The Solemn Responsibility of Parents To Their Unsaved Children, part 2

Christian parents bear a solemn, non-negotiable duty before the living God toward the souls of their children. Scripture leaves no room for sentimental blindness or soft silence. Every child enters this world already corrupted by original sin, totally depraved, and under the just wrath of God. "All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath" (Ephesians 2:3). They are not blank slates or innocent lambs awaiting a gentle introduction to religion. They are, by nature, young vipers with a malignant heart—incapable at first of many outward acts of vice, yet fully possessed of the corrupt nature that will damn them forever unless God intervenes in sovereign mercy!

The doctrines of original sin and total depravity demand that parents deal plainly. David confessed he was brought forth in iniquity (Psalm 51:5). Paul declares that there is none righteous, none who seeks God (Romans 3:10-12). Jesus Himself insists, “You must be born again” (John 3:7). No amount of covenant nurture, baptismal water, or parental affection can substitute for the new birth. Children must come to personal repentance and faith. If they die without it, they will not go to heaven; they will go to hell.

Hearing and believing the gospel message is indispensable. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ (Romans 10:17). The gospel is exclusively the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16). There is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). Parents who conceal the terror of the Lord, who mute the warnings of eternal burnings, or who substitute vague moralism for the demand of repentance and faith, are not loving their children--they are cruelly exposing them to everlasting ruin!

Why should we hide the truth from our children? Will children who lived and died insensible of their misery, only to awaken in hell, ever thank us for our “tenderness”? True parental love is not blind. It ought to distress us, to see our children every day dangling over eternal fire! A mortal wound requires the painful lance. Foolish pity that withholds the lance, and throws away the life.

Therefore, fathers and mothers must open their mouths. Teach your children what the Word of God says about them in their unsaved state. Show them their inability and guilt. Hold forth Christ crucified as the only Mediator. Call them—repeatedly, urgently, tenderly yet without sparing—to repent and believe the gospel. Do it at the breakfast table, at bedtime, in discipline, in worship, and in casual conversation. Refuse the world’s lie that childhood is a spiritually neutral playground. Refuse the church’s temptation to entertain rather than evangelize. The same God who commands you to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4) will hold you accountable for your silence.

This is not harshness; it is the purest compassion. The God who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for sinners, delights to save children when sincerely they repent and believe. Yet He saves only through the gospel you are charged to proclaim. Parents, awaken! Your little ones are children of wrath by nature. Spare them not the truth that alone can make them children of God by grace.
(The above was AI generated.)