By John Thiel, mp3

In the subjects of justification, sanctification and prayer, we behold Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: 31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

If we are going to reach the wonderful character of God and be like God one day, will we be able to glory in ourselves? Not at all. It will be because Jesus was made unto us those steps that we are to take. By the realistic process from Christ’s birth through His life and to His death, we have had our lesson. We are to dig for truth as for hidden treasure. Looking to Jesus means studying His life as given in His word. We must not neglect the study of God’s word so that we may see Jesus and behold His looks, His mannerism, His character and by beholding that character, mannerism and that way of Jesus, we would be changed into the same image.

We will now reflect into the detail of this process of development, from babyhood to adulthood. The Mother Church With Her Infants – this is a very meaningful subject, so that we may understand the sacred responsibilities that lie in those who are ahead of children and also the sacred responsibility that lies in the church for those who are infants in Jesus Christ.

Initial justification has been given another term by Jesus Christ Himself, when we are first justified. What is that in the words of Jesus? We read the words to Nicodemus and Nicodemus was puzzled with this rightfully so because he didn’t understand and so many people don’t quite understand but Jesus explains it here:

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? 5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

There are two aspects that Jesus mentioned in regards to new birth. If you are not born again, you cannot see the kingdom of heaven. If you are not born of the Spirit and of the water, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. To see and to enter, these were the two aspects that Jesus said we must be born again for. To be able to see it in the first place and secondly to be able to enter it. Why is it that we must be born again if we desire to see the kingdom and to enter it?

There is a very important aspect that is the reason that He gives to us. We must be born again for us even to be able to see the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great [is] that darkness!

Jesus says that for you to gain meaning and understanding in life, for you to be able to appreciate and see what life is really meant to be, it’s going to be dependent upon what you let enter through your eyes because the eye is the window of your soul. If the eye is not focused correctly to behold the right kind of things, there will be darkness and it’s a darkness that you think is your light. What has come into the eye if it has been evil, the whole body is full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! If what is inside of your mind as what you have gained in appreciation and understanding is not the light of heaven but you think it’s your understanding and you can trust it, how great is that darkness. It’s a darkness that you cannot even comprehend is darkness. You think it’s light, you think it’s understanding.

What has our natural heart, our natural mind gained? Has it been all of God? Has it been only good, only the light of heaven? From the very time we have been born we have been in a circumstance of sin. Evil has come into our sense, into our vision. The following scripture identifies that to see the light of heaven is impossible unless you are born again.

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.

Discernment, vision, understanding? As a natural human being who has grown up in this world, naturally he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. He cannot comprehend it. It is foolishness to him. The real kingdom of heaven, the real things of God are not comprehendible by that which we have gained by our past personal experience. The light that is in you – i.e. the meaning, the appreciation – is actually darkness, because of familiarity with sin. The natural man is familiar with the things of this dark earth and thinking to gain understanding and appreciation out of this dark earth, there is darkness in the soul and the light of heaven is foolishness to the natural man.

This is understandable when you study the physiology of the nervous system, of the brain material. The following is from a very comprehensive, yet succinct study of the physiology of the body on the nervous system and on the sense.

To make the impulses reaching it meaningful, the brain relies upon the stored memory within its millions of cell networks; not just sound memories, but visual memories, memories of taste and smell and touch. By comparing and contrasting and rejecting information, the brain forms an integrated mental picture. Exactly what sequences and combinations of sounds and sights and taste and touch will mean to an individual depends entirely upon his personal past experience.  {Ran McNelly, Atlas of the Body, p.87}

In the light of the word of God you can understand this statement. That which is light to you has been accumulated over years of sensory memories, memories that have been stored in the brain material. Some of the senses are pleasant senses; some of them are unpleasant and distasteful. How have you interpreted those senses? It said by comparing and contrasting and rejecting information, the brain forms an integrated mental picture. A person is made up in his personal understanding of pleasures and enjoyments by the culture in which he is brought up. You come to my nation where I was brought up, Germany. I had to relearn a lot of things when I came to Australia. It was a different culture. You go to Saudi Arabia and you’ll get the shock of your life, the children there are all used to something completely different than what you’re used to. The sound of music, the things they eat, it’s totally different. What they think is yum to you is yuk because the light, the understanding of what is actually coming into your brain is a different personal past experience.

