Fear God, and give glory to Him

The Beginning of Wisdom (continued)

08:01 PM, Saturday, June 21, 2008 .. Posted in Bible Studies .. 1 comments .. Link

(Please scroll down to read the first part if you haven't already.)

"I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will give me."

Do you tell your children this is the apostle Paul?

"In him we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. . . . He is before all things and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell."

Do you tell your children that this is Jesus Christ, their Saviour?

"Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

Do you tell your children that this is "heaven" to where they will all go when they die?

No wonder!

In light of all the garbage, the blasphemous misrepresentations of God, the nonsense, the stupidity and lies, that Christian parents tell their children today, why should we yet be surprised at how things stand?

Who do we expect to take God seriously after two generations have grown up with the Bible reduced to a fairy tale? With Jesus mixed into the Arabian Nights, or Sesame Street? Bible games. Bible movies. Bible jokes. Everything's gotta be fun! Or funny. God in fluttering robes with a long white beard.

If it isn't funny, they say, nobody looks at it anymore. The Bible must compete with Disneyland -- but God will fling Disneyland into the lake of fire, and I am afraid all Disney Bibles, Disney Children, and this entire Disney generation will go along with it.

That is not funny.

* * * * *

Children in Bible times grew up not daring to pronounce the name of God. As children, in southern Ontario, we sat side by side on the Holzkist behind the stove during thunderstorms. "That is the voice of God," my mother told us, "and you must be quiet."

We were quiet and we learned to love God.

I still cannot listen to thunder, the noise of the surf, or look at the starlit heavens long enough.

A number of years ago a Canadian studying social change among the "plain people" visited the Nithview Mennonite Home at New Hamburg, Ontario. He asked an old Amish-Mennonite lady (whose church had merged with the Conference of Mennonites in Eastern Canada, conformed in every way to this age) what had happened. The old lady, still wearing her head covering and a plain dress told him in German, "Die Furcht iss nimme dat" (the fear is no longer there).

She meant the fear of God. And she was right.

It is the devil who says that fear is the opposite of love. The devil lurks in your Warner Brothers Bible films, in your Bible cartoons and Bible jokes today. And it will go no better for you by setting the devil's fare before your children than it did for the parents that offered their children to Molech in Jeroboam's time.

Refusing to watch TV is no guarantee against your children getting a modern, casual, totally warped and unrealistic understanding of God. Watching books is even more potent than watching TV.

"Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

That is God.

Are your children growing up to fear and love him?

Peter

Rocky Cape Christian Community
19509 Bass Highway
Detention River, Tasmania 7321
Australia
www.thecommonlife.com.au