“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children—” (Deuteronomy 4:9)z
In our Spiritual warfare, one of the targets our enemy the devil seeks to corrupt and lead away from the truth are our children. We may baptize, confirm and bring them up in Sunday school but the secular school system and academia are where the worldly influence is infused into them. Belief in God, let alone Jesus is not taught. Instead science, self, and sociology form the basis of curriculum.
What is the believer supposed to do? Sending our children to a Christian school or home schooling are good options, but the responsibility of the godly upbringing and training in God’s Word of a child rests on the parents and the church. This is, in part, the message of the book of Deuteronomy. Obedience to the Lord’s commands brings blessing, while disobedience brings judgement because sin has consequences.
The Lord commands that we teach His Word to our children although today the understanding of what blessing and judgement differs. In the case of Israel, blessing meant land, prosperity, and descendants while judgement brought slavery, exile, and the loss of land. For Christians obedience is by faith in Jesus while the blessing of faith means joy, peace, freedom from the fear of death, and the assurance of eternal life. Judgment brings discipline and punishment. Yet for the believer there is always hope in the discipline of God for no matter how difficult or painful for it is an indication that God has not abandoned us. He will surely show mercy as His children repent and continue in the faith which is rooted in Jesus alone.
As for those for those who reject Faith in Jesus, while they may be blessed with prosperity in this life, judgement for them comes in the form of unhappiness, guilt, slavery to their passions and possessions, the lack of meaning and purpose and, finally, eternity in hell if they do not repent.
Almighty God is unique. He is one. He alone is God. He alone is merciful. He alone is truth. He alone has delivered us from sin and death through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus. Why seek satisfaction in any other god? This is what we must teach our children.