The things that we have come to appreciate as to what tastes, looks, sounds, feels and smells good, this is all to do with our natural man. Our personal past experiences are gained in a world of sin. No culture can say, our culture is better than the other whether western, eastern, oriental or whatever. All are under sin on this planet. Those things that we have come to understand as an experience of light are actually darkness. I must be born again. Those experiences need to be canceled out and a total new set of personal experiences needs to be gathered and accumulated in the mind. You must be born again. That is what Jesus meant when He talked in reference to a child. The children came to Him to be blessed and the disciples said, go away. Jesus has got some more important work to do than to take up these little children in their little ways. Jesus said, suffer the little children to come unto me.

Mark 10:14 But when Jesus saw [it], he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. 15 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.

What did Jesus say? We must be born again. We must become as a new born child to receive the kingdom like a new born child has to receive it from scratch, from beginning; because what I have accumulated in my senses is darkness.

To be able to see the kingdom of heaven, I must gain a complete new set of memory experiences.

Matthew 18:2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, 3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

We must become as little children not in regards to childish ways but in regards to starting afresh with gaining a new set of informational senses into our brain, in that sense. Therefore, those who come to Jesus to learn of Him must come to the word and submit to it in blind obedience just like a child. Isn’t that what a child does? A little infant simply dependent upon the parental work. Total blind obedience, total blind submission that is what a little infant does. The object lesson is very important to pick up. In children we have a precious object lesson of commencing with the Lord Jesus Christ in your life. You cannot rely on your personal past experiences. We cannot rely on them. If you rely upon what you have gained in your memory bank of your past life, you have darkness there and it’s not light. I must start like that little child. I must be born again.

1 Peter 2:2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: 3 If so be ye have tasted that the Lord [is] gracious.

Many people believe that they are already justified and born again just because they had a happy flight of feeling and sense of God’s graciousness that they have begun to understand He is gracious, isn’t He lovely? He doesn’t destroy us. He gives us His life, Jesus Christ. We see and taste that the Lord is gracious; and we think we’re born again. Not necessarily. If you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, then become a newborn babe. If you can trust Him, you have learned in your human sense that God is very wonderful, then throw yourself into His arms like a little babe. As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word.

In other words, discard your perception, your light, in your mind discard it, and surrender yourself entirely to the word, the milk of the word and then later on, the meat of the word. The word comes in and you are to grow in your perception. The light is to come through an eye that is single to the glory of God and this is that which will cause you to not only see the kingdom of heaven, but to enter it. A newborn baby has no personal past experience that is recorded in the brain.

These infants, they have nothing at all in the brain apart from a few sound memories that they gathered while they were in the womb and a few influences from the mother in the womb. The senses, the atmosphere, but the child comes out and doesn’t know how to relate to them because there was no visual; it was just a few sound and sense memories. As you see these little babies, just stand back and watch them and learn. Watch them. Don’t interfere with them, watch them. As you watch them, you will see their eyes looking around, looking up at their mother and if they are in their father’s arms, looking up. You study their eyes; those are eyes that are actually totally sponge-like just watching, just gazing. Then you might see a little warmth developing from the eyes towards the mum because the eyes can sense that what they’re looking is what they got comfort from in the breast-feeding. Then there is a little bit of a smile and this is lovely. Watch them; watch their body language, their responses.

Who is responsible for the light, the meaning, the understanding and the appreciation that is being recorded in that brain? Who is responsible? The development of that infant, who is responsible for it? To put the right kind of senses and memory experiences in there, to be light and true light?

Fathers are called upon to make sure that the senses of that child are not adulterated.

Ephesians 6:4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Adults are prone to bewilder the fine sensibilities of that infant that hasn’t yet got the experiences in place. A parent especially a father can become very short and exacting and harsh and bewilder that child.  The child becomes confused and it will fall into anger. Provoke not your children to anger but bring them up in the nurture. Nurture, what a beautiful word. What does that mean? Taking care of that tender little plant that is very sensitive. The nurture and admonition of whom? The one who is the Father of life. That’s the Father.

Here is the instruction to those children who are already able to learn and to read:

Proverbs 1:8 My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 9 For they [shall be] an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

Who is responsible for the development of the light in the mind of that baby? Mother and father.

