.  In every step you take about them, in every plan, and scheme, and arrangement that concerns them, do not leave out that mighty question, “How will this affect their souls?”
   
Soul love is the soul of all love.  To pet and pamper and indulge your child, as if this world was all he had to look to, and this life the only season for happiness — to do this is not true love, but cruelty.  It is treating him like some beast of the earth, which has but one world to look to, and nothing after death.  It is hiding from him that grand truth, which he ought to be made to learn from his very infancy, — that the chief end of his life is the salvation of his soul.
   
A true Christian must be no slave to fashion, if he would train his child for heaven.  He must not be content to do things merely because they are the custom of the world; to teach them and instruct them in certain ways, merely because it is usual; to allow them to read books of a questionable sort, merely because everybody else reads them; to let them form habits of a doubtful tendency, merely because they are the habits of the day.  He must train with an eye to his children’s souls. 

He must not be ashamed to hear his training called singular and strange.  What if it is? The time is short, — the fashion of this world passeth away.  He that has trained his children for heaven, rather than for earth, — for God, rather than for man, — he is the parent that will be called wise at last.

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I can’t tell you the amount of times that I have heard my children say, “I am not allowed to watch that” or “read that” or “listen to that” or “play with that” or “go there”. But I am always so proud of them because the times I have overheard it, it was said with firm conviction. I pray that it will always be that way.
Our Shelby is 10 now… so there are beginning to become times when I catch a hint of sarcasm or disappointment when she mutters her restriction… but she mutters it still. Though I would rather it be said because she also fully believes and understands the why… at these muttered times I will accept the unhappy obedience, because at the very least she chose to honor our standards instead of going her own way.
Once again I pray that this is choice that our girls continues to walk in…
I also can’t tell you the times that I had teachers look at me like I was crazy because I came in with a book that was sent home for my child to read and explained to the teacher why it was not an appropriate book for her to be reading and she would take a zero on the project before she placed the lies in the page in her mind.
To one of these occasions the teacher replied, “I’ve been a teacher for over 20 years and the kids have always read and enjoyed this book, it’s mere fantasy
I wanted to say with great sarcasm, “ummm yes and the children who read these kind of books are the ones who are now running our country, making our tv shows and movies, and singing our songs on the radio, and writing new books, including our public school curriculum, and what a wonderful, wholesome, moral, and godly job they are doing.”

But I kept my mouth shut and walked away because I felt I had made my stand by returning the book and sometimes you just need to shut up and led God do the point proving.

Not a one of us want to see our children ridiculed.
Good grief, not a one of us wants to be ridiculed.
But we must be willing to be ridiculed, mocked, even hated if that’s what standing for Christ and His truth leads to.
We must also teach our children this confidence by example.
When they see we are willing to go through the fire to stand for righteousness, to stand on the side of the Lord, then they will see we really believe what we ask of them.
So many will spend hours with their children training them to be skilled golfers, skilled baseball players, skilled pianist, skilled mathematicians, skilled beauty queens and cheerleaders… focusing them on how to get the most out of this earth. How to have more than they had, always more, bigger, better, more success here on earth, but yet they have taught their children nothing of eternal value.
How much are you investing in the eternal soul of the little ones in your life?
Are you training them to please men?
Or are you training them to please God?