Train Up A Child Prov. 22:6 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

To train up a child is all important – the Bible says that you have to TRAIN them – not just discipline them or punish them – and it says that you have to train them in the way that they SHOULD go – not in the way that they should NOT go – they know the way they should not go – this involves TRAINING like dog training and coaching athletes.

You can’t leave the job to someone else – the church and the home are on one side and the world is on the other – you and the church are going to train the children the same way and the world is going to train them in a contrary way.

On a good note, the world can train them how to make a living – but it won’t be able to train them how to live nor will it be very good at training them on what to do with that living.

The world can train them to fight in the military – to defend themselves – and there is some good training in the field of battle – character can be built out there – but there is a lot of trouble in the military, too – lots of immorality – lots of people with authority that abuse that authority – lots of people with responsibility who are afraid to exercise that responsibility with good sense and so many bad decisions are made – on the larger scale there are problems with the media and politicians.

The world can train them to compete in team sports where they have to be disciplined and work hard together to win – that’s good – but then there are draw backs here too – lots of egos and drugs and immorality at higher levels.

And so on – but that’s the limit of the world on the good side – the world can also train them to be very wicked – godless, selfish, pleasure seeker, disobedient to parents, fornicator, addict, thief, liar, cheat, and so forth – all of these things go on in the world.

If the children are going to grow up with moral courage, faith, purity, virtue, godliness, humility, love of God and his words, conviction, steadfastness, desire to help others, selflessness, wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and so forth, you are going to have to train them – these things are not instinctive and they do not come naturally – the instinctive things that they are exposed to in the world do not need any training they come equipped with all of that stuff.

You train them in the words of God – one hour of Sunday school isn’t enough – you are going to have to train them in these things because no one else will – their friends are going to introduce them to drugs, sex, rock music, pornography, internet games, cursing, smoking, rebellion, and every other kind of thing imaginable and unimaginable – the only place left for them to learn RIGHT and GOOD instead of WRONG and EVIL is with you – the world makes right (the Bible, ten commandments) as wrong and makes wrong (abortion and homosexuality) as right – the world makes witnessing as evil (hate speech) and blasphemy as GOOD (it sells in Hollywood) –

You train them by:

• Setting up a time to train each day (hard to do) – What the Bible says about different things – How to make and keep personal convictions – How to stand when everyone else is bowing – How to witness, pray, study the Bible
• Giving them a good example to follow – 1 Tim 4:12
• Getting them in a good Bible believing church
• Exposing them to good friends and weeding out the bad ones
• Giving them responsibility and holding them accountable
• Being trustworthy and expecting them to be trustworthy, too
• Loving them so they’ll know how to love and know that they are loved