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Is that word true? I have heard people say: no, it’s not; I’ve done my best for my children and they’ve departed from what I have shown them. Don’t reason like that. That is wrong reasoning. Train up a child in the way he should go, if you did that, it would not depart. God’s word is to be read as it reads, and if God’s word says, if you bring up the child in the way it should go, it will not depart from it, is God true? Absolutely. So if they depart from it, what went wrong?

Did the Lord make these youth corrupt? Oh, no! He made them in His image, a little lower than the angels.  {3T 568.2}

It wasn’t God that made these youth corrupt. They came into this world as a white page of memory, nothing there. It’s what was installed into that memory. If the light that is in there is darkness, what else can the child do? But if it’s light, if it’s the light from the Father of light, only then it will not depart from it, because it’s part of its system, it’s a personal past experience that makes that child’s life meaningful. So simple, so realistic. It is the responsibility of the mother, and probably the mother first and foremost compared with the father, because the mother is constantly with that child, it is her responsibility to instill into that child, from its infancy on, the right kind of brain memory.

No other work can equal [the mother’s] in importance  {MH 377.1}

How poorly is that statement understood today? Career women? Women who think that they can go along and do wonderful work in their careers, and they don’t see that the most important work that they as women have is this one:

She has not, like the artist, to paint a form of beauty upon canvas, nor, like the sculptor, to chisel it from marble. She has not, like the author, to embody a noble thought in words of power, nor, like the musician, to express a beautiful sentiment in melody. It is hers, with the help of God, to develop in a human soul the likeness of the divine. {MH 377.1}

It is the mother’s work to instill into that little brain material the life from heaven. Is this not sanctification that the mother has to do with that child? To develop in that child the similitude of the divine. Isn’t that sanctification? Is there such a possibility? Have men existed on earth who have been so developed that they were sanctified from their babyhood up? Were there such men? Here is God speaking to Jeremiah who is now a man:

Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, [and] I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Do you see? It’s possible, before the baby is even born, to have the sanctifying influence there that God instills. Then, as he grows up under the parental training, according to the word, you have a man like Samuel who was brought up by his mother for just a few weaning years. Then there was another one. There was the promise of John the Baptist, who was to be born to Elizabeth and Zacharias.

Luke 1:15 For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.

Born again from his mother’s womb. Such a thing is possible. These infants it is possible to have them being sanctified as they grow by the correct influences upon their white memory brain. As these children born to believing, obedient parents like Zacharias and Elizabeth, all who are born again, adults who are born again, they both have a mother and a father, and this is what this meditation is about, Mother Church With Her Infants. Even a person who becomes born again who puts away his past life and starts all over again like a little infant, has a father and a mother to receive light from, as well as the infants. A sanctifying process commences from the time they are born again, as the infants are born.

We know that the heavenly Father is the Father of the born again. But what about the mother? Who is the mother?

Galatians 4:25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. 26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

Who is the mother? The heavenly church, the heavenly Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 6:2 I have likened the daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate [woman].

The daughter of Zion, who is that? Who is Zion? A woman, a comely and delicate woman?

Who is Zion?

Isaiah 51:16 And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou [art] my people. 17 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, [and] wrung [them] out. 18 [There is] none to guide her among all the sons [whom] she hath brought forth; neither [is there any] that taketh her by the hand of all the sons [that] she hath brought up.

Jerusalem on earth which are God’s people, she brought up sons, she brought up daughters. There is a direct relationship of the Jerusalem, not just as a city but as the people of God, Zion a comely and delicate woman.

God is going to take care of the mother who is going to bring forth these children, and the children can be correctly trained under her:

Isaiah 66:7 Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. 8 Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? [or] shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. 9 Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the LORD: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut [the womb]? saith thy God. 10 Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her: 11 That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. 12 For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon [her] sides, and be dandled upon [her] knees. 13 As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. 14 And when ye see [this], your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb: and the hand of the LORD shall be known toward his servants, and [his] indignation toward his enemies. 

God will take care as a father and He has designated the mother, Zion, Jerusalem, upon whose sides the newly born children will be dandled, who will give the breast milk, the milk of the word that is unadulterated, the pure, living, spiritual food that will cause to grow. Zion is the mother. You read of it in Revelation 12, the mother that gave birth to the man child, and then the man child was taken to heaven, and the woman fled into the wilderness, and she has children, that’s the one: God’s Zion

All who are born again are under this mother, to raise children as Jesus wants them to be. Here she is. God has given her all the ways and means to produce holy people:

Ephesians 4:11 And [God] gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

What is the church entrusted to do? To bring about new birth, to bring about spiritual growth, to bring about sanctification, step by step until finally under the tuition and the care of the mother we would become as perfect as Jesus is, the fullness of the stature of Christ. There is the mother, that’s her responsibility and there is the father, the Father in heaven.

