BIBLE INSTRUCTION by A. C. Spicer

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 13, 1878

BIBLE INSTRUCTION.

By A. C. Spicer

In the providence of God it need not be that the children of S. D. Adventists shall extensively forsake the truth and abandon the Sabbath as they grow up and go out into the world, as the children of other Sabbath-keepers have so extensively done. Yet judging from human nature and from tendencies already apparent, history will surely repeat itself among us unless we make more special efforts for the proper instruction of our children, and are untiringly vigilant and prayerfully active thereat.

Such are the tendencies of the times, the charms, the apparent advantages offered, and the varied inducements to adopt the customs of the age, that it is not sufficient to hold them in the path of strict obedience and rectitude to simply know the general doctrines of our faith, and to have been brought up by Sabbath-keeping parents. No! no! If we would have our children withstand the evil influences of this evil age and stand firmly adhering to the truth amid all the corruptions of our times, we must see to it that they are thoroughly instructed in the Bible and especially in the “present truth,” and thoroughly indoctrinated in all, general and particular, that pertains to the message committed to us,—to the solemn and important mission to which we are called.

We need to see to it, under God, that they are “born again” to grace divine, that they are as thoroughly converted from the love of the world and from error to these truths as any of us have been. We need to see to it that they not only clearly understand these truths, but that they as clearly and forcibly apprehend their application at this “time of the end,” and the infinite importance that they live in them, walk by them, and do them,—that their personal salvation depends upon such compliance by them.

We have not, as parents, discharged our whole duty to our children when we have simply announced to them that we have accepted the truth, and that we wish them to do so; that we believe this and that, and so and so, but that we do not wish to constrain them, that they must think and act for themselves. We need to realize that God will hold us responsible for the needed instruction of our children in all the truths essential to guide them to purity and innocence of life, to true faith, obedience, and holiness, thus fitting them for “eternal life;” that God will hold us responsible for the character and salvation, under his providences of grace, of these precious intelligences whom we have, by our voluntary act, brought into existence and imposed on the world.

Yes; I fully believe that God will hold us responsible for the salvation of our children; certainly, very largely so. See Gen. 18:19; Deut. 4:9, 10; 6:7; 11:19; Ps. 78:4-8; Prov. 22:6; Eph. 6:8.

A. C. SPICER.

East Aurora, N. Y., June 2, 1878.