Scripture
> Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation.
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> — Joel 1:3 (ESV)
Devotional
In this simple way, by God’s grace, a living testimony for truth is always to be kept alive in the land—the beloved of the Lord are to hand down their witness for the gospel, and the covenant to their heirs, and these again to their next descendants. This is our first duty, we are to begin at the family hearth: he is a bad preacher who does not commence his ministry at home. The heathen are to be sought by all means, and the highways and hedges are to be searched, but home has a prior claim, and woe unto those who reverse the order of the Lord’s arrangements. To teach our children is a personal duty; we cannot delegate it to Sunday school teachers, or other friendly aids; these can assist us, but cannot deliver us from the sacred obligation; proxies and sponsors are wicked devices in this case: mothers and fathers must, like Abraham, command their households in the fear of God, and talk with their offspring concerning the wondrous works of the Most High. Parental teaching is a natural duty—who so fit to look to the child’s well-being as those who are the authors of his actual being? To neglect the instruction of our offspring is worse than brutish. Family religion is necessary for the nation, for the family itself, and for the church of God. By a thousand plots Popery is covertly advancing in our land, and one of the most effectual means for resisting its inroads is left almost neglected, namely, the instruction of children in the faith. Would that parents would awaken to a sense of the importance of this matter. It is a pleasant duty to talk of Jesus to our sons and daughters, and the more so because it has often proved to be an accepted work, for God has saved the children through the parents’ prayers and admonitions. May every house into which this volume shall come honour the Lord and receive his smile.
Reflection
Spurgeon presses the personal duty of parents to teach their children the things of God. This is not to be delegated; it is a sacred obligation that begins at the family hearth. Family religion is essential for the church, the nation, and the preservation of the testimony of truth from generation to generation.
What we might miss is that this is not merely a good idea but a divine arrangement that we reverse at our peril.
Goad
Are you faithfully teaching your children (or the next generation) the wondrous works of the Lord, or have you left it to others or neglected it altogether? What would it look like in your home to make the instruction of the next generation in the faith a daily, joyful priority?
Tie-In
The morning calls us to seek a settled, established character that suffering helps to produce. The evening calls us to pass on the faith to the next generation so that the testimony continues. Both emphasize legacy and endurance: the established believer is prepared to endure, and the faithful parent ensures that the next generation is equipped to endure as well. The same Lord who uses suffering to establish us also commands us to tell our children of His works so that they too may be established in the faith.
Closing
Spurgeon’s classic text with AI-assisted reflection and formatting to maintain daily consistency and reach.
If these words have stirred something in your heart today, we invite you to sit with it. Share how God met you in the comments or reach out to us.
As we build out the deeper tables of Milk, Solid Food, and Meat for every stage of the journey, know that you are welcome here.
NewGrapes Ministries
Making disciples, not pew-fillers.
Soli Deo Gloria.