Let us meditate upon the training principles that God the Father and His wife the church want to take place for the growth and development of the precious infants and the comparison is distinct in perfect harmony with what a real personal mother who has given birth to these little infants is to do with the training of those infants. It’s exactly the same principle.

As we who are learning together from the Father in heaven, we need to understand the principles involved in proper child training. Because the little infants are going to be affected by the adults. What they pick up in their blank page memory is going to be what we communicate to them, what the parents communicate to them. If the parents are going to be very particular, shouldn’t we be as fellow brethren? We do just what God says in His mother church.

The first principle that we must be firmly nailed into the mind is this:

Psalm 127:3 Lo, children [are] an heritage of the LORD: [and] the fruit of the womb [is his] reward.

What are children? The heritage of the Lord. What does a heritage mean? Doesn’t that mean they are His property that they are to be there to the glory of God, that it is His heritage? This is the most important principle that must occupy our minds with the infants and those who become born again. They are the heritage of the Lord, why?

Here John the Baptist is giving witness of the light, that light being Jesus:

John 1:7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all [men] through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but [was sent] to bear witness of that Light. 9 [That] was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. 

The little infants that are born, every one of us that are first born are lit up by Jesus Christ. He is the Light that lights every man that comes into the world. If that is the light that commenced this little infant, remember, the Lord did not make these youth corrupt, He made them in His image, a little lower than the angels. Every little child that is born is a heritage of the Lord, it is God’s personal image lit up in that little infant.

As we read previously in Ministry of Healing, it is now the work of the mother to develop that beautiful light, to let it grow and develop into the fullness of Christ. Lots of things have gone wrong in the failings of people nowadays hasn’t it? They didn’t understand.

If we understand that inside of that little baby’s head lies the light of Jesus Christ, how differently would we handle those infants? How differently? How careful we would be to make sure that the solemn realities of the light of Jesus is going to be safeguarded in that child’s mind? Who was responsible for the youth that have gone astray? It wasn’t the light that lit them; it was what the parents did.

Those who understand this, united as parents and church members, can take it seriously and act upon it correctly.

Children have sensitive, loving natures.  {3T 532.2}

Because it’s the light of Christ.

They are easily pleased and easily made unhappy. By gentle discipline in loving words and acts, mothers may bind their children to their hearts. To manifest severity and to be exacting with children are great mistakes. Uniform firmness and unimpassioned control are necessary to the discipline of every family. Say what you mean calmly, move with consideration, and carry out what you say without deviation.  {3T 532.2}

What you are saying and doing is to be inscribed into that child’s brain and if there is a deviation, what happens to the child’s brain? It gets confused. It’s bewildered. It said that first and I really listened, I really paid close attention, and then, oh, here comes the next thing and it’s a contradiction. The poor little brain goes back and forth.

We must know that the beautiful, sensitive nature is part of God’s nature – of such is the kingdom of heaven. God’s nature is like that and how careful we must be. It is the heritage of the Lord that is in my care.

Incased in that beautiful little head lies a dormant heavenly, Christ like nature waiting to be aroused, nurtured to perfection. Those searching eyes, inquiring, trusting, how my heart becomes softened when I watch those little babies’ eyes, trusting, totally dependent, looking dependently upon the influence of the mothers and fathers, and members of the church; depending upon what we say and do, to develop an intelligent, integrated picture of memory records.

When I first read this statement, in Atlas of the Body, I crumbled. What an amazing reality lies in the hands of parents that the personal past experience of these children is what they will carry with them into adulthood, and I thought, who is fit and worthy for such a responsibility? O, we love to have children, don’t we? We love the cuddly little thing, and start giggling and carrying on with them, and we forget that the light of heaven is inside of that brain. It’s not a toy! How many children have been ruined by playing with dolls, because they think that a little baby is like a doll. Stop to think. Stop to understand the seriousness of having children! When there are girls that say, I want to have a baby, I go, yes, you don’t know what’s coming; it’s not a doll.

