Fathers, What Are you Teaching Your Children?

(Click for English / Chinese bilingual version 中英版這裡)

I do try to give my own thoughts on things, not just re-post the news I've been reading.

This event: Who Protected Epstein for Decades, and Why? and this earlier event: The Truth Dies In Darkness see also Belgium's silent heart of darkness , sparked this article.

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Some people say, “How could there be a God that allows bad things to happen to little children?” Other people say, “How could there be a God that puts people in hell for all eternity?”

Some people say, "How can a loving God not step in?" but then castigate him when he does step in.

God cares about everything that happens to children. Jesus said:

“... but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes! (Matthew 18:6‭-‬7 NASB)

Some people say, “What about the Buddhist or atheist Mother Theresas? What if Mother Theresa had a twin as selfless and sacrificial as herself, but the twin was Buddhist or atheist. How can God put her in an eternal hell along with the child molesters just because she is not a christian?”

A Buddhist or atheist Mother Theresa is saying, “I am going to do this good deed because I am the one who decides what is good and evil, and not my Maker. And if I decide that something is good that the Maker considers evil, that will I do.” Therefore, the good that the atheist Mother Theresa decides on will only arbitrarily and accidentally coincide with what God considers good.

She herself is not a child molester, but every time she tells someone they can decide what is right and wrong apart from God, she opens up the pathway to child molesting. And that is why God sees her, if not as culpable, still as an inexcusable accomplice, inasmuch as she set aside God's right to set the standard.

Only God can set the standard of right and wrong, because all men are equal. I can not set the standard for you and you can not set the standard for me.

I cannot set the standard for you even if I persuade 99% of mankind to agree with me. What if I persuaded everyone to take up cannibalism, or ritual pedophilia (like India's temple child prostitution), would that make it right?

But how can you tell me I am wrong, if all men are equal?

So there is no way to appeal to right and wrong unless it comes from something outside of man, something that is higher than our individual opinions.

Everything in the universe is morally equal to everything else in the universe ... unless ... the Creator of the universe exists, then he would be higher.

If God exists, and he gave us an objective standard, along with PROOF that he gave us that objective standard...

“God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30‭-‬31)

Then... I can say, “Pedophilia is wrong.”

And you say, “Who says?”

And I say, “God says.The God who said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. The God who says that you will be excluded eternally from his presence (libertarian freedom of association), in what will feel like a lake of fire and brimstone to you in an eternal hell of outer darkness. So yes, you're not a robot, but neither is God. You can choose to not follow his standard, but he also can choose to completely withdraw his presence from you in the day of judgment, if you don't choose to walk in the light as he sees it.”

If you reject the right of God to set the standard, you essentially reject all appeal to right and wrong, because no one can decide for another what is right and wrong.

So back to our original premise: The Buddhist or atheist Mother Theresa herself is not a child molester, but every time she tells someone they can decide what is right and wrong apart from God, she opens up the pathway to child molesting. And that is why God sees her, if not the main perpetrator, still as an inexcusable accomplice, inasmuch as she set aside God's right to set the standard.

The Buddhist or atheist Mother Theresa did not choose to molest children with her repudiation of God's authority to set the standard … but others will … others will certainly so use this freedom. She has sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind.

...Because they have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law....With their silver and gold they have made idols for themselves, that they might be cut off... For they sow the wind and they reap the whirlwind.... (Hosea 8:1‭-‬5‭, ‬7)

I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts...(Isaiah 65:2)

I know, O Lord, that a man’s way is not in himself, nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps. (Jeremiah 10:23 NASB)

And you, gentle reader. Perhaps you are otherwise a good father to your kids, but you never told them about their Heavenly Father, and God's right to set the standard, and how he expects them to learn that standard and follow in his steps, if he is to be able to welcome them into his presence on the day of judgment.

Have you allowed your children to grow up assuming they can know what is good on their own, when in reality a person's sense of right and wrong is to a great extent an accident of upbringing:

Cannibal children grow up thinking cannibalism is the order of life, North Korean children grow up thinking whatever North Korea wants them to think, children of alcoholics often grow up to be alcoholics, children of idol worshippers, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, Catholics, and other denominations often grow up to be whatever their parents were.

So you, oh gentle father, may be allowing your children to grow up like an atheist Mother Theresa, with their sense of right and wrong eroding from generation to generation under the winds of change, until your grandchild or great-grandchild becomes a moral Frankenstein in God's sight, one of those who destroy the earth and its children in a great way instead of the usual small and insidious ways.

If that happens, will not God hold the great-grandfather partially responsible who knew God's standard but chose not to lead his children in the Way?

God, the father of fathers, expects all earthly fathers to pass on his standard and the knowledge of him to their children, to the next generation.

“You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.” (Deuteronomy 6:7 NASB)

For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” (Genesis 18:19 NASB)

If one of your great-grandchildren becomes a child molester, will not God hold you partially responsible, who chose not to read God's Word to your children from the cradle?

“For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!”

As a father you can many times make or break your child's relationship with God, because how your child experiences his earthly father, will color how he sees his Heavenly Father.

You represent God to your children, before they are able to come into their own relationship with him.

And if up to now you didn't realize the consequences of neglecting God's standard, yet you have cultivated a good relationship with your children, then you still have something that is very precious in the sight of God, and on which you can build a different future for your family.

We were born into this world in order to leave it and meet our God. Have you told your children about their Heavenly Father? Do you patiently teach them to follow him? Are you preparing them to meet their God?

Have you thought what it must feel like for God to see each baby born pure and innocent and then watch the outside world gradually darken their minds? Are you a part of the darkening or the lightening? How many times has he had to watch that with every human born since the beginning of the world? His longsuffering and lovingkindness must be vast. And how dear to him must be those who hold fast to what is good.

Related posts you might be interested in:

Does God Have to Obey a Higher Law?