1 Samuel 3:13 For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knows; because his sons made themselves vile… In Eli we have one in whom great and varied excellence is fatally marred by a single fault. And yet, even that fault was at least amiable, akin to a form of goodness, and capable of a specious apology and extenuation. It was but an excess and misdirection of parental love. "Eli," we are told, "was very old;" and in that decay of firmness and energy which attends the decline of life, are to be found the solution and apology of this miserable weakness. Yet this did not avail with God. And why? Eli had not grown weakly indulgent first when the powers of nature were failing; nor had Eli's sons jumped by a sudden spring from a life of virtue to such depths of profligacy and vileness. Eli had all along been educating his sons to be what they had become. He had taught and counselled and reproved them well; but he had been too fond of them to restrain and punish them. And now they were vile, and set at defiance an authority they had never been taught to honour; and he must bear the bitter penalty. 1. Let me remind you that a parent is a ruler by appointment of God, and is held at God's bar accountable for the office and work of a ruler. A parent then is more than an example and an instructor. He is one of these "powers that be, that are ordained of God," and, in his sphere, is appointed to be a terror to evil-doers, and for a praise to them that do well. The family is a Divine polity of which he is the head; and as such, in it he is the representative of God, with a portion of whose power he is correspondently clothed. And what is a polity without laws? and what are laws without penalties? and what are penalties without punishments? Too many are wont in this day to regard the whole subject of punishment, whether in the family or the state, under the misleading influence of a weak sensibility and a counterfeit benevolence. But He, whose love is far purer and truer than any known to man, has appointed it to man as a needful restraint and a salutary remedy; and we shall never find our wisdom or our welfare in any vain attempt to criticise or amend the ordinance of God. 2. Lastly, let me remind you that a child is a being that needs restraint and coercion. False theories of education are mainly built on the basis of a false estimate of the moral condition of human nature. Starting with the false position that the child has nothing in it but elements of good, which only need to be developed in order to the production of a pure and lovely character, and protected during their growth from corrupting influences from without, it overlooks the solemn truth, that, mingled with these elements, are prolific seeds of evil, which need to be eradicated with a firm and steady hand, and resolutely repressed upon their first shooting forth and growth. The true work of moral training is, like all other true works of men, a warfare also, undertaken and prosecuted against contrary influences and opposite tendencies, which nature does not aid, but opposes. Parents have the world, the flesh, and the devil to hinder their success. True, it is not in man's power to change the heart. That is the prerogative of God only. But he that works by Divine rules, with faith in Divine promises and Divine methods, will not be apt to lack a Divine blessing. (R. A. Hallam, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. |
    |