Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Are Parents to Blame for Prodigals?

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Are Parents to Blame for Prodigals? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Welcome to a new week on the podcast. This week, in our Navigator's
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  Bible Reading Plan together, we start our May readings month number five is upon
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  us, and that means that we begin the new month in the first four
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  chapters of fors Samuel reading the story of a dad named Eli and his worthless
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  sons. That's the Bible's language, and for Samuel two twelve, it says,
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  now the sons of Eli were worthless men. Brutal assessment right from the
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  start of the story, one that continues in Fir Samuel to twelve to verse
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  thirty six, and then picks up in chapter four, verses twelve to twenty
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  two. With such a heavy story on the docket, we start this week
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  talking about parenting because clearly there's a link between our parenting and our children.
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  Right failed child, failed parent. Well, such a link never tells the
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  whole story of parenting, as we're going to hear today, as we look
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  at the parenting assurances that we read about in the Book of Proverbs. All
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  this came up in a twenty fifteen apj I want to reshare with you today,
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  and the question was from a new mom named Brenda. She asked this
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  quote Pastor John, I have a twenty two month old daughter, and I
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  am already teaching her about Jesus and sharing my faith with her. However,
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  recently, I've heard about many adult children who grew up in a strong Christian
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  home, some who even had parents who were leaders in the church, who
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  eventually left the faith as adults. This has become my biggest fear for my
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  own daughter. Can you explain the verse Proverbs twenty two to six and give
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  me some practical ways I can help my daughter have a true, authentic relationship
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  with Jesus, one that she will not abandon later on. I wish I
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  knew more about this than I do, even after forty three years of parenting
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  five children. But I want to base everything I say as much as possible
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  on the Bible and not just on my personal limitations. So we'll try to
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  say something. Let's talk about Proverbs twenty two six first, and then maybe
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  that latter part of the question, what can you do to maximize the likelihood
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  that your child will follow the Lord? A proverb twenty two six says train
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  up a child and the way he should go even when he is old,
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  he will not depart from it, and The problem we all feel is that
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  the promised half of that verse he will not depart from. It seems so
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  absolute that every time a grown up child of a Christian family departs from the
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  way of wisdom or the way of faith in Jesus, we must conclude that
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  this is owing to a failure of the parents to obey the first half of
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  the verse, namely to train him up properly. And that's a pretty heavy
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  burden to bear for most parents. But if that's what the means, then
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  we should be willing to bear it. There are passages in the Bible.
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  I mean, before I say what I think that promise actually means, there
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  are passages in the Bible where the disobedience of children as adults departing from the
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  faith and making a shipwreck of their lives. There are passages in the Bible
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  that are traced back to the failures of fathers. For example, at of
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  Niger, David's son David man after God's own heart first kings one to five
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  Ada Niga exalted himself, saying I will be king, and he prepared for
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  himself chariots and horsemen. His father had never at any time displeased him by
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  asking why have you done thus or so? Now, that is a very
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  intentional criticism of David. His father had never taken the time to say,
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  don't do that because he didn't want to please ad Nija. And clearly this
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  biblical writer is chalking up the rebelliousness of ad Nija against his own dad for
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  the failure of his father to rebuke him. So there it is. I
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  mean, we do err and our errors have terrible consequences. Here's another example.
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  The sons of Eli, the priest, a prophet came to Eli and
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  said, why do you scorn my sacrifices and my offerings that I commanded for
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  my dwelling, and honor your sons above me by fattening yourselves on the choicest
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  parts of every offering of my people. Israel Wow. Eli, when he
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  died because his sons had been killed by God for their disobedience, fell over
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  backwards and broke his neck because he was fat. And it says he got
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  fat because he honored his sons above God. Because his sons were pulling out
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  the choicest parts of the sacrifices to eat, and their dad loved the food
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  so much he wouldn't criticize his kids. Oh, he criticized their fornication in
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  the temple, but they kept their jobs and they kept misusing the sacrifices.
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  And what this shows is that a dad can be very selective in his discipline
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  and his criticism of his children. And clearly the prophet here wants to criticize
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  Eli for honoring his sons above God by failing to reprimand them in the way
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  they were handling the sacrifice. So the point there is simply not to blow
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  off Proverbs twenty two to six as though there were no correlation between the way
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  you bring up your children and what becomes of them. And I know,
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  I mean, I'm a dad, for goodness takes. I know this is
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  a huge weight to bear for all of us when our kids don't do things
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  we think they should do, or do things we think they shouldn't do,
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  to look back and say could I have done better? And the answer is
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  almost always yes. But having said all that, I doubt that second half
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  of Proverbs twenty two six, even when he is old, he will not
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  depart from it. I doubt that the writer of Proverbs intends for us to
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  take that as an absolute promise with no exceptions. And I've got three reasons
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  for why I don't think that means is a fool proof process that if you
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  bring up your child in a godly way, he will never depart from the
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  faith. Number one, when you read the history of the kings of Israel,
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  a good and faithful king is sometimes followed by a bad son, and
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  a bad king is sometimes followed by a good son. And there doesn't seem
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  to be any effort on the part of the inspired writer to say faithful fathers
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  have faithful sons and unfaithful fathers have unfaithful sons. It doesn't seem to be
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  any effort to do that. The writer seems to be okay pointing out that
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  this godly king is going to have an ungodly son, and vice versa.
