Teach Your Children Well

I have been doing a summer on-line Bible study. I have been studying the book of Nehemiah. Today I finished up the book. As I read the last chapter it really hit me how much God expects us to teach our children "well". He wants us to teach our children about Him and doing what is right. Nehemiah 13:23-25 says "In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people. And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, you shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves." See God didn't want His children marrying non-Jews because He knew this would cause His children to follow false gods and turn away from Him. Then the little children would not know the truth. Nehemiah knew how important it was for the children to follow God and he became very angry when he heard the children speaking a different language and not even knowing the language of Judah. When we go to the New Testament Jesus told us that if we cause a little one to sin it would be better if a millstone was hung around our neck and thrown into the river. It seems to me that God takes what we teach our children very serious. Of course we do not have to marry within our own race anymore but we are told to not marry an unbeliever if we are a believer. But what about what we watch on t.v., what we read, do we tell those little "white" lies, do we keep the change that the cashier gave us too much of, do we say homosexuality is okay by not saying it is wrong....sometimes we make things seem okay by not saying anything, what about living with a girlfriend or boyfriend before marriage, our society seems to teach there is nothing wrong with that, it is the "norm", but the "norm" is not always right. Our children are watching us and listening to us and if we are causing them to sin by not teaching them what is right, well we know what Jesus said. Our children are our future and if we don't teach them what is right we are only one generation away for a Godless world. It seems from Nehemiah, he pulled out the parents hair and cursed them for allowing their children to disobey God's commands and from Jesus, who said it would be better to be thrown into the river with a millstone hung around our neck than to cause children to sin, we need to be teaching our children "well",(God's truth) and it is never too early to start teaching them the truths of God's Word, whether it is our own children, grandchildren, or children we have contact with let's teach them "well".