Let parents be warned

Todays’s Daily Homily had this little paragraph which I feel is a strong message, yet a neccessity.

Let parents be warned. If your children disobey, and violate the rules of your home, you have no right to treat them as you did before, until they have owned their sin. You must insist on penitence, confession, and reparation, though it take hours or days or even weeks of suffering and pleading to bring it about.

It reminds me of an incident not too long ago shared to me. A father was requesting his son to mop the floor of the home. The son went into such a tantrum. The son went into the kitchen, came out with a chopper and chased the father out of the home.

Then I noticed the father who shared the same incident to me, how he can order, or request his son to do things around the home. Upbringing. He told me. Upbringing is important. Everything needs to start from young. If one tries to correct a child when he is old, sadly, that is not always possible. Always start from young.

With this, it reminds me of a verse in the bible.
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

May God help us as parents, to guide our children in the way of the Bible.

The full context of today’s Homily Reading below.

Our Daily Homily By F.B. Meyer

2 Samuel 14:14

“For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.”

THE means that David devised were really inadequate. He allowed his heart to dictate to his royal sense of justice and rectitude, and permitted Absalom to return to his country and home without one word of confession, one symptom of penitence. The king was overmastered by the father; and the result was disastrous. It shook the respect of his people, undermined the foundations of just government, slackened the bands of every family in the land, and confirmed Absalom in his wilful and obstinate career. “What!” said he to himself, “does my father bid me come back without conditions? Does he demand no confession or reparation? Then he condones my sin.”

Let parents be warned. If your children disobey, and violate the rules of your home, you have no right to treat them as you did before, until they have owned their sin. You must insist on penitence, confession, and reparation, though it take hours or days or even weeks of suffering and pleading to bring it about.

Into what relief does David’s mistake throw God’s way of forgiveness and salvation! Had he acted as David, and as so many wish us to believe, He would have reinstated the human family in the Paradise of his love without waiting for the work of the Mediator, or the confession of the prodigal. By the arbitrary exercise of his sovereign will He might have wiped out the record of our sins without our concurrence. But it would have been to the irreparable undoing of man. Hence it behoved Christ to suffer, by his blood making an atonement for our sins, and by his Spirit bringing us to penitence and confession.

Sin and Folly in God

Our Daily Homily By F.B. Meyer 

1 Samuel 26:21 

“Then said Saul, I have sinned: return, my son David: for I will no more do thee harm, because my soul was precious in thine eyes this day: behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.” 

THE Apostle makes a great distinction, and rightly, between the sorrow of the world and the sorrow of a godly repentance which needeth not to be repented of. Certainly Saul’s confession of sin belonged to the former; whilst the cry of the latter comes out in Psalm 51, extorted from David by the crimes of after years. 

The difference between the two may be briefly summarized in this, that the one counts sin a folly and regrets its consequences; whilst the other regards sin as a crime done against the most Holy God, and regrets the pain given to Him. “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.” Obviously Saul’s confession was of the former description, “I have played the fool.” He recognised the unkingliness of his behaviour, and the futility of his efforts against David. But he stayed there, stopping short of a faithful recognition of his position in the sight of God, as weighed in the balances of eternal justice. 

Many a time in Scripture do we meet with this confession. The prodigal son, Judas, Pharaoh, David, and Saul, uttered it; but in what differing tones, and with what differing motives! We need to winnow our words before God; not content with using the expressions of penitence, unless we are very sure that they bear the mint mark of heaven, and deserve the master’s Beatitude, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” 

When sin is humbly confessed, the Saviour assures us: “Thy sins, which are many, are forgiven thee, go in peace.” “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

Homily – Overcoming Temptation.

I like todays text.

 

Our Daily Homily By F.B.

Meyer Judges 14:14

“And he said unto them, Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. And they could not in three days expound the riddle.”

YOUNG lions roar at the saints. The lion of hell gives them no little trouble. Though he may not come upon the path of holiness — for no lion shall be there — yet he comes very near it. “He goeth about like a roaring lion.” Temptation may well be compared to the attack on Samson by the young lion of Timnath. The lion’s carcass, lying where Samson had rent and cast it, became the home of honey-bees. And as the hero went back to look at it in after-days, he obtained meat and sweetness. How apt the parable! Every conquered temptation yields these two things — strength and sweetness. We are more than conquerors, not only vanquishing the foe, but dividing the spoils of victory. It yields strength. — Each time we overcome sin, the strength of the temptation passes into our hearts; as the Indian warrior supposes that the might of each warrior whom he levels to the dust, enters into himself. To resist impatience, makes us more patient in proportion to the strength of the temptation we resist. “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him.” It gives sweetness. — There is a new gentleness to those who have been tempted; a humility, a modesty, a consciousness of the presence of God, through whom the victory has been secured; a new zest for the Word of God. How sweet are thy words to my taste! Sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. The life that is hid with Christ in God is full of sweetness and gentleness. “The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness.”

Our Daily Homily – April 5

Our Daily Homily By F.B. Meyer Joshua 14:11 “As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in.” MEN sometimes lose heart as they grow old. They say: My intellect will become impaired, my physical strength will abate, my power for service will wane. Yes: but if the outward man decays, the inward man shall be renewed day by day. Those that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength: whether to war, to go out for service, or to come in for fellowship and rest. Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. He shall satisfy thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth shall be renewed as the eagle’s. God’s angels are always young. The drain of the years is amply met by the inflow of His all-sufficient grace. There is no reason why we should decline in usefulness and fruit-bearing with the increase of years; but the reverse. The last sheaves that fall beneath thy sickle shall be the heaviest; and the width of thy swathe shall be greatest as the angel of death touches thee and bids thee home. The secret lies in wholly following the Lord. But Caleb did not rely on his strength to win Hebron. Very modestly and humbly he said, “It may be that the Lord will be with me.” Not that he for a moment doubted it. Could it be for one moment supposed that the God whom he had wholly followed for eighty years would desert him in the supreme crisis of his life? But he put it thus in the sweet lowliness of his soul, because he counted not himself worthy. The strongest men are they who count that they are helpless as worms; and who put their weakness at the disposal of God’s might. To each of us comes the promise of God: “My grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”