Incased in that little brain lies an opportunity to develop a soul who is the heritage of the Lord. Father, mother, God and church must provide light from heaven to that searching, sponge-like life.

In the children committed to her care, every mother has a sacred charge from God.  {MH 376.1}

Do you remember what God did when He created the earth? He said to Adam and Eve, this is yours, I commit this earth to you. What have they done to it? I commit this baby to you, what are you going to do with it?

“Take this son, this daughter,” He says; “train it for Me; give it a character polished after the similitude of a palace, that it may shine in the courts of the Lord forever.” {MH 376.1}

The heritage of the Lord, polished characters that are to be developed through sanctification. Justification, sanctification and prayer life, that is to be happening in the infant life of those that are born to believing parents.

What must the mother do?

The mother’s work often seems to her an unimportant service. It is a work that is rarely appreciated.  {MH 376.2}

There is something very important in the understanding of child training, and that is that there is this intelligent, Christ like spirit inside of that child, and how therefore it needs to be trained.

God never designed that one human mind should be under the complete control of another.  {3T 134.1}

When you have a little infant, did you have the idea that it was yours? That the mind of that infant was under you and that that child had to be totally under your control? That was never designed by God. How are you going to train it? and how are we to train those that have been born again in the church?

The education of children, at home or at school, should not be like the training of dumb animals; for children have an intelligent will, which should be directed to control all their powers. Dumb animals need to be trained, for they have not reason and intellect. But the human mind must be taught self-control.  {3T 132.1} 

The child’s mind is to be trained differently to the mind of animals, totally, because it is the divine light that has lit that child’s life in the similitude of the divine.

Children should be taught to respect experienced judgment and to be guided by their parents and teachers. They should be so educated that their minds will be united with the minds of their parents and teachers, {3T 133.1}

Not one over the other, but an intelligent unity, just like the beautiful atonement, the message of the gospel.

They should be so educated that their minds will be united with the minds of their parents and teachers, and so instructed that they can see the propriety of heeding their counsel. Then when they go forth from the guiding hand of their parents and teachers, their characters will not be like the reed trembling in the wind. {3T 133.1}

Not like the reed trembling in the wind. They have a mind of their own but in harmony with God’s mind. This is no child’s play. This is something very serious.

That leads us to the second principle. The first was; in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Let us then apply that principle into the second principle.

Every Christian home should have rules; and parents should, in their words and deportment toward each other, give to the children a precious, living example  {AH 16.3}

We are to look to Jesus aren’t we? Where are we to look? To parents. The parents have a responsibility because they are to be representatives of Jesus Christ, living examples of what they desire the children to be.

Parents should, in their words and deportment toward each other, give to the children a precious, living example of what they desire them to be. Purity in speech and true Christian courtesy should be constantly practiced. {AH 16.3}

Are you courteous? Are you courteous to your little baby? Courtesy to the little infant. Is it courteous when you pick up the little baby and it’s looking at you and you squeeze it’s cheeks to make it laugh?

Is that courtesy? Is that courtesy to a sound mind that’s inside of that baby? We treat our little children as though they were our property. Because we like to see the cute little thing smiling, we tickle it and we carry on. I’ve watched this happen with little children, and I feel like spewing. Because I look at the eyes and the eyes don’t want to, the eyes don’t like what they’re being done to. But because they haven’t got a single chance to stop it from happening, they finally just fall for it, oh okay, and so they give a laugh, because it’s drawn out of them provoked by an intrusion into the mind of Jesus in them. How careful we should be that we teach courtesy by our personal deportment. Take that into consideration with each other, and the children that are born again in the church.

Teach the children and youth to respect themselves, to be true to God, true to principle; teach them to respect and obey the law of God. These principles will control their lives and will be carried out in their associations with others. {AH 16.3}

Train up a child in the way it should go, and what will happen? It will not depart from it.

They will create a pure atmosphere. {AH 16.3}

The atmosphere of the church, what the church atmosphere is like, the way we have our deportment with one another, as little infants are watching, these little children are watching, and they copy. One of the things that I have observed is how little girls learn from older women and older girls the typical female behaviour, the flicking of the hair, the kind of things that have to do with feminine arousal. The children watch it, the little girls watch it and before you know it, they’re doing exactly the same thing. There is so much involved.

