Third Quarter 2004 Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
"Religion in Relationships"

Insights to Lesson 2:
Parenthood—Joys and Responsibilities
July 10-16

(Produced by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)

After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and just before crossing over the Jordon River to the Promised Land, Moses reviewed Israel’s history with God’s chosen people. His message included the history of her rebellion and of God’s mercy. Special instructions and warnings were given as they prepared to enter Canaan. Included in these messages were some especially directed to parents.

In Deuteronomy 6, parents were admonished to teach the Word diligently to their children. Six chapters later, the Lord warned that Israelite families should not follow after the worship styles or gods of the nations around them. It was noted that heathen worshipers went so far as to burn their sons and daughters as offerings to false deities.

Sadly, Israel did not heed this counsel. In Ezekiel 16 we read the lament for the sons and daughters of Israel, who were devoured in flames on pagan altars.

“’How degenerate is your heart!’ says the Lord God, ‘seeing you do all these things, the deeds of a brazen harlot’” (Ezekiel 16:30).

What has this ancient history and these abominable practices to do with this week’s Sabbath School lesson on Parenthood—its joys and responsibilities?

Like Israel of old, we too have sacrificed our children on modern altars of Molech. We have lost many to the world. This is one of the most tragic outcomes of our corporate rejection of the 1888 message and the consequent delay of Christ’s second advent by more than 100 years.

To our civilized, Western minds, child sacrifice seems revolting.

But are we less guilty than they?

We have set our corporate house ablaze, and our children are perishing in the flames of so-called higher education which calls into question the plain reading of God’s Word, vile television programming, “entertaining” videos, Internet pornography, mindless computer games, demonic toys, competitive sports, rock and roll radio, sensual magazines, and stomach-churning news broadcasts. Rock music has become the mind-altering, hypnotic drug of choice in our land. It has stolen the heart and soul of every generation born since the 1950s, and it can be found on the campus of nearly every Adventist college and academy campus and in many homes. “Christianized” forms have been widely adapted by churches and youth ministries attempting to reach our youth “where they are.” Rock music and sexually explicit films have been used together to tear away the moral fabric of our nation. When we permit these media into our hearts and homes, we suffer incalculable damage.

We have gone along uncomplainingly with the world’s model of education and programming which tends to isolate children from the nuclear family and form peer-family groups of their own. We have entertained our children instead of educating them in the way of the Lord. We have offered our children to the idols of this world, and then we cry in anguish when they continue on the path that we ourselves initiated.

May God have mercy on us! May He bring us to our senses and forgive us before all our children are lost! These are His children, too! For ancient Israel, God had to work in a dramatic way to get their attention by permitting them to be taken captive by Babylon. What will it take to arrest our attention?

One of the fruits of the 1888 message that has never been realized within our ranks is a wholesale reform in education.

In his book The Bible in Education, A.T. Jones traced the history of our modern educational system back to the ancient Greeks. He explains how the wisdom of this world leads one to doubt everything and to know nothing of a surety. The heart-plea of his book is to return to the Bible as the chief textbook in every classroom.

During the 1899 General Conference session, E.J. Waggoner participated in a discussion on education. The full account of this discussion can be read in the bulletin for that year. Here are a few of the points Waggoner made:

“A large part of the teaching of the present day is borrowed from ancient paganism, and is a deification of names. What is it that holds the particles of this metal together? —It is the power of God. Why not say the power of God, then, instead of saying “cohesion,” which does not tell anything, because cohesion is simply any echo? . . . since cohesion means ‘sticking together.’

“And what is God’s school for the children? —the family and the home. But for the curse, there never would have been a school established on the earth. How was it with Jesus? He learned at home. Under present circumstances we must have schools, because there are so many parents who are not fit to be parents. They do not know how to teach their children. Therefore to supply the place of poor orphan children with parents, we have to have schools. If the schools do not do any better than the parents, the children might as well stay at home” (E. J. Waggoner, 1899 General Conference Bulletin, p. 41).

But the precious message of 1888 should thrill our hearts with comfort. Jesus has promised to never leave us or forsake us. He has promised in Proverbs 22:6 “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” We know His Word will not return empty. We have tasted and seen that His much-more abounding grace is more powerful than sin. We have seen His charms, His beauty, His grace satisfy our hearts as nothing the world offers can. We have felt our souls revitalized as we have spent time in nature with our children, learning about God through His second book.

We have pointed our children to the same God as Noah, who pointed the lost of his day to One whose eyes were filled with grace. As long as we are in this world, we will not have rest from temptation. Satan will be there on every hand to tempt and annoy us. If there is an avenue in our homes through which Satan has entered and found a foothold, we must be courageous to cast it out. Even a drop of arsenic in an otherwise pure drink of water is poison.

It is not enough to tell our children about Jesus. Our children must know Him. I can tell you many things about President Bush. But I have never met him. I do not know him. If we as parents do not know Jesus, how can we introduce Him to our children? The call to Christian parents is to “come up higher.” This may involve unpleasant sacrifices on our part. We must ourselves experience a life of abiding in Christ, and of Christ dwelling in us. Then our “modeling” of Christian behavior will not be an outward form (which our children can see through), but a conviction that arises from a heart melted by God’s love.

The years when our children are young and still susceptible to home influences are few. Let us not forget to cherish these moments with our children. Our lives are so busy. Ridding our homes of every “drop of poison” isn’t enough. If we deny our children our time, we have denied them our most precious gift. Work with them. Read to them. Laugh with them. Listen to them. Hear their dreams, their fears, their hopes. Help simplify and order their lives. Point them to Jesus. Hold them in your arms. Love them with the love that only Jesus can inspire. Gather them about your family altar each morning and evening. Commit their care and keeping to our heavenly Father.

Like Israel of old, once again we find ourselves standing on “Jordan’s stormy banks” and casting “a wishful eye to Canaan’s fair and happy land.” For this reason God sent a most precious message in 1888—to prepare us for the river crossing—and demonstrate His power through families who, poor and sinful though we be, are commissioned to lighten this sin-darkened planet as living witnesses to His amazing love and saving grace. Our prayer is that His heart’s desire for our children’s salvation be realized, that the fruit of our womb might be “His reward” (Psalm 127:3).

—Patricia L. Guthrie

Read the study notes for lesson 4