“The Parents’ Fault?” – FBC Morning Light (8/28/2023)

Well a good Monday morning to you. Hope you had a great weekend and were able to get together with God's people yesterday and worship the Lord in God's house and hope it was a great a great day for you and you learned something and were challenged and were able to grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ.

Isaiah, Ephesians, and the Psalms in Today’s Bible Reading

Well today we're reading, starting a new book in our Bible reading plan, the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament. So we're reading chapters 1 2 and then Ephesians chapter 3 in the New Testament and we're wrapping up another book of the Bible, the Psalms.

We're reading Psalm 150 in our Bible reading plan. For each of our devotionals this week we're really going to be in the book of Isaiah and I wanted to point out an interest, make an interesting observation, interesting to me anyway, from Isaiah chapter 1 and it relates to what I think is a misinterpretation or a misapplication, or both, of Proverbs 22 6.

You familiar with that verse? Proverbs 22 6 says train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. Now many want to read that as almost a formulaic promise, a guarantee, that if you do A, then B will certainly happen.

If you train up a child in the way he should go, as determined by God's Word, etc., etc., then when he's old he won't depart from it. And I've known far too many people who have that understanding of Proverbs 22 6.

The problem with that understanding is that it ends up creating a tremendous amount of anxiety and grief and heartache to parents who are Christian parents, they brought their children up in a Christian home, made great sacrifices for the welfare of their children, spiritual welfare of the children, had their children in church faithfully, even had them in Christian schools, and all that kind of thing.

And then when those children leave the nest, they crash and burn. They don't go in the way that they should. They don't go in the way that they were trained. And so the parents are left wringing their hands and they're filled with bewilderment and wondering, you know, what did we do wrong?

We must have done something wrong. Because the Bible says if we would have trained them up in the way that they should have gone, then they wouldn't depart from it. They wouldn't depart from it. And sometimes they put all that on hold by thinking, well, you know, it does say when they are old they will not depart from it, and they're still in their 20s or maybe their 30s, and they're not old yet, so they'll come back to it.

But yeah, I don't think that's really fair treatment of the passage, right? Because it says when they're old they will not depart from it. It doesn't say when they're old they'll come back to it, and they're old they'll not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6 and a Child’s Bent or Giftedness

Well, anyway, I take that verse to mean something different. I think what that verse, and this isn't really about Proverbs 22 6, it's another observation from Isaiah 1, but anyway, regarding Proverbs 22 6, I think what this verse is saying is that if you train up a child according, and literally this is what it says, train up a child according to his way, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

What does that mean, according to his way? Train up a child according to his way. I think it means according to the bent of that child, the natural giftedness of that child. There are some children you discover very early on in their lives, they are musically gifted.

Well, you know, plug them into that, and do all you can to foster that gift in that child, and it will stand them a good stead for all their lives. Other kids are, you know, mathematical geniuses, or they're very engineering-oriented, or they're very nurturing.

I think, you know, a lot of girls, for example, can have a very nurturing aspect to them, and so forth. Well, you know, what is the natural giftedness, or the natural bent of that child? I think Proverbs 22 6 is encouraging us as parents, as you learn your child's natural gift, the God-given characteristics and gifts and talents and so forth, nurture those in that child, and when they're old, do not depart from it.

All right. So anyway, to go back to that misinterpretation, here's a problem for the people who say Proverbs 22 6 is basically a good formulaic promise, that if you do your part as a parent to train up a child in the way you should go, then he will turn out right.

So if a child doesn't turn out right, then there's something wrong with your parenting style, something wrong with what you did as a parent. Here's your problem with that interpretation. Read Isaiah 1, verses 2 through 4, because the Lord God is speaking, and he says this, "'Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.

I have nourished and brought up children, Jesus.'". The Lord is saying, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not consider.

Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corruptors, they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backward.

All right, so Proverbs 22 6, could that really be what it means? If so, then what did the Lord do wrong in parenting his children? I speak as a fool. I speak as a fool. Obviously the Lord did nothing wrong.

Encouragement for Parents Grieving Wayward Children

Now, I bring that out because I think there possibly are some parents listening this morning who are discouraged or grieving over some children who've left the faith, they certainly didn't adhere to what they were taught and how they were brought up in their Christian home, and you've been dealing with the guilties over that, and pulling your hair out, and trying to figure out what did you do wrong.

And knowing, of course, that none of us is perfect parents, none of us are as perfect as the Lord in our parenting, that's for sure, admitting that and understanding that, we don't have to go there if we've done the best we could to be faithful and trying to rear our children and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and we need to realize that they are their own individual, and they can be like Israel unless God graciously gets a hold of their heart and regenerates them and transforms them personally and makes them a child of his own, and does that work of grace in his or her life.

So let me encourage you with those thoughts today. All right, Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this today. We thank you that those who may be struggling with children who have disappointed them, you would encourage them today, even from this passage.

We pray in Jesus' name. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Monday, hope your week gets off to a great start. Good day.