Righteous people throughout the ages have shared a common wish for their children. They want them to prosper in the Lord and to do well in life. There is no guaranteed recipe for this wish, although there are many things that will contribute to this plan. The best thing one could do to ensure such an outcome for one’s children is to start them out on the right foot, and prayerfully constrain them to walk in the “light” as long as they shall live. God’s plan is right and true, and it certainly cannot be wrong. However, the outcome depends upon the individual. All of us know families of six or eight children where every single one of them grew up to be righteous individuals. By the same token, we also know of families where only two children are born and one of them is exemplary and the other is an outright renegade. The difference? Their attitude toward God’s Word and the instructions from godly parents is what makes the difference.
When King David came to his last days, he communed with his son, Solomon, this way.
I go the way of all the Earth: be thou strong therefore, and show thyself a man; And keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, and His commandments, and all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself. That the Lord may continue in His Word which He spoke concerning me, saying, if thy children take heed to their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, they shall not fail thee (said He) a man on the throne of Israel. (1 Kings 2:1-4)
Summarized, if you want your children to prosper, instruct them in righteousness and set a proper example before them. That’s the best anyone can do!
The great apostle Paul gave a heartwarming account of the young Gospel preacher Timothy. “When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy Grandmother Lois, and thy Mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also” (2 Timothy 1:5). If we would couple this sage advice with Paul’s timely words to fathers, we’d have a good grasp of the truth that will greatly ensure the righteousness which we wish for our children. “And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Many years earlier, the wise man, Solomon, had advised, “Train up a child in the way that he should go: and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). However, as you consider these words, do not fall into the old “Calvinistic” doctrine of “Once saved, always saved.” The same Solomon who spoke this, is the Solomon who is considered in 1 Kings 11:1-2, “But King Solomon loved many strange women, …Of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto he children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come into you…”
The words of our eternal God are not simply drivel to fill an empty page, but they are rather the inspired, inerrant and authoritative Word that will be used to judge every accountable soul at the end of life’s way. These instructions do not result from guesses, whims or a majority rule situation, and neither do they come as a smorgasbord collection from which something might work! Every role and every instruction from God works every time, if faithfully followed. So, the best you can possibly do for your children and yourself is to follow God’s Word faithfully until death. Then, you and your children shall receive a crown of life which fadeth not away (Revelation 2:10)!
