Below is the introduction to this series. Please feel free to grab my button and/or share this with your friends.
"Wow, you have your hands full!"
If you have at least three young children, close in age, I'm certain you've heard this comment at least once, if not several times. We certainly heard it numerous times having four young kids. Today we have a teenager, another soon to be teenager this September, plus a 7 year old, and we can testify to you that by the grace of God, our hands are fuller now than ever before yet we no longer get this comment. As if parenting children who do not wear diapers is somehow less work. I assure you, if you determined to be a godly parent, this is not the case. The older your children become, the more they see, hear and understand, and therefore the more full your hands shall be. Everything you teach today, either by word or by deed, godly or worldly, becomes a lesson your child learns either to do or not do, in the future. There is not a more serious responsibility nor a more difficult job with eternal consequences in this world. I find Bible study, the wisdom of godly elders, and the grace, teachings, and forgiveness of the Master more valuable each and every day.
Last fall, I was reading through various works by Martin Luther and bookmarked several for future reference including his "Treatise on Good Works." You can read it free by clicking on the link. This one I reread about once every couple months. Let me preface his writing by reminding you that "good works" and "being a good person" do not get you into Heaven. There's only one way of salvation and that is through Christ. However, once you are saved, the evidence of salvation and love of God IS good works and those good works should always begin in your own home. There are Christians who are zealous for Christ that somehow neglect the ministry He gave them in their own home AKA their marriage and their children. They sacrifice their own family in order to "save the world." Conversely, there are "Christians" who try to teach their children about godly living while they live their lives opposite of Christ and all this does is teach the children that Jesus and rules are fine for kids but adults can do whatever they please. These examples are what Martin Luther is referring to when he speaks of salvation being attained or lost by how we raise our children. Children have eternal souls and are entrusted to parents by God Himself. Where they will spend eternity is heavily dependent on how they are raised hence Proverbs 22:6, "train up a child in the Way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." As parents, we will be accountable for our part in their eternity. The Bible does not mince words about that. See Matthew 18, Luke 9 and 17 just to name a few if you have any doubt.
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Parents, as if they had nothing else to do, could attain salvation by training their own children. If they rightly train them to God’s service, they will indeed have both hands full of good works to do. For what else are here the hungry, thirsty, naked, imprisoned, sick, strangers, than the souls of your own children with whom God makes of your house a hospital, and sets you over them as chief nurse, to wait on them, to give them good words and works as meat and drink, that they may learn to trust, believe and fear God, and to place their hope on Him, to honor His Name, not to swear nor curse, to mortify themselves by praying, fasting, watching, working, to attend worship and to hear God’s Word, and to keep the Sabbath, that they may learn to despise temporal things, to bear misfortune calmly, and not to fear death nor to love this life.
On the other hand, parents cannot earn eternal punishment in any way more easily than by neglecting their own children in their own home, and not teaching them the things which have been spoken of above. Of what help is it, that they kill themselves with fasting, praying, making pilgrimages, and do all manner of good works? God will, after all, not ask them about these things at their death and in the day of judgment, but will require of them the children whom He entrusted to them. This is shown by that word of Christ, Luke xxiii, “Ye daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but for yourselves and for your children. The days are coming, in which they shall say: Blessed are the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.” Why shall they lament, except because all their condemnation comes from their own children? If they had not had children, perhaps they might have been saved.
Truly, these words ought to open the eyes of parents, that they may have regard to the souls of their children, so that the poor children be not deceived by their own false, fleshly love. The Commandment that places the parents in a position of honor is for the very purpose that the self-will of the children may be broken, and that the children may become humble and meek. Honor is higher than mere love and includes a certain fear, which unites with love, and causes a man to fear offending those they honor more than he fears the punishment of the offense. Honor consists not only in respectful demeanor, but in this: that we obey them, have confidence in them, esteem and heed their words and example, accept what they say, and keep silent and endure their treatment of us, so long as it is not contrary to the Word of God.
This work (of raising godly children) appears easy, but few regard it aright. For where the parents are truly pious and love their children not according to the flesh, but (as they ought) instruct and direct them by words and works to serve God, there the child’s own will is constantly broken, and it finds occasion to despise its parents, to murmur against them, or to do worse things. This is the first type of dishonor where love and fear depart, unless the children have God’s grace.
There is another dishonoring of parents, much more dangerous and subtle than this first, which adorns itself and passes for a real honor; when it is actually dishonor on both parties account. That is, when a child has its own way, and the parents through natural worldly love allow it. This plague is so common that instances of the first form of dishonoring are very seldom seen. This is due to the fact that the parents are blinded, and neither know nor honor God hence also they cannot see what the children lack, and how they ought to teach and train them. For this reason they train them for worldly honors, pleasure and possessions, that they may by all means please men and reach high positions: this the children like, and they obey very gladly without gainsaying.
Thus God’s Commandment secretly comes to naught while all seems good, and that is fulfilled which is written in the Prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, that the children are destroyed by their own parents, and they do like the king Manasseh, who sacrificed his own son to the idol Moloch and burned him, II. Kings xxi. What else is it but to sacrifice one’s own child to the idol and to burn it, when parents train their children more in the way of the world than in the way of God? Let them go their way, and be burned up in worldly pleasure, love, enjoyment, possessions and honor, but let God’s love and honor and the desire of eternal blessings be quenched in them?
Now where parents are foolish and train their children after the fashion of the world, the children are in no way to obey them; for God, according to the first three Commandments, is to be more highly regarded than the parents. To wear decent clothes and to seek an honest living is a necessity, and not sin. Yet the heart of a child must be taught to be sorry that this miserable earthly life cannot well be lived, or even begun, without the striving after more adornment and more possessions than are necessary for the protection of the body against cold and for nourishment.
What is said and commanded of parents must also be understood of those who, when the parents are dead or absent, take their place, such as relatives, godparents, sponsors, and spiritual parents.
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This is a lot to digest, hence why I read and reread if frequently. It's worth your time to chew on it too. Godly parenting is a hard job to do well and there will be multitudes of frustrating days if you are doing it right. Don't let that frustration allow you to compromise on God's instruction. We are imperfect people trying to live out God's perfect will for our lives thus mistakes will be made, often. We are ALL learning to be like Jesus or at least we should be. We, as parents, need to remind ourselves of how often we have acted as disobedient children dishonoring our Father God when our children dishonor us (sometimes daily on BOTH counts). Then remember how God deals with us and mimic that; forgiveness when we repent, discipline if we don't repent, mingled with grace, love and patience. Pray always. Prayer keeps eternity in view and that is the key to endurance when your hands are full.
Psalm 128
Blessed is every one who fears the LORD, who walks in His ways. When you eat the labor of your hands, you shall be happy, and it shall be well with you. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house, Your children like olive plants all around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD.
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