Many people use the Proverb referring to raising children, as a promise that if we raise up a child according to God's principles they will not turn from it when they are old.
Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."
Sadly, this misunderstanding about Proverbs has led believers to judge one another based on outcomes, even when a parent could be shown to have loved and influenced their children in the right way.
If it were an absolute promise that children will be godly if we train them right, then all parents who raised their children in the Lord, whose children left the faith or never adhered to the faith, would be considered responsible for the spiritual condition of the children. We know it is not an absolute promise because of the following Scripture;
Ezekiel 18:20 ""The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son's iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself."
If we raise children in the Lord, they are more likely to follow the Lord, but some will not. In these last days when the culture plays a big roll in influencing our children, even when we place restrictions on how much of the world they experience, more will see a failure of children following Christ than those who will follow Him.
The reason we know this is because of 2 Timothy 3:1-5. This is a description of the end days. So how did it get like this? Perhaps the entire culture can be held accountable for coming against Christian parents at every turn. The pull of the culture is very strong, influencing them in ways that never occurred to us. Ungodly extended family have an influence, that at times is overpowering.
Parents have compromised God's principles often without realizing it. We become desensitized to things we are accustomed to. Many things we have been taught seemed very good but were not Biblical, they were human traditions rather than principles of God. Because most believing parents were not immersing themselves and their children in the Word with proper teaching, they were led to believe things that were patently not true. There is no parent, and never has been a perfect parent, no matter how godly they are, everyone has warts. The salvation of our children is in God's hands, they will make their own choices not based on our training but based on their heart condition.
The more of these things we have accepted, the less sensitized we are to error. Believers are using language now, especially on facebook, that would have brought discipline had we used it as a child. Our mouth would have been washed out with soap, right after we had a good clout on the bottom with a spoon or willow switch.
Where did believers get this idea of standing a child in a corner calling it "time out?" This certainly didn't come from God's Word, but if we research it we would find out it comes from secular psychology that based their philosophy on Darwinism and Freud. Completely secular men who set out to prove their is no God.
Since we are animals, according to these men, we do not hit animals, but we administer positive stimuli, to make them do what we want them to do. There is no rebellion in animals, they operate from instinct and positive rewards.
Mankind however, is not an animal, we are a much higher intelligence able to be far more cruel and devious than animals. Having grown up with animals and enjoying them my entire life I know that they do show what looks like revenge, but for them, everything they do is based on meeting their needs. Anger is a defense mechanism, jealousy is for dominance for survival, viciousness is motivated by fear of harm.
When human beings display these character flaws they can purely be out of nothing more than selfishness to gain advantage. Humans feel and use these things out of our wickedness, animals exhibit them out of survival. The elements look similar, humans are calculated and manipulative, for animals they are instinct for survival.
The psychologists attribute the instinctual aspects of animals to human beings, this is grave error. When we ignore God's principles treating people like they are animals, we ultimately assign them with instinct rather than deliberateness.
God gave clear instruction to mankind to use the rod to discipline children, he never gave such an instruction for animals. We do not train animals the same way we do children because they are made differently, sin is not assigned to animals as it is to human beings.
It is vitally important that we follow God's instructions rather than man's traditions. When we research where all these man made practices come from, we see that they are concocted by ungodly men who lacked wisdom. The devil was the author of these things in order to get people to adopt practices that ruin children and families as a whole.
Yep, they looked so good to the untrained eye, but have been ruinous for mankind.
Isaiah 40:11 "Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, In His arm He will gather the lambs And carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes."
Proverbs 13:24 "He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently."
Our training methods for animals is far different from our training methods for children.
Parents are responsible to God to train their children, but they are not responsible for their sins.
