This article first appeared in The Home Instructor newsletter published by Gary & Wanda Sanseri, May/June 1991.

Then God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)

No one needs to tell us that our generation may be watching the death of marriage and an attempt to obliterate the family as we know it. -John MacArthur-

God is the creator and designer of the family. From the beginning, He commanded man to leave the sphere of his parents, take a wife for himself and together form a family of their own and fill the earth. As the God ordained head of his family the husband/father bears the responsibility for the training, instruction and discipline of his children. The wife/mother, as his helper, assists her husband in fulfilling this all important duty. A wise son or daughter will heed the words of his or her parents. It is all to common in our age for children of Christian parents to depart from the instruction and admonition of father and mother to their own peril.

When coming out of Egypt into the promise land, God instructed the Israelites to fear Him and obey His commandments and pass these same instructions unto their descendants. The Lord said, “you shall teach them diligently to your children.” (Deuteronomy 6:7) Parents, as the primary teachers of their children, are responsible to train them to love, fear and obey the Lord. The word “diligently” comes from a Hebrew word which means “to sharpen.” It is frequently used in reference to preparing the sword for battle against the enemy. (See Deuteronomy 32:41, Isaiah 5:28, Psalm 45:5, 120:4 and Proverbs 25:18.) In Deuteronomy 6:7 the word is used to indicate the importance of piercing, not only our own hearts, but the hearts of our children with God’s Word.

This instruction was to be carried out by word of mouth, earnestly, faithfully and frequently. It included the whole counsel of God and every aspect of life whether in the home, walking on the road, at work in the field or market, lying down to sleep or rising in the morning to face the day. Each situation was to be used to instruct the child in the ways of God. John Gill noted: “every opportunity should be taken to instill the knowledge of divine things into their tender minds.” (John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments (Paris, Arkansas: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), Vol. 2. p.28.)

Family Economics

As part of God’s law, Moses commanded the people of Israel not to steal (Deuteronomy 5:19) nor to covet (Deuteronomy 5:21). Both commandments presume in the individual’s right to private property. Any attempt to take that which you do not own is a clear violation of God’s holy law. The father, as the responsible head of his household, is to instruct his children in the sacred principle of respecting the possessions of his neighbor.

Fathers must also provide for the physical needs of their households including food, clothing and shelter. Any Christian man who fails to do so denies the faith and in this area of life proves worse than an unbeliever who supports his own household (1 Timothy 5:8). The family becomes the center of the father’s economic endeavors as he strives to meet these needs and possibly improve the standard of living for his wife and children. To insure that his children grow up into responsible adults, a wise father teaches his sons and daughters sound economic principles. The book of Proverbs gives several of these fundamental economic truths.

Becoming a guarantor (surety) for another’s debt (loan) is sure folly and a snare (Proverbs 6:1-4).

A man who finds a virtuous wife will never lack gain (Proverbs 31:10-11).

Marxism and the Family

As noted above, the family has existed from the very beginning time. Virtually every known culture with a written history records the place and importance in society of this God ordained institution. Anyone desiring to remove God from culture will attempt to destroy the family. Over one hundred years ago, God hater Karl Marx wrote a radical manifesto declaring the “abolition of the family” along with “eternal truths… religion and all morality.” (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (New York: Washington Square Press, 1964), pp. 87 & 92.) His idea was to create a “utopia” by the eradication of all bourgeois (capitalist) traditions and ideology and establish the proletariat (laborers) as the ruling class.

Marx taught that the ownership of private property constituted the appropriation of products for the “exploitation of the many by the few.” (Marx and Engels, p. 82.) Thus he could sum up his theory of communism with the phrase: “Abolition of private property.” (Marx and Engels, p. 82.) For Marx, “the family is a prime example of bourgeois property.” (Robert Payne, Marx (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), p. 172.) It (the family) is built on nothing but “capital” and “private gain” and will vanish with the disappearance of private property. To accomplish this goal, Marx insisted on replacing home education with social or public education. (Marx and Engels, pp. 87-88.) Marx understood the importance of conquering the minds of the young in order to fulfill his utopian dream.

Sympathetic supporters of Marxism seek to influence our children by forcing them into public schools where socialistic dogma will be taught under compulsion. Among the early socialists in America, Orestes A. Brownson noted that the great object of the secret underground society “was to get rid of Christianity, and to convert our churches into halls of science. The plan was… to establish a system of state, -we said national- schools, from which all religion was to be excluded, in which nothing was to be taught but such knowledge as is verifiable by the senses, and to which all parents were to be compelled by law to send their children.” (Orestes A. Brownson, quoted from Samuel L. Blumenfeld, Is Public Education Necessary? (Greenwich, Connecticut: Devin-Adair Publishers, 1985), pp. 95-96.) Samuel Blumenfeld comments: “This was a perfect description of what was meant by a liberal, secular education. It was to be scientific and impartial, devoid of any religious content. Thus, public education, which had been instituted in the Puritan Colony as a means of guaranteeing the survival of pure religion, would now be used to destroy it. And in time, secular American education would become largely socialist and atheist in content and values.” (Samuel L. Blumenfeld, p. 102.)

The observant parent can easily perceive the impact that socialism and modern public education has had upon our children individually and our families as a whole. With God out of education the state can now become parent to the child. The state has even sought to redefine the family as any group of people living together and can include homosexual as well as lesbian parents. No longer does the state see the family as one man bound by marriage to one woman for life, living together with their natural or adopted children.

In Nazi Germany the rise of the Third Reich depended on the education of German youth. Hitler stressed the importance of “winning over and then training the youth in the service of a new national state.” (William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), p. 249.) The German schools were converted into Nazi training centers where curriculum and textbooks were adapted to Nazify young, impressionable students. If any parents objected Hitler simply declared, “Your child belongs to us already… Your descendants now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.” He later declared: “This new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.” (William Shirer, p. 249.)

Fathers, do you understand the importance of the family? Do you take lightly your responsibility to diligently teach the word of God to your children so that they treasure each morsel in their hearts? “Of how great importance the wise and holy education of children is to the saving of their souls, and the comfort of their parents, and the good of church and state, and the happiness of the world… And how great that calamity is which the world is fallen into through the neglect of that duty, no heart can conceive.” (Richard Baxter, Baxter’s Practical Works: Vol 1. A Christian Directory (Ligonier, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1990), p. 449.) Fathers bring up your children in the training and admonition of the Lord!