Spurgeon: July PM
* 07/11/PM
"Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their
children, and their children another generation."
--Joel 1:3
In this simple way, by God's grace, a living testimony for
truth is always to be kept alive in the land--the beloved of the
Lord are to hand down their witness for the gospel, and the
covenant to their heirs, and these again to their next
descendants. This is our first duty, we are to begin at the
family hearth: he is a bad preacher who does not commence his
ministry at home. The heathen are to be sought by all means, and
the highways and hedges are to be searched, but home has a prior
claim, and woe unto those who reverse the order of the Lord's
arrangements. To teach our children is a personal duty; we
cannot delegate it to Sunday School Teachers, or other friendly
aids, these can assist us, but cannot deliver us from the sacred
obligation; proxies and sponsors are wicked devices in this
case: mothers and fathers must, like Abraham, command their
households in the fear of God, and talk with their offspring
concerning the wondrous works of the Most High. Parental
teaching is a natural duty--who so fit to look to the child's
well-being as those who are the authors of his actual being? To
neglect the instruction of our offspring is worse than brutish.
Family religion is necessary for the nation, for the family
itself, and for the church of God. By a thousand plots Popery is
covertly advancing in our land, and one of the most effectual
means for resisting its inroads is left almost neglected,
namely, the instruction of children in the faith. Would that
parents would awaken to a sense of the importance of this
matter. It is a pleasant duty to talk of Jesus to our sons and
daughters, and the more so because it has often proved to be an
accepted work, for God has saved the children through the
parents' prayers and admonitions. May every house into which
this volume shall come honour the Lord and receive His smile.