Title How to Teach Your Children
In A.D. 1889, two children who changed history were born. One child was born to an Austrian couple who were cousins. The boy who lost his father early was brought up by an alcoholic aunt. He dropped out of school when he was 16 and became an extremist. His name is Adolf Hitler.
Another child was born in Texas, USA that same year. Growing up with the love and attention of his parents, the boy entered the West Point Military Academy. The boy's name is Dwight Eisenhower.
The two met during World War II. One exhaled the poison of anger and the other cried out for peace. Hitler committed suicide in a shelter at the age of 56, and many people rejoiced, and when Eisenhower died, the world mourned his death.
Conflicting parental education separated the fate of the two children in such a stark way.
Today's text is about when Israel was looking at Canaan from the Plain of Moab after 40 years in the wilderness. Leader Moses is proclaiming the word of God in front of the people of Israel. The other day, when Israel left Egypt under the leadership of Moses, crossed the Red Sea, entered the wilderness, and came to the region of Horeb, God met Moses at Mount Horeb. And the Ten Commandments were given to the people of Israel through Moses, and the purpose is to make the people fear Jehovah God, and for parents to teach them to their children.
Parents are primarily responsible for educating their children. No, it is the parents who have the greatest responsibility. Today's society tends to entrust children's education to the school, and there is a strong tendency to defer the final responsibility to the school.
The teachings of the world today are overly self-centered and humanistic. Rather than respecting a person as a life, education in the world aims to nurture a person as a means to achieve a certain purpose. Nevertheless, many Christians are zealous for the education of the world, but neglect the Bible education, which teaches how to fear God.
Why? Isn't it because we don't believe that Bible education determines our children's future? There are many parents who think that ‘my child’s future depends on how well they are studying now’, but it seems that there are not many Christian parents with the desperate heart that ‘my child has no life without the word of God’.
Today, we want to share our grace with you thinking, “How should I raise my children?”
Let's read together verse 10: "On the day you stood before the LORD your God on Mount Horeb, the LORD said to me, Gather the people for me, and I will hear my words to them, so that they may learn the fear of Me as long as they live on the earth. I want to teach my children…”
Israel's leader Moses is admonishing the Israelites to teach their children to fear God. It is because fearing God is the way for children to prosper and be blessed.
Think about it. Who is the one who advocates for life and death? Isn't it God? No matter how hard a person tries, he cannot lead a successful life without God's permission. In that sense, the best legacy that parents can pass on to their children is teaching them to fear God.
The first step in educating children is to teach them to fear God.
That's right! The best education that makes a man a man is to develop a fear of God. The fear of God is said to be the beginning of knowledge and wisdom (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10).
The fear of God is the starting point to lead your life to success and to live a happy life. Who doesn't dream of being successful? Who doesn't want to be happy? But why are there so many people of dissatisfaction, complaints and unhappiness in this world?
Many people want their children to go to a good school. It seems that there is nothing impossible to send to a prestigious university. He wants to pass on a lot of his fortune to his children. It is a natural feeling of parents who want their children to do well. But nothing in this world can be a better legacy for children than teaching them to fear God.
Friends, if you want your children to have a happy future, first of all, you must learn to fear God. A child's faith grows in direct proportion to 'how much the parents care, pray, and support'.
We need to pay attention to ‘whether you attend church school on Sundays, donate money, and what you do at church’.
However, it seems that they do not say ‘pray’ as much as they say ‘study’. It seems that there are not many parents who push their backs to ‘go to the academy’ but to ‘go to church’. Do you know which school, what grade, what class, and who your homeroom teacher is, but you don't even know who is teaching, and you don't even care about what class it is in the church's Sunday School?
＊ In the Old Testament, among those who failed to fulfill their mission as parents, there is a high priest Eli, who was in the highest leadership at the end of the period of the Judges. He had two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, about whom the Bible says, “The sons of Eli are delinquents. did not know the Lord” (1 Samuel 2:12).
In the original meaning, they are as harmful as the plague. They stole the sacrifices the people brought to God. He did not hesitate to make fun of the women who worked in the tabernacle.
What could be the cause? The father was a political and religious leader at the time, and some may wonder why his sons had fallen into depravity. The problem must be found in his father, Eli.
Although he was a priest, he did not properly teach his sons to fear God. I never once punished my sons for wrongdoing. Later, when bad news spread all over Israel, he gave only one word of advice and left it alone.
Guys, is this the love of your children? God rebuked Eli's actions. 1 Samuel 2:29, “Why do you tread on my sacrifices and offerings that I have commanded in my dwelling place, and consider your sons more important than me, and make yourselves fat with the best offerings of my people Israel?”
In God's eyes, Eli's actions were evaluated as 'higher than God's own sons.' They did not care for their children and teach them according to the word of God.
How did it end? Two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, whom he loved so much, died in battle with the Philistines as a result of God's judgment, and the priest Eli, who heard the news, also “fallen from his chair and broke his neck” died (1 Samuel 4).
Ladies and gentlemen, this tragedy of the ‘Ellie’ family is a sample that can occur when parents in a family fail to properly raise their children with the Word. It is so important to raise your children to fear God by nurturing them with the word of God. · Your child's future and life depend on it. · Parents' old age depends. · The rise or fall of a family depends on it. · And the eternal future of the whole family depends on it.