Rev (Dr) Quek Suan Yew

PARENTING – Don’t Leave Home Without the Word!

Proverbs 1:8-9, "My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:
For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck."

Introduction – The home life is the most precious period in every person’s life. In our broken society, life at home has become more of a nightmare than a blessing. When broken homes are the norm, society breaks down. Immorality and wickedness abound. The lusts of the flesh and the eyes and coupled with the pride of life drive millions into the depths of hell forever. Right has become wrong and lies are passed off as truth. Deceivers and liars are applauded as the new “role models” just because they have become billionaires. Their lack of morality and integrity is ignored. As long as money is made it does not matter how they make them. Living in sin is acceptable. Black is called white. Any one semblance of goodness in the world is caricatured and censured as bigoted and unloving. Violent crimes are committed but the judgement against them is only a slap on the wrist. The rights of the victims are trampled upon but the rights of the criminals are protected. No one seems to care anymore. Anyone who dares to care and stand for what is morally righteous is persecuted and taken to court. THIS IS WHAT THE WORLD IS LIKE. How are we preparing our children to face such a world?

Was there not a time when sin was shameful to many and the sinner hid his face in shame? The 21^stcentury is a century of the last days. The depravity and decay in humanity began in every home. The government and the world can only do so much to harm us if our parents allow them. Parents control their children’s growing up years and environment. Their influence and impact are the greatest on all their children. This is evidentially seen and experienced by everyone. If parents fail them and do not spend time with them but farm them out to others to care for them, such neglect will also be clearly seen. The danger is that it will probably repeat itself when these children become parents. The great impact parents have on their children cannot be underestimated. The parents who overly focus on education will surround their children with books and tutors to ensure that they get ahead of all their classmates in school. They will try to get them into the best schools that their money can buy. Those who focus on making money will probably do the same in prosperous Singapore where doors of opportunities are opened with paper qualifications. Christian parents must be wise and do the right thing to prepare their children for when they leave home to face the world, so that everywhere their children go they will bring with them the right kind of tools or perhaps weapons to fight against the evil world that seeks to capture their souls and destroy their lives!

I.  The Source – The people who have the greatest influence to prepare children for the dangerous world are the parents. They are there at their children’s birth. Christian parents can mould their children who are like soft pliable clay. They can “shape” their children to whatever they believe to be right for them as they face the world on their own. By that time, they will either do well for Christ or fail miserably, and the world will suck them into its deadly quicksand of no return and where the fiery depth of hell awaits! This is what every child of God knows for a fact even though he has not been to hell before. This is the faith believers have embraced in Christ at the point of their personal salvation. No truly born again parent would want his children to end up in hell and he would and must be prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure their salvation before the world grabs hold of them and his godly influence over his children’s souls ends.

It is a father and mother-child relationship that parents must never forget. Our children are not our friends. Be their parents. They need a parent in their lives the moment they are born, not a friend. Parents, not friends, have authority over their children. It is called parental authority. When parents forget this role and duty, they fail their children tragically. When parents abdicate their parental responsibility and surrender them over to their maids or grandparents or strangers in a childcare, they are still held accountable to God. God made them parents by entrusting the children to them to be brought up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. This means that the moment their children are born God expects the parents to direct them toward Christ the Saviour of the world and the parent’s Saviour in particular. Are these not the promises the parents make before God in obedience to the sacrament of baptism when they offer their children to be baptized as infants? God expects the children that He has entrusted to parents to be returned to Him in Christ. This is how God wants Christian parents to look at His gift of the children entrusted to them. Psalm 127:3 “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.”

II.  The Upbringing– The upbringing of children is like the equipping of a soldier to battle. If our children are not equipped properly during their growing years they will be doomed to die in sin. Remember that all children are conceived in sin, with only one exception, Jesus Christ who was born of the virgin Mary because He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. This means that all children are born with the lusts of the flesh, eyes and the pride of life. They are predisposed to listen to the god of this world, i.e. the devil. If Christian parents do not provide their children with the godly alternative in Christ according to Holy Scriptures, their children will be doomed to die in sin and end up in hell. The education of the world will not save them from sin, for the origin is from the devil. The philosophies of the world will only give them irreversible blindness and are impotent to make anyone wise unto salvation. Only the Lord Jesus Christ can. 2 Timothy 3:15 “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

