Men, who breed their children so profanely, teaching them, by their examples, the newest oaths that were last minted in hell. Such families are nurseries for hell; and though God, by an extraordinary hand of providence, now and then snatches the soul by conversion from among them; yet generally, they die as they live, going to the generation of their fathers, where they shall never see light.
John Flavel, The First of 12 ways to Hell and Remedies Thereof

1) God normatively marries predestined means to predestined ends. The predestined means of God to reach the predestined end of a mature body of Christ is for faithful parents to raise their children in the covenant, constantly giving them the Gospel of Christ, and encouraging their children’s role in the advancement of the present Kingdom. Year after year, parents are to teach and live before their children God’s faithfulness to them and their faithfulness to God in every area of life. By such means Christ raises up a faithful army from generation to generation.

2) If children are born into Christian homes the best way to do to them what is done to Flavel’s pagan children is for the pagans to separate Christian children from their Christian parents, much the way that that the 14th century sultans separated Christian sons from their parents in order to turn them into Janissary troops who would be used to destroy Christianity. However, the brilliance of the current separation of Christian children from their Christian parents is that it has been organized in such a way that Christian parents think it is good and all together normal.

3) Revivalism broke this uniquely reformed idea that God’s ends are predestined via predestined means. What revivalism did was to change the emphasis from the Lord Christ raising up faithful and successive generations through faithful parenting and faithful catechizing in and by the Church to an emphasis where people “get religion” through a lightning bolt emotional experience that had some loose association with some kind of Gospel message. Revivalism made the predestined means to God’s predestined ends of a Holy Church a flash in the pan, emotion-filled experience. Revivalism completely stripped away the long and sustained teaching that created a Biblical mindset and a Biblical character that had been typical of reformed church, family, and community and exchanged all of that for 30 – 45 minutes of exposure to the hooping and hollering of some barely educated evangelisa combined with the psychological pressure that comes from feeling momentarily guilty that yielded, more often than not, a quick adrenalin shot of remorse. Surely, it is not difficult to see that the kind of Christianity created by the revivalistic and crusade model is far different than the kind of Christianity created by reformed covenantalism if only because in the revivalistic and crusade model emotions were tweaked while worldviews were left barely challenged. As a result generations of Christians were created whose Christianity was limited to a sometimes vigorous and oftentimes misplaced pietistic moral stance combined with a soft sentimentalism minus any consistent or unanimous notion that such a thing as a Christian mind exists. This”sludge” that became Christianity was a far different entity than the Christianity that inspired Cromwell’s Roundheads or Knox’s Scotland, or Appalachian Scots Presbyterianism.

4) Since God marries means to ends, as we see suggested in the quote above by Flavel, we must come to terms not only with the fact that wicked children are the result of wicked parents but also that wicked children can be the result of Christian parents who did not meet their covenantal responsibilities to the covenant seed God gave them. Further, we must face the fact that the reality that so many covenant children abandon Christ is not only due to the fact of irresponsible parents but also because of faithless pastors and churches. Pastors have failed parents by not instructing them that the Christian life that they must hand on to their children is more than just a bare profession of Christ combined with a non-understood morality and a particular squishy sentimentality absent a mind that seeks to think God’s thoughts after Him in every area of life.

5) Flavel points out the human cause and effect between wicked children and wicked parents. Should we not think that in a healthy church atmosphere there should be a similar human cause and effect between righteous children and righteous parents? Yes, indeed, salvation is by grace alone, but the teaching of Scripture is that the expectation should be that grace runs in family lines. Where it doesn’t run in family lines, where faith isn’t passed on from parents to children generationally, where the covenant seed is lost in the incredible numbers as the covenant seed is being lost today in the West, it is not the case of God’s unfaithfulness but ours.

6) I am doubtful that the trend of losing our children will end until the family unit is once again strengthened. Currently, almost all family responsibilities are farmed out to other cultural institutions. Children grow up today with a family structure that is little more than a bed and breakfast. Parents ship out their responsibility to shape and teach to state schools. Many parents ship out the responsibility to feed and clothe to government programs like WIC, school lunches, and ADC. Parents ship out their responsibility to influence their children to their children’s peers.