Dear Brother and Sister G: I am troubled
in reference to your case. I see dangers that you seem never
to have realized. Have you thoughtfully and prayerfully considered
your duty to the children you have taken the responsibility of
bringing into the world? Have you thought whether these children
are receiving from you an education and discipline that will
lead them to honor their Creator in the days of their youth?
Have you considered that if you fail to teach them to respect
you, their father and mother, and to yield to your authority,
you are educating them to dishonor God? Every time you allow
them to trample on your authority, and their will to control
yours, you are fostering a defect which will be carried with
them into all their experience should they become religiously
inclined, and will teach them to disregard and trample upon divine
authority.
The question to be settled by you is: "Am
I raising a family of children to strengthen the influence and
swell the ranks of the powers of darkness, or am I bringing up
children for Christ?" If you do not govern your children
and mold their characters to meet the requirements of God, then
the fewer children there are to suffer from your defective training
the better it will be for you, their parents, and the better
it will be for society. Unless children can be trained and disciplined
from their babyhood by a wise and judicious mother, who is
conscientious and intelligent, and who rules
her household in the fear of the Lord, molding and shaping their
characters to meet the standard of righteousness, it is a sin
to increase your family. God has given you reason, and He requires
you to use it.
You should feel under obligation, by patient,
painstaking effort and by earnest, fervent prayer, to so form
the characters of your children as to make them a blessing in
the home, a blessing in the church, and a blessing in society.
You will receive no credit for your work if you allow your children
to be controlled by the enemy of all righteousness; the reward
is promised for conscientiously forming their characters after
the divine Pattern. If you neglect this work, which is so far-reaching
in its results, because for the present it is more agreeable
for you to do so, and your children grow up morally deformed,
their feet in the broad road to death, can God pronounce your
work well done? Those who cannot inform themselves, and work
intelligently with all their powers to bring their children to
Jesus, should decide not to take upon themselves the responsibility
of becoming parents.
Mothers must be willing and even anxious
to qualify themselves for their important work of developing
the characters of their children, guiding, instructing, and restraining
their tender charge. Fathers and mothers should be united in
this work. Weakness in requiring obedience, and false love and
sympathy--the false notion that to indulge and not to restrain
is wisdom--constitute a system of training that grieves angels;
but it delights Satan, for it brings hundreds and thousands of
children into his ranks. This is why he blinds the eyes of parents,
benumbs their sensibilities, and confuses their minds. They see
that their sons and daughters are not pleasant, lovely, obedient,
and care-taking; yet children accumulate in their homes, to poison
their lives, fill their hearts with grief, and add to the number
whom Satan is using to allure souls to destruction.
Oh! when will parents be wise? When will
they see and realize the character of their work in neglecting
to require obedience and respect according to the instructions
of God's word? The results of this lax training are seen in the
children as they go out into the world and take their place at
the head of families of their own. They perpetuate the mistakes
of their parents. Their defective traits have full scope; and
they transmit to others the wrong tastes, habits, and tempers
that were permitted to develop in their own characters. Thus
they become a curse instead of a blessing to society.
Because men and women do not obey God,
but choose their own way and follow their own perverted imagination,
Satan is permitted to set up his hellish banner in their families
and make his power felt through babes, children, and youth. His
voice and will are expressed in the unsubdued will and warped
characters of the children, and through them he exerts a controlling
power and carries out his plans. God is dishonored by the exhibition
of perverse tempers, which exclude reverence for Him and induce
obedience to Satan's suggestions. The sin committed by parents
in thus permitting Satan to bear sway is beyond conception. They
are sowing seed which will produce briers and thorns, and choke
out every plant of heavenly growth; and the harvest that will
be gathered the judgment alone will reveal. But how sad is the
thought that when life and its mistakes are viewed in the light
of eternity, it will be too late for this aftersight to be of
any avail.