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  Number two, the only perfect father who ever was, had a son who
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  went astray. Israel is God's son and was rebellious almost its entire existence in
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  spite of all God's fatherly ways with his child. So here's an example,
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  Hoseiah eleven to one. When Israel was a child, I loved him.
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  God is talking. When Israel was a child, I loved him, and
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  out of Egypt I called my son, and the more they were called,
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  the more they went astray. This is God, God, the perfect Father,
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  pleading with his son. What does he get for it? A life
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  time? I mean a history time, The whole history of Israel, the
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  whole history of the Old Testament is this son is rebellious. So that's number
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  two, and number three I think gets the most important contextually. Proverbs twenty
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  two to six is a proverb, and proverbs, by their very nature are
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  generalizations about the way life usually is, rather than promises about the way it
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  will have to be all the time. So, for example, I mean,
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  just you just read through the proverbs and you'll see this. For example,
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  in twenty two twenty nine, it says, do you see a man
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  skillful in his work? He will stand before kings? Well, really,
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  are are we going to force the writer to mean that every carpenter, every
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  stonecutter in Israel does his job well, is gonna get a chance to go
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  to the palace and stand before the king. That's surely not the way we
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  should take the proverb and many others. The point of the proverb is to
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  make the generalization that excellence in our work generally gets recognized by discerning people and
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  leads to great benefits. Something like that. And the clearest example of how
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  proverbs work is, of course everybody knows this, who studied this? Proverbs
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  twenty six four and twenty sixty five. Proverbs twenty six four says, answer
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  not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.
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  Verse five. The next verse is, answer a fool according to his folly,
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  lest tb wise in his own eyes. What that does is reveal the
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  nature of proverbs. Haste makes waste, a stitch in time saves nine?
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  Those are opposites, right, haste makes Is that a true proverb? Yes?
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  A stitch in time saves nine? Is that a true proverbs? Yes?
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  Well they command opposite things, yes, which which is why Proverbs twenty
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  sixty nine says this, like a thorn that goes up into the hand of
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  a drunkard, is a proverb in the mouth of fools. In other words,
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  you can use proverbs to put thorns through people. You have to be
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  wise to even know what to do with a proverb. You can't. You
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  can't just take proverbs and assume that they're self explanatory. It takes wisdom to
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  know you know a word. What like apples of gold in a setting of
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  silver, is a word fitly spoken. You have to get to know the
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  time and the place to use a proverb. So for those three reasons,
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  I don't think that Brenda should bear the horrific weight of thinking that if he
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  could just do it exactly right, it guarantees that her twenty two month old
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  daughter when she's twenty two years old, will be a solid believer. She
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  cannot bear that burden. So here's what I want to say to her,
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  just a few things. One, in general, bringing up children God's way
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  will lead them to eternal life. In general, I think that's true.
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  Number two, This would include putting our hope in God and praying earnestly for
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  our wisdom and for their salvation all the way to the grave. Just pray
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  until they could get converted. At six, that's not very smart. Pray
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  all the way to the grave for your children's conversions and for the perseverance of
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  their apparent conversions. Number three, saturate them with the word of God.
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  Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Number four,
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  be radically consistent and authentic in your own face, not just in behavior,
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  but in affections. The kids need to see how precious Jesus is to mom
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  and dad, not just how he's obeyed or how they get to church,
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  or how they redevotions or how they do duty duty duty. They need to
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  see the joy and the satisfaction in mom and Dad's heart that Jesus is the
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  greatest friend in the world. Number five modeling the preciousness of the Gospel.
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  As we parents confess our own sins and depend on grace, and kids see,
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  oh, you don't have to be perfect. Mom and Dad aren't perfect.
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  They love grace, They love the Gospel because Jesus forgives their sins is
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  and I'll know then he could forgive my sins. Number six. Being part
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  of a Bible saturated loving church. Kids need to be surrounded by other believers
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  and not just mom and dad. Number seven requiring obedience, not being There's
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  so many young parents today that strike me as being so lazy. They're not
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  willing to get up and do what needs to be done to bring this kid
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  into line. So we should follow through on our punishments and follow through especially
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  on all of our promises of good things that we say we're going to do
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  for them. Number eight, God saves children out of failed and unbelieving parenting.
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  God is sovereign. It isn't us findly who saves our kids. God
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  saves kids, and there would hardly be any kids in the world if He
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  didn't save kids out of failed families. Number number nine. Rest in the
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  sovereignty of God over your children. We cannot bear the weight of their eternity
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  as God's business, and we must roll all of that onto him. Careful
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  balanced reflections here from Pastor John back in twenty fifteen, and that very first
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  point he made a bat the history of the Kings of Israel and their sons.
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  That point reminds me of one of my favorite episodes ever in the podcast
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  is ABJ sixteen twelve Hope for Children from Dysfunctional Families. If you come from
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  a broken home and you wonder if that limits you your potential or the potential
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  of your own children, see that episode in the archive. It's generated a
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  lot of compelling thank you emails over the year, so I know many of
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  you out there have listened and benefited from that episode uniquely. ABJA sixteen twelve
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  Hope for Children from Dysfunctional Families incredible, incredible episode available right now at askpastor
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  John dot com. ABJ sixteen twelve. I'm your host, Tony Ranky.
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  Pastor John is back in the studio with us on Thursday. We'll see you then