Selling Our Children?
When Jacob was making plans to go back to his homeland, he told Rachel and Leah how Laban had treated him by making him work fourteen years of hard labor for them. They likewise complained of Laban’s treatment of them saying, “Are we not counted of him strangers? for he hath sold us, and hath quite devoured also our money” (Genesis 31:15). As Laban had sold his children: Rachel and Leah, so we may sell our children. Now, while I am sure that most parents would not sell their children into marriage for money as Laban did, yet many parents are selling their children into a bondage that is far worse.
Are you selling your children?
PARENTS MAY SELL THEIR CHILDREN INTO THE BONDAGE OF IGNORANCE
The Bible says that parents are to bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). Parents may sell their children into ignorance by neglecting to obey this teaching. Jesus said, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Therefore, knowledge of the Bible brings freedom, but ignorance leaves one in the bondage of sin. Now in addition, parents may also sell their children into the bondage of ignorance by failing to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the church for the children to learn the Bible. Parents who do not come to the Bible classes and bring their children, are selling their children into the bondage of ignorance. And far too often Bible class is being replaced by playtime or entertainment. Yet, have we ever wandered when the Lord said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children” (Hosea 4:6)? God could not bless their children in ignorance and neither can children today who are in ignorance. Sadly, they would be without God’s blessing because their parents had left them without a knowledge of God.
PARENTS MAY SELL THEIR CHILDREN INTO RELIGIOUS ERROR
Parents may sell their children into error by believing error. Children usually follow in the steps of their parents and I have heard on many occasions a child or adult who said, “This is the way my granddaddy believed it, this is what my father believed, and this is what I believe and I am not going to change despite what is shown to me in the Bible.” It is terrible to say that many times a child has refused to accept the truth when pointed out to him because it was not what his parents believed. How careful parents ought to be about what they believe, for the chances are that if they believe error, they will sell their children into a life of error and finally they will sell them into eternal condemnation. In addition, parents may also sell their children into error by failing to teach them to investigate every doctrine and do their own thinking. They should teach them to find out for themselves what the Bible teaches. They should impress on their children that all men, including parents, are fallible, but the Bible is divine and unerring. This is the best way to keep from selling children into error.
PARENTS MAY SELL THEIR CHILDREN INTO INFIDELITY
Many parents are selling their children into infidelity by refusing to see the need of Christian education and sacrifice to provide their children with it. There are so many who claim Jesus, but are disobedient and unfaithful to Him. When children are subjected to the influence of state schools, and particularly state colleges, many of them lose their faith and plenty have gone so far as to become atheists and blindly believe whatever they are told by others. Parents that sends their child to a state school and thereby destroys his faith in so doing because they were never grounded in the Truth and in faithfulness to God in the first place, has just as certainly sold his children into infidelity as if he had personally taught him there is no God!
PARENTS MAY SELL THEIR CHILDREN INTO A LIFE OF SIN
Parents who never think about their own soul, but live only for this life, are selling their own children into sin. It was written, “And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did David his father” (1 Kings 15:11). Asa’s mother is mentioned in the proceeding verse and the implication is that Asa did right because of the influence of his mother. However, the example of Zachariah is written in 2 Kings 15:9 where it says, “And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his fathers had done: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin” (2 Kings 15:9). Jeroboam sinned and sold his son into sin in so doing. Many parents have spent a great part of their lives in sin and finally saw that it did not pay, turned from it, only to find that they could not lead their own children out of sin. Lot was one such individual who sold his family when he went into Sodom and when he pleaded with his son-in-laws. The Bible says, “Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law” (Genesis 19:14).
PARENTS MAY SELL THEIR CHILDREN INTO A SHIPWRECKED HOME
One out of every four marriages end in divorce today. This means that at least 2,280,000 people every year are devastated by divorce which does not include the children who are caught in the middle. This means a shipwrecked home. Children have been sold into the ideas of having sex before marriage by schools, friends, and television. In addition, they are taught to marry whomever you choose and if you do not like that person, no big deal, you can divorce for any reason. Parents are selling their children into a shipwrecked home and lifestyle by failing to teach them the sacredness of marriage, by failing to teach children that there should be a “lock” in wedlock, by failing to teach children the importance of marrying a Christian.
OUR CHILDREN ARE OUR GREATEST HERITAGE. LET US NOT SELL THEM.