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.

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.

>So far in this journey of learning what it means to train up a child we have looked at how important it is for us to teach our children the truth of the Word of God. We have looked at how important it is for us to be purposeful in teaching our children how to think with God’s thoughts.

When God gave us this passage of Scripture He did not give it to tell us that we could never understand Him or His ways, although often that is how many choose to interpret it. He simply is saying you, we, us, me cannot on our own think the way God thinks. We need to trust in His Word not our own thoughts or ways. Our thoughts will not be His thoughts and our ways will not be His ways, that’s why He gave us His Word. His Word is filled with His thoughts and His ways. We are to line our thoughts and ways up with His and be guided by His thoughts not our own. And this is how we are to teach our children to think.

We also saw how although our children need to respect and obey us, we are not to bring this about in them through fear and intimidation. We must first be sure that our children fully understand how much we love them with true affection and kindness. This kind of love of course is not gained though giving them everything they want and desire… it is not meant to be a pampering love… it is meant to be a perfecting love. Our children must first understand that they are loved before they will be willing to obey and love back with joyful obedience.

Grace is the strongest of all principles.  See what a revolution grace effects when it comes into the heart of an old sinner, — how it overturns the strongholds of Satan, — how it casts down mountains, fills up valleys, — makes crooked things straight, — and new creates the whole man.  Truly nothing is impossible to grace.  Nature, too, is very strong.  See how it struggles against the things of the kingdom of God, — how it fights against every attempt to be more holy, — how it keeps up an unceasing warfare within us to the last hour of life. Nature indeed is strong.
   
But after nature and grace, undoubtedly, there is nothing more powerful than education.  Early habits (if I may so speak) are everything with us, under God.  We are made what we are by training.  Our character takes the form of that mould into which our first years are cast. 
  
We depend, in a vast measure, on those who bring us up.  We get from them a colour, a taste, a bias which cling to us more or less all our lives.  We catch the language of our nurses and mothers, and learn to speak it almost insensibly, and unquestionably we catch something of their manners, ways, and mind at the same time. 

Time only will show, I suspect, how much we all owe to early impressions, and how many things in us may be traced up to seeds sown in the days of our very infancy, by those who were about us.  A very learned Englishman, Mr.  Locke, has gone so far as to say: “That of all the men we meet with, nine parts out of ten are what they are, good or bad, useful or not, according to their education.”
   
And all this is one of God’s merciful arrangements.  He gives your children a mind that will receive impressions like moist clay.  He gives them a disposition at the starting-point of life to believe what you tell them, and to take for granted what you advise them, and to trust your word rather than a stranger’s. He gives you, in short, a golden opportunity of doing them good. See that the opportunity be not neglected, and thrown away.  Once let slip, it is gone for ever. 

Beware of that miserable delusion into which some have fallen, — that parents can do nothing for their children, that you must leave them alone, wait for grace, and sit still.  These persons have wishes for their children in Balaam’s fashion, — they would like them to die the death of the righteous man, but they do nothing to make them live his life.  They desire much, and have nothing.  And the devil rejoices to see such reasoning, just as he always does over anything which seems to excuse indolence, or to encourage neglect of means.
  
I know that you cannot convert your child.  I know well that they who are born again are born, not of the will of man, but of God.  But I know also that God says expressly, “Train up a child in the way he should go,” and that He never laid a command on man which He would not give man grace to perform.  And I know, too, that our duty is not to stand still and dispute, but to go forward and obey.  It is just in the going forward that God will meet us.  The path of obedience is the way in which He gives the blessing.  We have only to do as the servants were commanded at the marriage feast in Cana, to fill the water-pots with water, and we may safely leave it to the Lord to turn that water into wine.

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Now children’s minds are cast in much the same mould as our own.  Sternness and severity of manner chill them and throw them back.  It shuts up their hearts, and you will weary yourself to find the door.  But let them only see that you have an affectionate feeling towards them, — that you are really desirous to make them happy, and do them good, — that if you punish them, it is intended for their profit, and that, like the pelican, you would give your heart’s blood to nourish their souls; let them see this, I say, and they will soon be all your own. 

