Regardless of the particular sins we may see manifested in our children, one fact applies to all: to sin is their nature, and the only cure is the gospel. Rick Holland offers this needed reminder:
Parenting is a multi-level maze of challenges to navigate and sins to mortify—both in parents and in children. The concerns of parenting are as numerous as the number of children. Dealing with the depraved infection natural to our children’s souls on the septic morality of our culture is far beyond the intuitive abilities of loving parents. Sin’s pulverizing destruction comes from both the outside—culture’s moral chaos—and from the inside—the soul’s pervasive sinfulness.
Parenting can be wrongly interpreted as a process of keeping our children good and pure. The truth is that every child is born sinful. The goal is not to keep children from becoming messed up by sin; instead it is to see their inborn sin covered by the gospel. As a friend of mine puts it, “parents can’t mess up their children; they come that way as a result of Adam’s fall.” —Richard L. Holland, “Christian Parenting and Homosexuality,” The Master’s Seminary Journal (Fall 2008): 218.
Imagine a World . . .
It is difficult to look at our culture today without being overwhelmed by the moral decay we see all around us. Conditions are worse, it seems, than they have ever been before. But the world in which Jesus and the apostles lived was every bit as bad, and the gospel they preached still has the same power to saved souls and transformed lives that it had two thousand years ago.
Imagine a world in which in which sexual immorality is promoted, available, and accessible, a world in which adultery in common, prostitution legal, drunkenness normal, and theft a constant threat, a world in which most children rebel against their parents and fornication and incest are rampant, God is openly hated, the justice system rarely works for the innocent, and Christianity is illegal. Imagine a world in which homosexuality is out of the closet, is publicly recognized, and enjoys promotion and protection from the government. This is not an imaginary world, nor is it a glimpse into the future. It is a description of the world of the NT. Jesus lived in this world and the gospel was cradled in this kind of society. It is at this point that Solomon should be heard: “there is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl 1:9). Homosexuality has not taken God by surprise, but God’s nature is to take homosexuals by surprise with the saving truth of the gospel. —Richard L. Holland, “Christian Parenting and Homosexuality,” The Master’s Seminary Journal (Fall 2008), 230–231.
