God's Instruction Regarding Children

1. Teach your children God's commandments;
   take them to church (Cont'd.)

   "Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law.. for it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong your days..." (Deuteronomy 32:46).

   "I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children. That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation: a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God" (Psalm 78:2-8).

   "Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right" (Proverbs 20:11).

2. Train the child in the way he should go.

   "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6).

3. Chastise and Correct the child.

   "Withold not correction from the child.- for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell" (Proverbs 23:13-14).

   "The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame" (Proverbs 29:15).

   Chastisement is proper in the training of children.

   "If ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons." "Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? ... Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby" (Hebrews 12:8-9).

4. Bring your children to Jesus.

   "And they brought young children to him, that he (Jesus) should touch them; and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them. Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them" (Mark 10:13-16).

5. Understand the child.

   "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things" (1 Corinthians 13:11).

   Children can be easily persuaded in the wrong ways or by their peers. Parents need to help them become established in truth and right. "Henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness whereby they lay in wait to deceive."