Teaching Children

 

"To teach our children is a personal duty; we cannot delegate it to Sunday school teachers, or other friendly aids; these can assist us, but cannot deliver us from the sacred obligation; proxies and sponsors are wicked devices in this case: mothers and fathers must, like Abraham, command their households in the fear of God, and talk with their offspring concerning the wondrous works of the Most High. Parental teaching is a natural duty--who so fit to look to the child's well-being as those who are the authors of his actual being? To neglect the instruction of our offspring is worse than brutish. Family religion is necessary for the nation, for the family itself, and for the church of God."  

~ Charles Spurgeon

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Ministers Are Not Infallible

Ideally, pastors are humble people who will listen to congregants when they have a concern and consider what they have to say, especially when it is an issue in Scripture.  But this is not always the case, unfortunately.  Pastors are not without error, and this is another reason we should be in our Bibles daily, learning directly from God's Word.

Here is an excellent paper written by the late J.C. Ryle, titled, The Fallibility of Minsters.  It covers the passage Galatians 2:11-16 and these points:

I. The first lesson is, that great ministers may make great mistakes.
II. The second is, that to keep the truth of Christ in His Church is even more important than to keep peace.
III. The third is, that there is no doctrine about which we ought to be so jealous as justification by faith without the deeds of the law.

"The lesson is one that we all need. We are all naturally inclined to lean upon man whom we can see, rather than upon God whom we cannot see. We naturally love to lean upon the ministers of the visible Church, rather than upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd, and Bishop, and High Priest, who is invisible. We need to be continually warned and set upon our guard."

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Families Together

I love the below quote by Nancy Campbell, and I completely agree with her points--especially how in Scripture, we see multiple times how groups of mothers, fathers, children, etc. were addressed together, not separately. And also, how foolishness is bound in the heart of a child!  It does not take long for children to get into foolishness when you group them together.  Christian men of old like J.C. Ryle warned about the youths gathering together in their groups on the Lord's Day, separating themselves from their parents.  When I find the quote, I will have to post it here.

MULTIPLIED STRENGTH
Our public education system separates children into their age groups. Our church Sunday schools also separate children into their ages. However, this is not a biblical pattern.

When God wanted to speak to His people, or when God’s law was to be read to the people, everyone came. Moms and dads and all the children, even the nursing babies.

Here’s an example from 2 Chronicles 20:13: "And all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children."

Include your children in your walk with God. Don't send them off to be influenced by the peers of their age group. Grow in God together as a family. Read God’s Word together. Pray together. Work together and play together.

Proverbs 22:15 says, "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child." When you put a lot of children of the same age together, you have multiplied foolishness!

God intends us to follow Him as “families,” not in separated age groups. This makes strong families for God; and when we have multiplied strong families, the nation will be strong.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

Check out this post: http://bit.ly/ShouldChildrenBeInChurch

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From Spurgeon

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The Church's Responsibility in the World

THE "CHURCHES" of AMERICA are responsible for the lgbbbtqpp. They failed to teach that there is no gospel without the family. They failed to teach that as males and females we have a duty and a responsibility to be married, MALE AND FEMALE, and that the primary purpose of our marriage is the procreative conjugal estate. Romance is the biggest fallacy ever put on the public. It has created a false doctrine and identity and false expectations within marriage. The fallacy of romance has caused marriages to nothing short of a fornication, because the idea of children being a blessing and a reward and true riches from God himself is secondary to getting married and just having sex. And not viewing this as a duty and responsibility to be bearing children as often as God would reward you.

~Mrs. Mosser 

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No Greater Task Than Making a Home

It is the simple fact that there is no greater task, responsibility and privilege in this world than to make a home. It may well be that when women are involved in the hundred and one wearing duties which children and a home bring with them, they may say: “If only I could be done with all this, so that I could live a truly religious life.” There is in fact nowhere where a truly religious life can better be lived than within the home. 

In the last analysis there can be no greater career than that of homemaking. Many a man, who has set his mark upon the world, has been enabled to do so simply because someone at home loved him and tended him. It is infinitely more important that a mother should be at home to put her children to bed and hear them say their prayers than that she should attend all the public and Church meetings in the world. 

It has been said that consecration is that which makes drudgery divine; and there is no place where consecration can be more necessarily and beautifully shown than within the four walls of the place which we call home. The world can do without its committee meetings; it cannot do without its homes; and a home is not a home when the mistress of the home is absent from it.

~W. Barclay, in The Letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon

Oh, what a beautiful and blessed quote!  So often, we Christian women, even in the church, are discouraged from our great homemaking duties.  We receive no encouragement from the pulpit, no recognition of our great duties, no realization that we are doing a great work at home, raising up the future generations which will hopefully fill the churches.  Instead, we often only hear how our children will be taught at church instead of by us, or that we women must be at every church meeting or we are thereby neglecting our Chrisitan duty.  There are so many things trying to take us away from home and being keepers there.  But at home, at home, is our blessed duty unto our Lord.  Let us be happy making a beautiful, Christ-centered home for our families.

