Before we get to today’s article, I just want to mention that am writing from the perspective of a man that has experienced many of the challenges of which I write…. and those spiritual battles continue daily. The articles are implications of what it means to obey the commandment to raise your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. They require some reflection and are particularly for Christians who, as Peter would say, are diligently seeking to confirm their calling and are making every effort to supplement their faith. Said more succinctly, serious Christians. If you know other believers who desire to walk more faithfully with the Lord, please forward an article to them and tell them to sign up for future articles. Thanks so much!
So, I am about to begin this series of articles that tracks along with the famous book by J.C. Ryle called Holiness and I feel like I am already stuck. Here’s my predicament: I have looked at how Ryle approaches this incredibly important topic and I am quite sure that the reader of this article will not want to hear what he has to say. Why? Because Ryle begins his book with a chapter on sin and I am thinking, who will want to hear this?
Doesn’t every Christian already know what sin is? Will the reader just hear, blah, blah, blah? Can’t we get to the good part where we learn how to grow in holiness?
And so, that is exactly the problem with everything related to our growing in the faith and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ- what we (and I do mean we) want that experience to be is the complete opposite of what the Bible describes as the experience of the faithful Christian. We want to become more like Christ without experiencing the fundamental means that God has given us to do it. And what are those means?
Speaking to us through His Word, God wants us to think deeply about the condition of our own hearts, our incessant disobedience, and the cross. This is dramatically different from the modern day desire for the pleasant, brief, barely convicting, minimalistic consumption that we are now so accustomed to. No, God wants us to stare, not just look, at the horror of the cross. He commands that you carefully examine the depth of your grotesque sins, and He tells us plainly that His demands will interfere, no crush, much of the life that we would prefer to lead.
Remember the Scared Straight program? That’s the program offered by many states that would take a wayward young person and place them in a prison for a week. The idea was to show what their lives would be like if they continue on the path they were presently following. That experience often shook the young person into the reality that they must change, or they may face a terrible life behind bars. Ryle will attempt to do the same by placing Biblical truth before our eyes and he is praying that the Spirit will bring our hearts to a new level of knowledge and conviction- a level that elevates obedience and love for the Lord. He says we must, “dig down low if we will build very high.” And so, he begins.
Ryle begins with a definition of sin and here, I’m paraphrasing Ryle’s definition of sin: Due to the sin of Adam and Eve, every person born into this world is naturally inclined to evil and is not interested in obeying or loving God, and is deserving of God’s wrath and damnation. In addition, sin consists of doing, saying, thinking, or imagining anything that is not in perfect conformity to the mind and law of God. Well, is that comprehensive enough? This means that a person can break God’s law in heart and thought without any outward action. Note the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus explains that anger and lustful intent results in the same destination (that is hell) as murder and adultery (Matthew 5:21-28). Furthermore, Ryle says that we don’t just sin by the things that we actively do in our minds or in outward action, but we sin when we do not do what God calls us to do and cites Matthew 25:41-42.
How shall we think about the origin and source of what Ryle calls, a vast and mortal disease?” He wants to talk about this because we all tend to look to excuses for our sinning by pointing to things like bad parenting, bad friends, or a host of other outside sources. But no, Ryle rightly states that our sin originates from within us. It is a family disease that we inherited from our parents, Adam and Eve when they fell into sin in the garden.
But what about the children? Well, let me pivot away from Ryle to share my own experience and I’m sure the experience of every parent.
Before our son was one year old, my wife and I would struggle to settle him when we put him down for the night. He would be fed and seemingly ready to go to sleep, but as soon as he knew that we had left his bedroom, he would cry. We were deeply moved by him crying and as loving parents, either myself or my wife would go back into his room and rub his back or sing a song until he went back to sleep. We wondered if he would have memories of being abandoned by his parents, so we kept going back to him when he cried, proving that we were dedicated and loving to him. However, as soon as we left the room, he would start crying and if we did not go back, the cries would just get louder.
As this situation continued, we became more and more crafty about how we would leave the room. One of our strategies was to place pillows alongside the crib bars on the side and bottom so if he opened his eyes, he would not see us walking away. He overcame that by simply arching his back up higher so his little head could peer over the pillows and spot us as we were trying to get away. Eventually, we found ourselves dipping down onto our knees and commando crawling across the bedroom towards the door. We knew this was ridiculous, but we did not know what else to do.
Then, a friend of ours learned of our situation and told us about the three day rule. Essentially, the three day rule says that no matter how much he screams and tears your heart out in the process, you must not go backto the room after you put him into the crib. Of course, we did think of all of the terrible things that could be happening in his room as he was screaming as loud as he could and wondered if we were neglecting and abusing our child. But, after the third night of screaming, he stopped. We were not Christians at the time, so it was difficult for us to really come to terms with what had been happening, but it was clear that our little precious and innocent child was in fact deceitfully manipulating us every night.
Since we became Christians and trusted the Bible for ultimate truth, we have learned why every child born into this world will do the things my son did and those truths are critical to Ephesians 6:4 parenting.
Here are some of the tell-tale comments I have received from parents through the years as a Christian school administrator that may indicate a fatal ignorance about the true heart condition of their child. These comments from parents typically come to the fore when a child’s behavior is being questioned.
- “My child has such an innocence about her.”
- “My child has such a great heart.”
- “My child would never lie.”
- “My child would never be mean to another child.”
- “I think that my child will not be affected by the evil around him at this early age.”
Not believing the entire Bible is certainly the number one fatal flaw in parenting and for that matter, dealing with all the issues of life. But, number two is definitely an ignorance, or at the very least, a suppression of the Biblical truth that all people come into this world as sinners who have no ability to do anything that pleases God until they become (born again) Christians. Here’s the truth from God, not me-
So, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate (Genesis 3:6).
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned (Romans 5:12).
For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2:3).
The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies (Psalm 58:3).
The implication for every child is that at the core of their being, they are selfish, manipulative, and capable of all kinds of lies and deception.
This clear Biblical truth is one that most parents have an incredibly difficult time believing and applying in their obedience to the command to raise their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).
Your children are not basically good; the Bible says that they have rotten sinful hearts and the only thing that will change that is if they get a new heart, graciously given from the Lord.
Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3).
Because of these truths, Christian parenting is massively different from the world’s parenting. How? Too much for this blog entry, but there are many good resources available in the Christian community. One that I particularly recommend is “Shepherding a Child’s Heart” by Ted Tripp. Another by Tripp is “Instructing a Child’s Heart.”
For those parents who believe and apply these truths, they have an opportunity by God’s grace, to lead a child to a true knowledge of Jesus Christ. For those parents that do not, they should expect to see their children become self-centered, spoiled, manipulative, and deceitful adolescents.
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Last modified: November 23, 2022
