Friday, October 26, 2007 at 1:01am
Tough love for wayward children
Column: For His Glory
I have thought over the last couple of years over the precarious situation that my brother and sister are in. They do not confess Jesus Christ as Lord, either by mouth or action, and hence they are lost sinners, condemned to die. That is how the Bible would describe them, "for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (Romans 6:23).
The Bible also says that the penalty for sin is death. I do not want that. I want them to be saved, and I know my parents want the same thing. We have been praying profusely for their conversion, but they seem to drift further from the Lord than closer.
What gives? Does God not answer prayer? Of course, He does. God answers all prayers, although we are not always ready for the answer. We may not like the answer, so we avoid the answer, so what more can He do? The answer for a rebellious child is found in the word of God. That is no surprise, but the answer may surprise you.
Think how patient God is with His children, how loving He is, but don't stop there. Dig deeper in His word, and realize that whomever God loves, He disciplines (cf. Hebrews 12:7). We have a wrong notion of true love; our love is fuzzy and always undisciplined. We give in to children and think that this is somehow showing them true love, but that is not the case. True love will say no when it is in the eternal interest of the child. True love will punish them.
Think of the way God has treated the children He loves in the Bible. God is love, but Adam and Eve sinned one time and they were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Cain murdered his brother and he was exiled for life. David murdered Uriah and committed adultery with Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, and four of David's children paid with their life. God offered forgiveness, but there were consequences to their rebellion. God is long-suffering and so should we be, but if our kids do not want to conform to the values of a Christian home, our values have to have some backbone and some consequences for violating the Christian principles that we want to live by. God bore hard with Israel and all their idolatry. He sent warning after warning through His prophets so that they might repent, and they did not.
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" (Luke 13:34)
He finally told them He would destroy their precious city, and they still did not repent till He finally had to be faithful to His word and Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. Israel was in exile for 70 long years, and yet today's parents are afraid to put their kids in time-out for seven minutes.
As a Christian community, we have forgotten that there is redemption in suffering. The Bible says that even Jesus who was sinless learned obedience through suffering (cf. Hebrews 5:8). We think we love our children more than God, isn't that the case? Because if we truly had faith in God, we would take drastic measures to correct the behavior of our children before it is too late.
It is during hard times that many people find God, and yet today parents make life at home easy street for our kids. Kids can violate the rules at home, not attend church, and yet we fund their worldly lives by buying their cars, paying for their education, giving them shelter, food and an allowance, and for what? So that at the end of their college education, which is funded by their parents, they can leave the house as self-funding sinners who are then harder to reach.
All this is in contradiction to the Bible, which says, "If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand (Mark 3:25). The Bible calls for no compromise to the world, and yet that is what we constantly do. This is totally contradictory to God's word, because as parents we are to love God and obey Him more than we love our children. " ... anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me" (Matthew 10:37). Do you know how Israel handled a rebellious child? They stoned them to death.
"If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid." (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
That's harsh, you might say, that's the Old Testament. The New Testament is full of grace and God offers forgiveness. You are right — God offers forgiveness, but only if a person repents (turns from their sins) and believes. Yet if they are still in their sin, they are dead already, condemned to die on the Day of Judgment (cf. John 3:18). God is Holy and we need to treat His Word as holy in our heart, and if our kids do not want to follow, they can see how they survive on their own in the real world.
I am not suggesting that your punishing them is going to make them obey, but they must learn to respect your home. As Joshua said, "As for me and my house we will follow the Lord," and if like the prodigal son, who only in desperation sought after His father, we can contribute to their desperation through our punishment, then let's do so. Because in the end it is with the faith that God loves our children more than we do that we must cut the umbilical cord and leave them to God.
Some may say this is easy for me to write because I do not have children, that I do not understand the love of parents, who hate to see their children suffer. They are right: I do not have children, but God did and He gave His only Son to suffer and die on the cross so that you can live. God did not spare His Son; "the LORD was pleased to crush Him" (Isaiah 53:10). Why was He pleased? Because in His suffering your children could have eternal life, if they would just repent and believe.
(To be continued next week.)
