Part 61

Nor do people always take a correct view of this matter, and trace the failure up to its legitimate source. Many are too ready to look upon it as a natural and necessary thing that their children are to grow up willful and worldly. They say, It is all very well while your children are young, but wait till they grow older, and you will see that you must let them go into the world. Now, I want to know, is it the mind of God that the children of His servants must necessarily grow up willful and worldly? I never could believe any such thing. Well, then, if it be not His mind that they should so grow up,--if He has graciously opened the same path to my house as He has opened to myself,--if He has permitted me to select the same portion for my children as I have, through His grace, selected for myself,--if, after all this, my children grow up willful and worldly, what am I to infer? Why, that I have grievously sinned and failed in my parental relationship and responsibilities--that I have wronged my children and dishonored the Lord. Shall I go and make a general principle of this, and set it down that all the children of Christians must grow up as mine have? Shall I go and discourage young parents from taking God's ground in reference to their dear children, by setting before them my abominable failure, instead of encouraging them by setting before them God's infallible faithfulness to all who seek Him in the way of His appointment? To act thus would be to follow in the steps of the old prophet of Bethel, who, because he was in the midst of evil himself, sought to drag his brother in also, and had him slain by a lion for disobeying the word of the Lord.