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Articles
Will Your Children Go to Heaven?
Elders all over the nation are concerned about the dropout rate of our young people. And well they ought to be. It is a tragic thing to see these precious boys and girls, who are so thrilled with Bible study as little people, grow cold and uninterested in the Lord's work as they grow older. Lately, several congregations have made in-depth studies of all the factors available concerning all their young people, with an eye to learning what might be done to help solve this problem. What do we need? More youth programs? More youth rallies? A special teacher?
From the material that has been published on these studies, it seems to me that one great central truth has begun to emerge. Faithfulness of the young person to Jesus doesn’t have anything to do with special programs or teachers. It is not dependent on whether they are members of a large congregation or a small one. The single most important value is their own immediate family.
One congregation found that where both parents were faithful to the Lord, and that includes active interest in the local congregation’s programs, 93% of the kids remained faithful. On the other hand, if only one of the parents were faithful, that figure dropped to 73%. Where the parents were only what we call reasonably active in the Lord’s work, only 53% of the young people maintained their faith.
Now here comes the shocker: in those cases where both parents attended only infrequently, the percentage of their children who remained faithful to the Lord dropped to 6%.
Want your children to go to heaven? Make sure you are leading them by your faithful example!
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Preacher’s point – While being faithful does not guarantee the same with your children, it definitely starts them in the right direction. Before the Lord told the Israelites to teach His words to their children, He told them that they must love Him with all their heart, soul, and strength and have His word in their own heart (Deut 6:5-7). As the saying goes, we must practice what we preach.
If we want our children to go to Heaven, then we must make sure we are headed there ourselves.
