COMMENTS BY MARTIN LUTHER ON THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE NEGLECT OF DUTY TO PROVIDE GODLY INSTRUCTION FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.

“Consider, for example, what a great effort King Solomon made in this matter; so deeply was he concerned for the young that in the midst of his royal duties he wrote for them a book called Proverbs. Consider Christ Himself, how He draws little children to Him, how urgently in Matthew 18 He commends them to us and praises the angels who wait upon them, in order to show us how great a service it is when we train the young properly. On the other hand, how terrible is His wrath when we offend them and suffer them to perish! “

“Above all, the foremost reading for everybody, both in the universities and in the schools, should be Holy Scripture—and for the younger boys, the Gospels. Oh, we handle those poor young people who are committed to us for training and instruction in the wrong way! We shall have to render a solemn account of our neglect to set the Word of God before them. Their lot is as described by Jeremiah in Lamentations 2, ‘mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.’ We do not see this pitiful evil, how today the young people of Christendom languish and perish miserably in our midst for want of the gospel, in which we ought to be giving them constant instruction and training.”

“He has not given you your children and the means to support them simply so that you may do with them as you please, or train them just to get ahead in the world. You have been earnestly commanded to raise them for God’s service, or be completely rooted out—you, your children, and everything else, in which case everything you have done for them is condemned, as the first commandment says, “I visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” This will happen so that you may learn that your children are not so wholly yours that you need give nothing of them to God. He too will have what is rightfully His—and are more His than yours!”

“No one nowadays is bringing up his children in the knowledge of good literature, much less of sacred literature, but only in ways of making a living.”

“It displeases the Lord very much that they bring up their children, not in the fear of God, but in idolatry and in ignorance of God.”

“Suppose God were to address you on your deathbed, or at the Last Judgment, and say, ‘I was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, imprisoned, and you rendered Me no service. For in that you have not done it to people on earth and to My kingdom or gospel, but have helped put them down and allowed men’s souls to perish, you have done this to Me. For you could have helped. I gave you children and material means for this purpose, but you wantonly allowed Me and My kingdom and the souls of men to suffer want and pine away—and you thereby served the devil and his kingdom instead of Me and My kingdom. Well, let him be your reward. Go with him now into the abyss of hell. You have not helped to build, but to weaken and destroy My kingdom in heaven and on earth; but you have helped the devil to build and increase his hell. Live therefore in the house that you have built!’ How do you think you will stand then? You will not be tainted by little drops of sin, but inundated by whole cloudbursts of it—you who now give no heed, but just go nonchalantly along as if you were doing well in keeping your child from a Christian education. But then you will have to say that you are justly condemned to the abyss of hell as one of the most odious and vile men who ever lived. In a word, if we cannot adequately denounce the devil, neither can we adequately denounce these people who hinder the work and office of God, for they are the devil’s servants.”

GRAND RAPIDS NETHERLANDS REFORMED CHRISTIAN HIGH SCHOOL

We are taking applications for a high school principal-teacher position for the 1982-83 school year. This year we have added the 10th grade and next year, D.V. we hope to add the 11th when we move the high school to a separate building. Please send all applications to the board president, Gordon Deur, 3000 New Holland Street, Hudsonville, Michigan 49426 Telephone: 616/669-1992.

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