Bible Studies

Part 13

The “kids turning out right” concept of Proverbs 22:6 is NOT a promise. It is a principle whose outcome requires the input by parents and positive response by the child.

The parent’s part in securing a good Prov. 22: 6 outcome is to provide godly guidance by word, example, and discipline. The child’s part is to follow that guidance and to respond to parental discipline.

Many godly parents have put themselves on false guilt trips when, after having done their part, have their children choose to take a different path than the one the children were shown. The fact is, siblings raised in the same home environment can turn out very differently from each other, based on the individual choices THEY make after reaching the age or stage of moral accountability.

What is not learned at home through parental guidance and discipline will be learned the hard way through negative experience and Heb. 12: 6 divine discipline, bringing pain and sorrow, not only to the rebel, but to the parents, as well.

You can (and should) lead the horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. The, “when he is old” phrase of Prov. 22: 6 is speaking of spiritual maturity, not biological age. Furthermore, even after reaching a level of spiritual maturity and overt success, an individual can still fail miserably.

David the giant killer, war hero, and king of Israel, became David the adulterer who arranged for the murder of the husband of the woman he impregnated.

It can be a humbling experience to acknowledge that from God’s viewpoint expressed in James 2: 10, that the parent and child is in the same stinking, sinking, boat of sin, and in the same need of salvation, edification, and mutual understanding.

Our own areas of weakness and failure are no excuse for not disciplining our children. We should consider, however, how the devil will use our own areas of weakness to promote rebellion in the hearts of our children who wish to embrace the same activity. The, do as I say, and not as I do, approach to parenthood will generate a host of problems in of itself.

Parental disappointment can provide parents with a glimpse of how God grieves (Eph. 4: 30) when He sees millions of souls in every generation that He created for His glory, going down a different path in life, and headed for an inevitable disaster of their own making.

 I could find no information as to what extent the provisions of Deut. 21: 18-21 (calling for the public stoning of incorrigible children) was actually imposed during the Old Testament dispensation, but just the possibility of it may have taken the wind out of the sails of many would-be rebels, at least until they got out from under the parent’s roof.

Those in positions of authority are NOT morally “judging” the violators when detecting and addressing sin and or violations of the rules and regulations that they have been authorized and have the responsibility to enforce.

Godly parents will not accept the “everybody is doing it” excuse. “Everybody” was doing it right up to the day when “everybody that was doing it” was swept away in the flood of Noah’s day, reducing the world’s population to eight individuals aboard the ark.

Keep in mind that in the End Times, Scripture (Matt. 24: 38, 39/1Tim. 4:1) tells us that the world environment will be like it was in the days of Noah, and that even WITHIN the Christian Community, there will be widespread apostasy, compromise with, and toleration of gross immorality.

Just because the world has become a toilet, doesn’t mean that we all have to go down with the flush!

“Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord. And do not touch what is unclean, and I will welcome you (2Cor. 6: 17 NASB2020).”

 What the laws of Man requires, forbids, and permits and what God requires, forbids, and permits can be very different, especially when the society is in moral decline.

One can be found NOT guilty in the criminal Courts of Man, the Court of Popular Opinion, or the Court of Personal evaluation, but until the Court of Heaven has had its say, the case is not over!

In homes or societies in which no ONE has FINAL authority, or where there is disrespect for the ONE in final authority, it opens the door for alternative activity, confusion, debate, compromise, and in the worst-case scenario, anarchy.

The negligence and guilt of persons in positions of authority over us is no excuse for our own disobedience.

Along the road to spiritual maturity, there comes a time for us to stop blaming others, and take responsibility for our own outcome.

. . .

It is important to learn how the devil will use past sin and guilty feelings to drive a wedge between us and the individual plan that God has in mind for us.

There will always be the ongoing need to conduct self-examinations (2Cor. 13:5/1Cor. 11: 27, 28) and to take the corrective action ( 1John 1:9/John 8: 11) needed to address whatever sin or evil these self-examinations will uncover.

We are to learn from our past, but we are not to live in the past. Guilt, real or imagined, can become a major impediment in identifying, developing, executing, and maintaining the individual plan that God has in mind for each one of us.

If past guilt disqualified an individual from future service, the lives and eternal outcome for many Biblical personalities, and that of our own, would be quite different. There would be no one qualified to stand behind any pulpit.

Such Biblical personalities included Adam and his sin of knowingly eating of the forbidden fruit after going along with Eve’s disobedience; Eve and her eating of the forbidden fruit; Noah and his drunkenness; Abraham and Sarah and their alternate plan to produce an heir; Moses and the murder of the Egyptian; David’s adultery and conspiracy to kill the husband of the woman he impregnated; Peter’s denial; Thomas’ doubts; and Saul’s (later named the Apostle Paul) attempt to wipe the early Church off the face of the Earth.

The list could go on and on, as. “… all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…(Rom. 3: 23 NASB2020).”

Yet all of these persons still had an individual part to identify and execute in the plan that God had in mind for the human race during each one of their appointed times in history.

The same can be said for the sinner we see in the mirror!

No one is “too far gone” to be saved, that is until the moment should he or she leave this world in the capacity of an unbeliever. It is never too late for a born-again believer, here on Earth, to identify and to execute the individual plan that God has in mind.

The saved man on the cross alongside of the Lord had only a few hours of his post salvation spiritual life to go, but his brief conversation with the Lord, that was recorded in Scripture (Luke 23:42ff), would be used by God to clarify and to reiterate the unadulterated Gospel Message for millions of future souls that had not yet even been born.

Satan works long and hard to remind all sinners of their unworthiness and undeserving status, and their human inability to ever please or to serve God.

It is true, as he says, that Fallen Man is in fact unworthy and undeserving of eternal life, and is in fact incapable by human effort and abilities of ever making themselves, or anyone else, pleasing to God, or worthy of serving God.

 It is only by the grace of God that such things become possible.

End of Part 13