The utter neglect of training children
for God has perpetuated evil and thrown into the ranks of the
enemy many who with judicious care might have been co-laborers
with Christ. False ideas and a foolish, misdirected affection
have nurtured traits which have made the children unlovely and
unhappy, have embittered the lives of the parents, and have extended
their baleful influence from generation to generation. Any child
that is permitted to have his own way will dishonor God and bring
his father and mother to shame. Light has been shining from the
word of God and the testimonies of His Spirit so that none need
err in regard to their duty. God requires parents to bring up
their children to know Him and to respect
His claims; they are to train their little ones, as the younger
members of the Lord's family, to have beautiful characters and
lovely tempers, that they may be fitted to shine in the heavenly
courts. By neglecting their duty and indulging their children
in wrong, parents close to them the gates of the city of God.
These facts must be pressed home upon parents;
they must arouse, and take up their long-neglected work. Parents
who profess to love God are not doing His will. Because they
do not properly restrain and direct their children, thousands
are coming up with deformed characters, with lax morals, and
with little education in the practical duties of life. They are
left to do as they please with their impulses, their time, and
their mental powers. The loss to the cause of God in these neglected
talents lies at the door of fathers and mothers; and what excuse
will they render to Him whose stewards they are, entrusted with
the sacred duty of fitting the souls under their charge to improve
all their powers to the glory of their Creator?
My dear brother and sister, may the Lord
open your eyes and quicken your minds, that you may see and redeem
your failures. You are neither of you living with an eye single
to the glory of God. You show but little power to stand up for
Jesus and in defense of the faith once delivered to the saints.
You have neglected your duty in the family and have proved that
youth entrusted to your care are not safe. Thus God looks upon
your work in the home; thus it stands registered in the books
of heaven. You might have brought many to Jesus; but your want
of moral courage has made you unfaithful in every position.
The errors in your lax system of family
government are revealed in the characters of your children. You
have not educated yourselves to follow the instructions given
in the word of God. The evils resulting from your failures in
duty are becoming serious and deep. Sister G does not have the
right influence. She has yielded to the strong wills of her wrong-minded
children, and has indulged them to their hurt. Both of you should have taught your children from
their very babyhood that they could not control you, but that
your will was to be obeyed. Had Sister G received the proper
training in her childhood, had she been disciplined and educated
according to the word of God, she would have a different mold
of character herself and would better understand the duties that
devolve upon her. She would know how to train her children so
as to make their ways pleasing to God. But the defects that have
resulted from her own wrong training are reproduced in her children,
and what will be the nature of their work should they ever stand
at the head of families of their own? The oldest may have some
knowledge of domestic duties; but, further than this, she is
a mere novice.
With wise, firm government these children
might have been useful members of society; as it is, they are
a curse, a reproach to our faith. They are vain, frivolous, willful,
extravagant. They have but little reverence for their parents,
and their consciences are far from sensitive. They have had their
own way, and their wishes have governed their parents, until
it is almost impossible to arouse their moral sensibilities.
The natural tendencies of the parents, particularly those that
are objectionable, are strongly developed in the children. The
whole family, parents and children, are under divine censure;
and none of them can hope to enter the peaceful abodes of bliss
unless they will take up their long-neglected duties and, in
the spirit of Christ, build up characters that God can approve.
Parents are responsible for the work coming
from their hands. They should have wisdom and firmness to do
their work faithfully and in the right spirit. They are to train
their children for usefulness by developing their God-given talents.
A failure to do this should not be winked at, but should be made
a matter of church discipline, for it will bring the curse of
God on the parents and a reproach and grievous trials and difficulties
on the church. A moral leprosy that is contagious, polluting
the bodies and souls of the youth, often results from
a failure to discipline and restrain the young;
and it is time that something was done to check its ravages.
The Bible gives explicit directions concerning
the important work of educating children: "Hear, O Israel:
The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all
thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall
be in thine heart." The parents are themselves to be connected
with God; they are to have His fear before them and to have a
knowledge of His will. Then comes their work: "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.
And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they
shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write
them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates."
