Hell or Parental Responsibility

What does God say to a little fellow growing up in a home? He says, “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord” (Col. 3:20). But wait a minute—what if his parents don’t tell him to do the right things and don’t bring him up the way they should?

There are many parents like that today. God says, “I am going to hold them responsible. They are in My place. They occupy that position because I have said to that little boy, ‘My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother’” (Prov. 1:8).

God help the father or the mother who does not lead their child in a godly pathway. Someone has asked the question, “What is worse than going to hell?” The answer given by a great preacher in the South years ago was this: “To go to hell and recognize the voice of your son and ask, ‘Son, what are you doing here?’ and hear him answer, ‘Dad, I followed you!’”[1]

[1]J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible commentary [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, c1981 by J. Vernon McGee.

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