It is up to Christian parents to step up to save their children from their sins and the world and the devil. The father is to instruct them. The mother is to teach them the law. The father is to discipline the children, which is what the word “instruction” means in Proverbs 1:8. The headship of the home is the father's. The discipline of the home is ultimately his responsibility. The mother will also discipline the children, obviously, but it is the father who sets the guidelines and tone of the discipline. This ensures a proper spirituality in the home as the discipline will be based upon the right and wrong as taught in Holy Scriptures and not the world. The father must be well versed in Holy Scriptures. In the days of the Old Testament, the fathers learnt God's Word from the priests and Levites. They did not have the written Word of God like we do today. They were taught the very Word of God directly from the perfect Word of God in Hebrew. Today’s parents learn God's Word from a translation of the perfect Bible. This is not as good compared with studying directly from the inspired and preserved texts. But they have the Bible in their hands and homes. In OT times, the fathers had to pay close attention and basically had to memorize the Word of God in order to bring the Word of God home to instruct his family. With proper studying, the men would teach their wives and children the Word of God by their lives and words. In this manner the leadership of the home was maintained. The discipline and spiritual well being of the home was in his charge.

Most fathers were either farmers or shepherds in Israel in OT times. This means that fathers would be out in the fields and the mothers would be home alone with the children. The “law” of the home in terms of its running and daily routine in the bringing up of the children would be established by them. Hence the Bible says to the children, “forsake not the law of thy mother”! Of course the law of the mother was based upon her understanding of the Word of God through the teaching that father brought home after he learnt the instructions taught by the priests or Levites. The emphasis of the prohibition to forsake is one of pleading and desire rather than a command. Such obedience has to be from the heart based upon the children's love for mother who carried them in their wombs, brought them up, and loved and cared for them all their lives. The mother’s love is the deepest and most amazing love on earth second only to the Agape love of God given to all believers. Mother’s law should instill in the heart and mind of children a deep influence that lasts a lifetime. It does not disappear from the children’s inner being unless the children deliberately choose to cast it off which is the meaning of the word “forsake”.

To spurn father’s discipline and mother's law is an act of deepest ingratitude by children. God chose parents to bring and nurture the children unto godliness and holiness. Children in Christian homes are specially blessed by God, for they are immersed in a heavenly environment with two citizens of heaven bringing them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. This is a taste of heaven provided by God that is the best alternative to the carnal life that would plague their souls. Godly parents will obviously share Christ with them, and sing hymns about Christ as well as expose them to God’s family every Lord’s Day from their birth. These are special privileges and spiritual blessings bestowed upon their children that the parents as first generation Christians did not have. What should Christian children do with these manifold privileges that they received from father and mother?

III.  The Blessings – Proverbs 1:9 adds, by way of a synthetic parallelism between verses 8 and 9, “For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.” The children ought to put them on as one would a beautiful head gear and a necklace. Only in Christ their Lord and Saviour can this be a reality. They are called ornaments of grace. The children will experience the grace of God in Christ by becoming believers themselves. With Christ in their heart, they will carry the grace of God with them everywhere they go. The world will try its utmost to destroy the children's godly witness. But father and mother have prepared them well in Christ. They will openly and courageously show forth the grace of God in their lives to all that they will meet. Their godly parents have prepared them well to face this evil and wicked world of sin and debauchery.

The grace of God on their heads and around their necks can never be taken off. It was placed there by Christ upon salvation. They now have the love of God as their motive and constraining them in all they do that will keep them in the narrow path of righteousness even when they are persecuted for Christ’s sake. They will stand and remain steadfast in their faithfulness to Christ. Their mind is the mind of Christ that will give them the wisdom to make wise decisions in life and in the face of difficult people and circumstances. With the Word of God taught by father and mother, they will be wise as serpents and harmless as doves in the world that crucified Christ. Though they might be away from home, and mother and father are not physically present, they will not be afraid, for the instruction of father and the law of mother will keep them in good stead. They will stand firm for Christ regardless of the trials, for they have learned the same from father and mother all their lives. Father’s instruction together with mother’s law will bring forth Christian children who will love the Lord all their lives wherever they are. 

Conclusion – The love for the Christ of the Bible is on the line when Christian parents are entrusted with children’s lives. Parents can either instill into their children a biblical image of Christ as a wonderful Saviour or they can portray Him as a carnal and hypocritical Saviour. The latter will condemn the children to reject and despise Christ until they die in their sin and find themselves in hell. 

Dear parents, your young children are helpless little ones who depend on you. They do not know what the right and wrong way of life is because they have the carnal disposition of a depraved sinner inside them. They need father’s instruction to let them know what is right and what is wrong. His instruction must be from God's Word. They need mother’s law which is according to Scriptures to pattern their lives so that they will have a godly routine instilled in them that will never leave them regardless of how long they live on earth. When, and not if, they come to accept Christ as their Lord and Saviour because they have seen Christ in father and mother, the grace of God in Christ will become ornaments of grace on their heads and around their necks. They will never leave home without it! Amen.