But they must be wooed with kindness, if their attention is ever to be won.  And surely reason itself might teach us this lesson.  Children are weak and tender creatures, and, as such, they need patient and considerate treatment.  We must handle them delicately, like frail machines, lest by rough fingering we do more harm than good.  They are like young plants, and need gentle watering, — often, but little at a time.

We must not expect all things at once.  We must remember what children are, and teach them as they are able to bear.  Their minds are like a lump of metal — not to be forged and made useful at once, but only by a succession of little blows.  Their understandings are like narrow-necked vessels: we must pour in the wine of knowledge gradually, or much of it will be spilled and lost.  “Line upon line, and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little,” must be our rule.  The whetstone does its work slowly, but frequent rubbing will bring the scythe to a fine edge. 

Truly there is need of patience in training a child, but without it nothing can be done.

Nothing will compensate for the absence of this tenderness and love.  A minister may speak the truth as it is in Jesus, clearly, forcibly, unanswerably; but if he does not speak it in love, few souls will be won.  Just so you must set before your children their duty, — command, threaten, punish, reason, — but if affection be wanting in your treatment, your labour will be all in vain.

Love is one grand secret of successful training.  Anger and harshness may frighten, but they will not persuade the child that you are right; and if he sees you often out of temper, you will soon cease to have his respect.  A father who speaks to his son as Saul did to Jonathan (1 Sam. 20:30), need not expect to retain his influence over that son’s mind.
  
Try hard to keep up a hold on your child’s affections.  It is a dangerous thing to make your children afraid of you. Anything is almost better than reserve and constraint between your child and yourself; and this will come in with fear.  Fear puts an end to openness of manner; — fear leads to concealment; — fear sows the seed of much hypocrisy, and leads to many a lie. 

There is a mine of truth in the Apostle’s words to the Colossians: “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Col. 3:21).  Let not the advice it contains be overlooked.

~ JC Ryle

I came across this article by JC Ryle entitled The Duties of Parents. In it he has this to say about the Scripture verse above:

But, after all, how little is the substance of this text regarded! The doctrine it contains appears scarcely known, the duty it puts before us seems fearfully seldom practiced.  Reader, do I not speak the truth? It cannot be said that the subject is a new one.  The world is old, and we have the experience of nearly six thousand years to help us.  We live in days when there is a mighty zeal for education in every quarter.  We hear of new schools rising on all sides.  We are told of new systems, and new books for the young, of every sort and description.  And still for all this, the vast majority of children are manifestly not trained in the way they should go, for when they grow up to man’s estate, they do not walk with God.  Now how shall we account for this state of things? The plain truth is, the Lord’s commandment in our text is not regarded; and therefore the Lord’s promise in our text is not fulfilled.

Reader, these things may well give rise to great searchings of heart.  Suffer then a word of exhortation from a minister, about the right training of children.  Believe me, the subject is one that should come home to every conscience, and make every one ask himself the question, “Am I in this matter doing what I can?”

I read this and I did have to ask myself if I was indeed, in this matter, doing what I can to fully regard this text, this promise of my God, this instruction in His Word. Because I want to. I want to be a parent who leads my child in the way God would have them go… not my way, not their way, but His way.

So I am going to dig into this verse with Mr Ryle and I invite you to join me. His article contains 17 points. I plan to dig into one point a day, because the article was quite overwhelming to try to take it all in one bite.

Perhaps you are reading this and you don’t have children or you have already raised your children… well these are the words of JC Ryle to you concerning this subject:

It is a subject that concerns almost all.  There is hardly a household that it does not touch.  Parents, nurses, teachers, godfathers, godmothers, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, — all have an interest in it.  Few can be found, I think, who might not influence some parent in the management of his family, or affect the training of some child by suggestion or advice.  All of us, I suspect, can do something here, either directly or indirectly, and I wish to stir up all to bear this in remembrance.  

So don’t disregard this information no matter what your “stage” is in life. If you live in this world you will have an influence on those around you, especially any children who are watching you, even if you don’t want to admit or claim yourself responsible for what ever behavior others see in you. They still see. Little eyes and hearts and minds are always watching and recording and processing.