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Charles Spurgeon on Sunday School

"Nowadays, the world has in it, alas, so few of Christian mothers and grandmothers, the church has thought it wise to supplement the instruction of home by teaching held under her fostering wing. Those children who have no such parents the church takes under her maternal care.. . . They endeavor to perform the duties of fathers and mothers, for God's sake, to those children who are neglected by their own parents; and therein they do well. Let no Christian parents fall into the delusion that the Sunday-school is intended to ease them of their personal duties. The first and most natural condition of things is for the Christian parents to train up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

~Charles Spurgeon "The Child Timothy and His Teachers." Come Ye Children.

Perhaps this is one of the Church's grave errors in our modern times.  Many Christian parents are guilty of doing just what Charles Spurgeon long ago warned parents against.  They are neglecting their duty to train up their own children, and instead leave it to the church, Sunday School programs, and send them off to school during the week.

But whose job is it to raise our children?  Who will bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?  Who knows our children best and will stand before the Lord in accountability?  Exactly whom the Lord gave the job to.  Parents.  No one is better suited.

Sunday School is a wonderful thing for children who have no Christian parents, just as Charles Spurgeon states.  But Sunday School was never meant to replace the family altar, the parents teaching their children the truths of the Bible.  Let us never be guilty of neglecting our duty.  Let us never do something just because others are doing it, even in the church.  Let us remember the purpose of Sunday Schools, and remember it is our own duty to teach our children.

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God's Word to Little Ones

Our weeks of late find us many times at church.  We are usually gathered together as a family in the church building, waiting for the service to begin.  It is quiet before the organ starts playing, and so we read the Bible passages quietly while we wait, and sometimes read the hymns that we will sing.  It is a lovely time of preparing for worshipping the Lord and hearing His Word taught from the pulpit.  My wonderful husband suggested we prepare in this way, and so the children and I have all followed suit.

All, except for one little one who cannot yet read.  And so, our dear little one, every time while we are waiting for church services to begin, asks me to read the Bible passages to her.  This came with no prompting from me or anyone else in our family.  But she wants to hear God's Word, for it is for little ones too.  I am so thankful for her desire to hear God's Word, and it is my hope and prayer that her desire will only grow more and more.

I am reminded of a time when I would read to our dear ones two simple little books for children, and also Morning Stars.  I have begun reading these sweet books to the little ones again, when we have some quiet moments before bed to ourselves.  I remind them to think on the truths we read, as they go to sleep.  What lovely thoughts to sleep on--thoughts of Jesus Christ, our Saviour.  And this is the most important thing we can teach our children--our need for a Saviour, and the love He has for His children.

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In Christ Alone

A beloved song we sang at church today...

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fulness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine -
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

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The Home Church

The Whole Household, Including the Ma...

Sometimes, when church is missed, the family can have a home church.  The quiet of the home blesses the dwellers as traffic is missed.  The busy rush to make the church time is avoided...The family can snuggle under a big blanket on the couch and sip hot chocolate as a passage from the Bible is read.  Old hymns can be sung with joy amongst sniffling children.

Brilliant decor, pretty lights, warmth, and love fill the Home Church.  I like to have a "home church" every day.  It is wonderful to read the Bible with the children and learn from God's marvelous Word.  It is fun and uplifting to hear your children's voices raised to the Heavenly Father in adoration and praise.

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A Cheap Salvation

But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully;

but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

—2 Corinthians 4:2

Here again is seen the glaring discrepancy between biblical Christianity and that of present-day evangelicals, particularly in the United States....

To make converts here we are forced to play down the difficulties and play up the peace of mind and worldly success enjoyed by those who accept Christ. We must assure our hearers that Christianity is now a proper and respectable thing and that Christ has become quite popular with political bigwigs, well-to-do business tycoons and the Hollywood swimming pool set. Thus assured, hell-deserving sinners are coming in droves to "accept" Christ for what they can get out of Him; and though one now and again may drop a tear as proof of his sincerity, it is hard to escape the conclusion that most of them are stooping to patronize the Lord of glory much as a young couple might fawn on a boresome but rich old uncle in order to be mentioned in his will later on.

— Tozer

Youth Leaving the Faith

As you look on the church landscape, youth are leaving the faith in droves.  The modern church, overall, is struggling to reach the next generation with the gospel.  What has happened?  Whether for good or bad, men, for many years, have been inventing solutions or brainstorming ideas without fully relying upon the foundation of God’s Word.  God, however, is greater than man, and as the heavens are above the earth, so are His ways higher than ours and His thoughts than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).  We have substituted the greater for the lesser – God’s wisdom for man’s ideas.  Jesus said that he who hears His Word and does it, is like a man that built his house upon a rock, and when the storm came, it stood firm.  On the other hand, he who rejects His Word, is like a man who built on the sand and when the storm came, the house fell (Matthew 7:24-25).

Shouldn’t the church, as a whole, abandon the sandy ideas of man and shamelessly return to the firm rock of the Word of God?  God’s Word sufficiently identifies how youth are to be reached.  For more information on this issue, please see the film Divided, which is a documentary on age-segregated youth ministry in America.  Watch it for free (for a limited time) at www.dividedthemovie.com.  For an in-depth study, the book A Weed in the Church delves into the topic and more thoroughly handles the Scripture passages that address ministry to young people.  For other details or to help spread the message, visit www.dividedthemovie.com.

Our children are our heritage.