— — —
Gio Marin is an author, currently working on a master of divinity degree at Andrews Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, with a dual emphasis on systematic theology and church growth & evangelism. Visit For His Glory, the blog, and send an email to {email GioMarinColumn@aol.com}GioMarinColumn@ aol.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Gio Marin.
The Bible also says that the penalty for sin is death. I do not want that. I want them to be saved, and I know my parents want the same thing. We have been praying profusely for their conversion, but they seem to drift further from the Lord than closer.
What gives? Does God not answer prayer? Of course, He does. God answers all prayers, although we are not always ready for the answer. We may not like the answer, so we avoid the answer, so what more can He do? The answer for a rebellious child is found in the word of God. That is no surprise, but the answer may surprise you.
Think how patient God is with His children, how loving He is, but don't stop there. Dig deeper in His word, and realize that whomever God loves, He disciplines (cf. Hebrews 12:7). We have a wrong notion of true love; our love is fuzzy and always undisciplined. We give in to children and think that this is somehow showing them true love, but that is not the case. True love will say no when it is in the eternal interest of the child. True love will punish them.
Think of the way God has treated the children He loves in the Bible. God is love, but Adam and Eve sinned one time and they were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Cain murdered his brother and he was exiled for life. David murdered Uriah and committed adultery with Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, and four of David's children paid with their life. God offered forgiveness, but there were consequences to their rebellion. God is long-suffering and so should we be, but if our kids do not want to conform to the values of a Christian home, our values have to have some backbone and some consequences for violating the Christian principles that we want to live by. God bore hard with Israel and all their idolatry. He sent warning after warning through His prophets so that they might repent, and they did not.
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" (Luke 13:34)
He finally told them He would destroy their precious city, and they still did not repent till He finally had to be faithful to His word and Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. Israel was in exile for 70 long years, and yet today's parents are afraid to put their kids in time-out for seven minutes.
As a Christian community, we have forgotten that there is redemption in suffering. The Bible says that even Jesus who was sinless learned obedience through suffering (cf. Hebrews 5:8). We think we love our children more than God, isn't that the case? Because if we truly had faith in God, we would take drastic measures to correct the behavior of our children before it is too late.
It is during hard times that many people find God, and yet today parents make life at home easy street for our kids. Kids can violate the rules at home, not attend church, and yet we fund their worldly lives by buying their cars, paying for their education, giving them shelter, food and an allowance, and for what? So that at the end of their college education, which is funded by their parents, they can leave the house as self-funding sinners who are then harder to reach.
All this is in contradiction to the Bible, which says, "If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand (Mark 3:25). The Bible calls for no compromise to the world, and yet that is what we constantly do. This is totally contradictory to God's word, because as parents we are to love God and obey Him more than we love our children. " ... anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me" (Matthew 10:37). Do you know how Israel handled a rebellious child? They stoned them to death.
"If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid." (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
That's harsh, you might say, that's the Old Testament. The New Testament is full of grace and God offers forgiveness. You are right — God offers forgiveness, but only if a person repents (turns from their sins) and believes. Yet if they are still in their sin, they are dead already, condemned to die on the Day of Judgment (cf. John 3:18). God is Holy and we need to treat His Word as holy in our heart, and if our kids do not want to follow, they can see how they survive on their own in the real world.
I am not suggesting that your punishing them is going to make them obey, but they must learn to respect your home. As Joshua said, "As for me and my house we will follow the Lord," and if like the prodigal son, who only in desperation sought after His father, we can contribute to their desperation through our punishment, then let's do so. Because in the end it is with the faith that God loves our children more than we do that we must cut the umbilical cord and leave them to God.
Some may say this is easy for me to write because I do not have children, that I do not understand the love of parents, who hate to see their children suffer. They are right: I do not have children, but God did and He gave His only Son to suffer and die on the cross so that you can live. God did not spare His Son; "the LORD was pleased to crush Him" (Isaiah 53:10). Why was He pleased? Because in His suffering your children could have eternal life, if they would just repent and believe.
(To be continued next week.)
— — —
Gio Marin is an author, currently working on a master of divinity degree at Andrews Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, with a dual emphasis on systematic theology and church growth & evangelism. Visit For His Glory, the blog, and send an email to {email GioMarinColumn@aol.com}GioMarinColumn@ aol.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Gio Marin.