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Train Up A Child Day One

1.  First, then, if you would train your children rightly, train them in the way they should go, and not in the way that they would.

Remember children are born with a decided bias towards evil, and therefore if you let them choose for themselves, they are certain to choose wrong.  The mother cannot tell what her tender infant may grow up to be, — tall or short, weak or strong, wise or foolish he may be any of these things or not, — it is all uncertain.  But one thing the mother can say with certainty: he will have a corrupt and sinful heart. 

It is natural to us to do wrong.  “Foolishness,” says Solomon, “is bound in the heart of a child” (Prov. 22:15).  “A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Prov. 29:15).  Our hearts are like the earth on which we tread; let it alone, and it is sure to bear weeds.  If, then, you would deal wisely with your child, you must not leave him to the guidance of his own will. Think for him, judge for him, act for him, just as you would for one weak and blind; but for pity’s sake, give him not up to his own wayward tastes and inclinations. 

It must not be his likings and wishes that are consulted.  He knows not yet what is good for his mind and soul, any more than what is good for his body.  You do not let him decide what he shall eat, and what he shall drink, and how he shall be clothed.  Be consistent, and deal with his mind in like manner.  Train him in the way that is scriptural and right, and not in the way that he fancies.

If you cannot make up your mind to this first principle of Christian training, it is useless for you to read any further. Self-will is almost the first thing that appears in a child’s mind; and it must be your first step to resist it.

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Oh, we hold our newborn babes in our arms and we look into the eyes of this precious, glorious creation of our God and all we can think is how absolutely perfect they are…

We cannot imagine that within that beauty in our arms is a cold, sinful, wicked heart that is inclined to evil and rebellion against everything good, right, and holy. Yet inside this small, weak, infant frame is indeed a deceitful heart that left to itself has no bounds on wickedness. 

From the very beginning we need to begin to teach our children the will and the way of God through the Word of God. It is never too soon. I became a wholly surrendered believer when my Shelby was 6 months old. She was drug to precept classes from the time she was 7 months old. She sat in the floor and played while the teacher taught and I believe with all my heart that she soaked up as much as me. Her mind was open and her ears were listening though her hands made her appear to be occupied with toys.

When I was pregnant with my youngest I would sing to her all the time… well actually I just sing around the house all the time period. One of the songs I sang the most in my last pregnancy was “You are my strength when I am weak, You are the treasure that I seek, You are my all in all…” One day, several years later, while doing the laundry I began singing this song again. My youngest turned to me and said, “Mommy you used to sing that song to me when I was in your tummy!“

Wow!

Needless to say I was floored to tears!

Teach your children the way of God.
Begin teaching them in the womb, and never stop.

Do not leave them to figure things out for themselves.

I mean how easily do you understand your own wants and desires, and how and why they so contrast with what God says is right, good, and holy? And yet we expect our children to make heads and tails of this on their own?

Our children need us.

Children need us.

Teach them.

The world knows how to teach them how to think.
If we don’t teach them how to think, I can guarantee you that the world, that Satan, will.

If you have any doubts of the power of the world on your child’s thought process, if you choose to not be purposeful and active in teaching them the will and way of God according to the Word of God… just remember the Holocaust. Hitler knew what he was doing. He went after the children, Propaganda and Children during the Hitler Years.

We need to be proactive in teaching our children instead of just trying to un-teach what has already been taught. Your children will either weigh other’s words and teachings against what you have already taught them or they will weigh your countered words against what others have first taught (that is if they even think to question what they were taught or remember to share with you what all has been taught). 

If we put our children in public school we have a precious five years to fill their minds and hearts full of a foundation of truth that we must continue to build on.  A precious five years to give them a plumb line. A plumb line that they will have to use to weigh, to line up, the words of teachers and friends for years to come. It is our job to give them the tools that are needed to discern truth from error when we are not there to help them. 

Are we doing it?

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God  and of Christ Jesus,  who is to judge the living and the dead,  and by His appearing and His kingdom:  preach the word;  be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort,  with great patience and instruction.  For the time will come  when they will not endure sound doctrine;  but wanting to have their ears tickled,  they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,

2 Timothy 4:1-3