PARENT  TEACHER’S  ASSOCIATION
Parental Unfaithfulness

 For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever.
(I Samuel 3:13,14)

These words are a part of the first revelation granted to the young prophet Samuel in the house of Eli the priest. The lad was directed by God to begin his eminent career by declaring God’s judgments against a particular sin which it appears was all too common then, and which is perhaps even more so today. The sin of neglecting the moral and religious education of children!

It was this sin that drew down the awful threats upon the house of Eli. (See I Samuel 2:22-36 below). This Eli was more than likely a good man in many respects. His concern for the things of God seem to be commensurate with his position as priest in Shiloh. His reaction to the Philistine’s capture of the Ark of the covenant proved that. Yet our text tells us that his house was judged “forever” because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. Now we must understand that in the first part of our quote above we are given the circumstances surrounding the condemnation, and then we are presented with the actual cause of the condemnation. The conduct of Hophni and Phinehas was certainly horrendous, and yet Eli is not judged so harshly only for the reason that his sons were vile, but because he did not restrain them.

We may be tempted to think of this failure as a small and very pardonable offense, and in the common thinking of our day it may be. But God thought and still thinks otherwise. Few failures among us are more destructive of individual, domestic, congregational and national tranquility than the sin brought to our attention here. In fact, if it were in our power to trace the source of the evils that infect society at all levels, we would find that most of them proceed from a neglect of moral and religious education of our children. A related article from the February 1999 Trumpeter titled “Ancestral Responsibility” may be of some interest if you have kept  your old issues. It is online at  http://svbc.org/trumpeter/archive/9902.htm

I will consider the sin of failure to restrain offspring under three points: (1) The nature of the sin. (2) The punishment on those guilty of it. (3) Why God is so provoked by it.

The nature of the sin:

his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.  It is not said that Eli was a bad example. I would insist that his example must be considered good. Nor is he accused of neglecting to admonish them. He did admonish them, reproving them in a solemn and apparently loving manner, warning them of the danger of continuing to pursue their pernicious ways. This compares favorably with and makes him less culpable than many parents at the present day.

But though he “admonished”, he did not “restrain”. He did not exercise the full authority delegated to him as a parent that required him to prevent them from indulging in their depraved inclinations. It is certainly within the power of parents to restrain their children in a very considerable degree if they employ the proper means. At least it is in their power to make the attempt at restraint, and to persevere in it so long as the children remain under the parental “roof”.

Please note that this is the only sin of which he is accused. And yet it was serious enough to bring guilt and misery not only upon himself and his sons, but ruin upon his posterity. Those who know, or should know that their children are beginning to practice evil vices and do not use all means to restrain and correct them, are guilty of the sin mentioned. A few occasional reproofs and admonitions will not free parents from this responsibility. They must “Restrain”. Restrain with a mild and prudent demeanor of course, but with a firm and steady hand. Restrain early whilst they may be formed to habits of submission, obedience and diligence. And, of utmost importance is the reality that even when adequate familial discipline has been achieved, it will not excuse those parents that neglect godly and spiritual instruction or who do not pray daily for the blessing of heaven upon the child’s endeavors. If we do not ask His blessing, do we have any reason to complain when it is withheld? Every parent that is not as careful about the moral as he is about the physical health of his child, or takes more care of the academic than the religious health is guilty of this sin .

The punishment for this sin:

The punishment for this sin, like most sin develops from the natural consequences of the very acts against which they are pronounced. Most of Eli’s posterity is going to  die early in life, and none of them will live to an old age. When young people are permitted to follow evil ways without restraint, they almost always fall into lifestyles that undermine their health and shorten their days upon the earth. God also declares that any of Eli’s children who are granted extended life will cause him nothing but grief and vexation of spirit, rather than the peace and comfort we all desire from our offspring. This kind of turmoil may be seen in the life of our dear friend David. Although in many respects King David was an eminently good man, he lacked much concerning proper rule over his children. Take Adonijah for instance the son of David by his wife Haggith. He ends up dead because he wanted to be king instead of his step brother Solomon. We are told in I Kings 1:6 that his father (David) had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so? and he also was a very goodly(handsome) man; and his mother bare him after Absalom. David does not want to displease him? Come on! And “Oh isn’t he cute?” a double Come on! And yet are we not likely to act this very same way towards our own children? How did David raise the other children? Earlier, another of his sons, Amnon, commits incestuous rape against his step sister Tamar. This leads to fratricide when Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, takes vengeance and brutally murders Amnon. The whole sordid episode is recorded in II Samuel 13. But we are not finished yet because Absalom afterwards rebels against David his father and is executed by Joab the general of David’s army. II Samuel 18:14 The grief this cause David is expressed in II Samuel 18:33b when he says; O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son! But God did not want David to die for Absalom; he wanted Absalom to live for the Lord. In a morbid sort of way Eli was probably better off than David because he was spared the extended humiliation and grief by his own rapid demise following the death of his sons.

Why God is so provoked by this sin:

The failure to bring up a child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord according to Eph. 6:4 frustrates the design of God in establishing the family unit. It renders His benevolent plan for our happiness null and void and precludes our usefulness as instruments of righteousness to God. Rom. 6:13.

We may say that failure to restrain our children is so displeasing to God because of the good, which it prevents, and the evil that it produces. The Bible teaches us that children properly trained up in the faith will most likely be good and happy both in this life and in the hereafter. At the very least let it not be the parents’ fault if they do not attain to what they should. We are also taught that children who are not educated in this same manner will probably be temporally deficient and, God forbid, possibly eternally miserable.

God has implanted in the hearts of parents a strong and tender affection for their own offspring, along with this strong desire for their happiness in order that they might be induced to work at their proper training. Those who neglect to restrain their children do violence to this powerful operative principle. In the end, such neglect may be said to brand the parent as being without natural affection, (Rom. 1:31, 2 Tim. 3:3) a condition that is condemned even among the heathen. The single Greek word rendered “without natural affection” in both of these verses is the same: ASTORGOS, and describes one that is hard-hearted towards kinfolk.

Exactly how you are to restrain and discipline your children is clearly presented in the Word of God. We will deal with that aspect of the subject in a future article. And even if you do everything right, there are times when external forces so influence our children that the result is taken out of our control. Such powerful influences are found in our schools and in some social friendships. But of one thing you may be sure; those in the world who are making the rules and establishing the procedures for raising your children have a whole different agenda and are totally against the God ordained way. But remember this also, they are not going to stand before God and give an answer for the destiny of your children … Your Are!

The task of being a parent teacher is awesome! It is only by the grace of God and with much prayer that any of us will succeed at all. May the Lord grant that grace and mercy to us in this day. Amen.

Hayden