Children: A Blessing From The Lord

➡ Paul, the voiceover for a ministry called Your Daily Bread, discusses the importance of teaching children about God’s word. He emphasizes that society is in chaos and the only hope for the future is to return to the teachings of the Bible. He believes that parents must make the decision to serve God and teach their children His truths and precepts. Paul also highlights the importance of following God’s plan for the family as outlined in the Bible.
➡ The text emphasizes the importance of children obeying and respecting their parents, and highlights the value of children in a family. It counters the idea that children might be a burden, instead stating that they are a blessing. The text encourages maintaining faith, strength, and positivity, and invites readers to explore more devotions on a website.

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God Is Government called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, verse 11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting Scripture, but Scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today’s focused discussion will be children, a blessing from the Lord.

We continue in our study of Ephesians, chapters 5 and 6, on God’s marvellous design for the family. And we come to God’s pattern for children. God’s pattern for children. I neglected in the first service this morning to mention the subject, but did in the second, that we’re going to be moving from the parents now to the children. We’ve talked about wives and husbands, and now we turn, as does the text, to children. Chapter 6, verses 1 to 3. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.

It’s not an easy world for children, by any means. The home is not an easy place. The society is not an easy place. A letter from a teenager came to US News and World Report. Here’s the letter. This is what this young teenager wrote. The economy is shot. The family unit is in trouble. Respect for authority is a joke. For the right price, you can buy yourself a senator or a judge. Or he is out buying himself a 16-year-old to use for a couple of hours. Money is worthless, and you’re worthless without it.

Stop worrying about why your son needs a drink before he can face his morning classes, or why your daughter went out and got pregnant. Just help them cope with the reality of life. Before throwing us into categories, just remember that we have to run this joint in 30 years when you die off or retire or starve on your social security. I leave it up to you. Either give us a little help and understanding, or put the world out of its misery and send up the missiles and hope Mother Nature has better luck with the next thing that crawls up out of the slime.

How sad that somebody’s little baby came to that so soon. But it does reflect something of the fear and something of the distrust and something of the chaos and confusion and disorientation and lostness of a generation of children and young people. An old Chinese proverb says, one generation plants the trees and another gets the shade. We in this generation are still living in a little bit of shade. Our grandparents, and perhaps even our parents if we’re old enough, planted some trees in the past and we are still enjoying some of the shade.

But this generation is not planting any trees for the next. And they’re going to find themselves in a blistering world with nowhere to hide. The young person who wrote that letter feels no shade, no place of comfort, no place to hide, no place of security, just a fearsome reality both in the present and in the future. We must plant some trees to shade the future generation. We must do something or the next generation will be frighteningly worse than this one, and the one after that even worse. And those are horrible things to think about.

And if we think about them very long, we would have to conclude that it can’t be too long until the Antichrist world because of the direction we’re going. How can we plant those trees? How can we give shade to our children and their children and their children? The answer is to go back to the standards of God’s word, and that’s what makes it so frightening. Our society realises where it’s going, to some degree realises the chaos of its children. Certainly the children realise it. They realise that there has to be some provision for hope and security, but at the same time they vociferously reject the Bible.

They don’t want, as we’ve been noting, its moral impingement on their lifestyle. They’re not willing to submit themselves to the standards that it establishes for their own behaviour. And so they throw out the only hope for the children. Scripture is very clear, by the way, on what the Bible has to say revealing the will of God with regard to the family. And just reminding you, way back in the Pentateuch, for example, in Deuteronomy 6, in verses 6 and 7 we read, And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children.

Our part is very simple. Teach the word of God to your children. Teach them the Scripture. That’s our part, Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7. God’s part is given a little earlier in Deuteronomy 5, 29. O that there was such a heart in them that they would hear me and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well for them and their children forever. I can’t give them that kind of heart. You can’t give them that kind of heart. But God can. And God longs to do that. God has to give them a heart for his commandments, a heart for his word.

God has to call them to himself, and we must teach them. That teaching of God’s word is part of the process by which they are called to God. And once called, that teaching becomes the pattern in which they live. God is calling them for families to teach his word, to present his word to their children. Parents are really forced to do that. That is the only alternative if they desire to raise their children to love the Lord and to know the blessing that comes to those who obey. In Joshua 24, 15, again in the Old Testament, we read this.

If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served or the gods in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And that is the decision that you have to make as parents. Who will you serve? Will you serve the gods that are around you, the gods of your fathers, the gods of the present age, or will you serve the true and living God? And serving him means that he takes the priority place in your life, in your family, and you teach his truths and precepts to your children.

By the way, in that text of Joshua 24, 15, there was a parent making that decision. And he made a right decision in regard to his family when he said, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And that’s the decision that every family has to make. That’s the crux of the issue facing the family. There’s really no hope for the family politically. As much as I would agree with the emphasis and the moral thrust of the religious right, as they are called, I understand that politics cannot bring back the order of the family.

Politics cannot bring back righteousness in the home. That is a spiritual issue. It can’t be done through politics. It can’t be done through education. Educators are working very, very hard to try to achieve that, apart from the spiritual dynamic of a transforming revolution in the heart wrought by the Spirit of God through faith in Christ. They are endeavouring to educate children somehow back to some level of morality, the standard for which they can’t agree on. You have those who are aggressively politically attempting to do that, some doing it educationally and neither succeeding.

There’s only one way to bring the family back to where it needs to be, and that is to make the decision that Joshua made. And that is to choose for your house that you will above all other things, and first and foremost, serve the Lord. And that means obeying his word in every aspect of your life. It’s as simple as saying we choose God’s way as over against the world’s way in the matter of our family. And it starts at that point. You have to make that commitment, then begin to follow it up.

The Lord has delineated in Scripture the plan for the family, and we’ll see it unfold. It’s right there. It’s very clear, but at some point you’ve got to decide that that’s the plan you’re going to follow. And when you commit yourself to follow it, there’s no guarantee of its success unless you follow it wholeheartedly and completely. Now our text in Ephesians 5 and 6 sums up what Scripture says about God’s plan for the family. God’s plan for the fulfilled family. We have already studied what God designed for the wife who is called to humbly subject herself in love to her own husband and make him and her children and her home the center and really circumference of her life.

We have also studied the divine pattern for the husband who is called to loving headship in which he cares for, provides for, sacrifices for, protects, purifies, and loses himself in giving everything for his wife. And now we come to the children’s responsibility and what must be inculcated in them. And it says there in the verses we read that they are to obey their parents, verse 1. Verse 2, they are to honor their parents, obedience and honor. Obedience and respect is their responsibility. May I begin when I talk about children tonight by affirming the fact that children are a welcome addition to the family.

I need to say that in this day and age, they are a welcome addition to the family in a time when some people are saying they prefer not to have children, as if somehow that was a negative in their lives. Psalm 127 and 128 says children are a blessing from the Lord. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of children, a blessing from the Lord. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com.

Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].