The Lord commanded Israel not to make marriages
with the idolatrous nations around them. "Thy daughter thou
shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take
unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following
Me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the
Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly."
"For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the
Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself,
above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The Lord
did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were
more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all
people: but because the Lord loved you, and because He would
keep the oath which He had sworn unto your fathers."
Here are positive directions that reach
down to our time. God is speaking to us in these last days, and
He will be understood and obeyed. God spoke to Israel through
His servants: "This book of the law shall not depart out
of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night,
that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written
therein: for then thou shalt make
thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success."
"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the
testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple."
"The entrance of Thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding
unto the simple." "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
and a light unto my path."
Here the duties of parents are clearly
set forth. The word of God is to be their daily monitor. It gives
such instruction that parents need not err in regard to the education
of their children; but it admits of no indifference or negligence.
The law of God is to be kept before the minds of the children
as the great moral standard. When they rise up, and when they
sit down, when they go out, and when they come in, this law is
to be taught them as the great rule of life, and its principles
are to be interwoven with all their experience. They are to be
taught to be honest, truthful, temperate, economical, and industrious,
and to love God with the whole heart. This is bringing them up
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. This is setting their
feet in the path of duty and safety.
Youth are ignorant and inexperienced, and
the love of the Bible and its sacred truths will not come naturally.
Unless great pains is taken to build up around them barriers
to shield them from Satan's devices, they are subject to his
temptations and are led captive by him at his will. In their
early years children are to be taught the claims of God's law
and faith in Jesus our Redeemer to cleanse from the stains of
sin. This faith must be taught day by day, by precept and example.
A solemn responsibility rests upon parents,
and how can the Lord bless them in the positive neglect of their
duty? Children can be molded when they are young. But years pass
when their hearts are tender and susceptible to the impressions
of truth, and but little time is devoted to their moral culture.
The precious lessons of truth and duty should be instilled into
their hearts daily. They should have a knowledge of God in His
created works; this will be of greater value to them than any
knowledge of books.
"Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,"
are the words of our Saviour. Errors in doctrine are multiplying
and twining themselves with serpentlike subtlety around the affections
of the people. There is not a doctrine of the Bible that has
not been denied. The great truths of prophecy, showing our position
in the history of the world, have been shorn of their beauty
and power by the clergy, who seek to make these all-important
truths dark and incomprehensible. In many cases the children
are drifting away from the old landmarks. The Lord commanded
His people Israel: "When thy son asketh thee in time to
come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and
the judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded you? then
thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt;
and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand: and
the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and sore, upon Egypt,
upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes: and
He brought us out from thence, that He might bring us in, to
give us the land which He sware unto our fathers. And the Lord
commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God,
for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is
at this day. And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe
to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He hath
commanded us."
Here are principles that we are not to regard
with indifference. Those who have seen the truth and felt its
importance, and have had an experience in the things of God,
are to teach sound doctrine to their children. They should make
them acquainted with the great pillars of our faith, the reasons
why we are Seventh-day Adventists,--why we are called, as were
the children of Israel, to be a peculiar people, a holy nation,
separate and distinct from all other people on the face of the
earth. These things should be explained to the children in simple
language, easy to be understood; and as they grow in years, the
lessons imparted should be suited to their increasing capacity,
until the foundations of truth have been laid broad and deep.
Parents, you profess to be children of
God; are you obedient children? Are you doing the will of your
heavenly Father? Are you following His directions, or are you
walking in the light of sparks of your own kindling? Are you
daily working to outgeneral the enemy and save your children
from his devices? Are you opening to them the precious truths
of the word of God, explaining to them the reasons of our faith,
that their young feet may be planted on the platform of truth?
The Bible with its precious gems of truth
was not written for the scholar alone. On the contrary, it was
designed for the common people; and the interpretation given
by the common people, when aided by the Holy Spirit, accords
best with the truth as it is in Jesus. The great truths necessary
for salvation are made clear as the noonday, and none will mistake
and lose their way except those who follow their own judgment
instead of the plainly revealed will of God.