They will create a pure atmosphere–one that will have an influence that will encourage weak souls in the upward path that leads to holiness and heaven. Let every lesson be of an elevating and ennobling character, and the records made in the books of heaven will be such as you will not be ashamed to meet in the judgment. {AH 16.3}

It is the mother’s and the church’s responsibility.

Happy are the parents whose lives are a true reflection of the divine,  {CG 480.4}

What must the parents be? A true reflection of the divine,

…so that the promises and commands of God awaken in the child gratitude and reverence;  {CG 480.4}

The child needs to develop a sense of joy, a sense of having pleasure in the house of God, a sense of having pleasure in the service of God. You know what parents do? Come here, sit still, quiet; and the child grows up with this mentality, this isn’t fun. But how do you get a child to be still? Not by harsh method, but by kind winning ways. If you want your child to enjoy church as it grows older, you better make it pleasant for it while it’s a baby. How many children have walked away from church, because church was a do and a don’t experience, instead of a joyful appreciation of the Lord in our midst, the atmosphere?

…the parents whose tenderness and justice and long-suffering interpret to the child the love and justice and long-suffering of God;  {CG 480.4}

The child has to be interpreted these things, by the manner in which we behave as parents and church parents. The child will copy.

The third principle is this; the mother must bind the child to her heart. Do you see children depending wholly upon their mother and later on upon their father?

Mothers, it is your privilege to bind your children to your heart with the tenderest and strongest cords of love. During the first few years of the life of Samuel the prophet, his mother carefully taught him to distinguish between good and evil. {Advocate, March 1, 1902 par. 2}

How did she do it? By bringing out the sensitive nature of God in her.

It was with sorrow and great self-denial that, in fulfillment of her vow to dedicate her son to the service of God, she gave him to Eli, the high priest, to be brought up. But the early training received by Samuel led him to refuse to yield to the evil influences surrounding him in the household of the high priest. {Advocate, March 1, 1902 par. 2}

Did you ever ask yourself how it was that this little infant wasn’t affected by this evil household of Eli? It was the instilment of the correct training by the mother, so that the child was bound to her mother by tender, strong ties. How dare anybody break the tender, strong tie from a baby to its mother? Do you know that we live in a world today where that is being done? We are so used to it that when we see a little child that is bound to her mother, we say, come on you’ve got to actually make a few breaks here, you know, otherwise she’ll get too much attached to you. It is most essential that he or she is attached to their mother, because as the child grows up, who is going to be vying for the child’s affection? The world with its corruptions. We see it with the young people today, they don’t care what mum and dad say anymore, their heart strings have been severed because they have not been studiously held and retained by careful, gentle, loving, godly care. It was permitted to be torn asunder. Then they wonder why the children are no longer listening to them. When a child, and a youth regard dad and mum as their heroes, then they will spurn everything that the world is trying to put across to them. They’ll say, no, no, I know I’m right because my mummy and my daddy said so.

That’s the reason why I have turned away from the world. My mother and I were so close. What she itemised to me as the world, I gave up from my youth up, until I learned other things that my mother never taught me. But I had a right beginning because my mother was my hero. She bound me to her heart and I loved the Lord Jesus Christ at an early stage. Do that with your children parents. Don’t let the world suggest to you that somebody must break in here. Hold on to your child, because the child will grow up, and when it is of an adult age and you’ve done what God has taught you, they will let go. But they will let go with an intelligent mind, knowing what I’ve been taught is right.

What the Children Hear You Saying

Give children but little notice. Let them learn to amuse themselves. Do not put them on exhibition before visitors as prodigies of wit or wisdom, but leave them as far as possible to the simplicity of their childhood. One great reason why so many children are forward, bold, and impertinent is they are noticed and praised too much, and their smart, sharp sayings repeated in their hearing.  {CG 37.4} 

Do you remember your childhood? I remember mine very well. When someone made a comment about my smartness, I became very self-conscious. I became very full of myself whether it was a smart thing they said or a cute little person they are, oh aren’t they lovely and the child hears that. Oh I’m lovely and if anybody says I’m not ggrr, because in the hearing of the child, the parents whom they venerated and who they love made them feel so great and they become forward and expect something from the world. Give children but little notice. Children should be seen and not heard. leave them to their own childhood simplicity. Don’t start inculcating suggestions that the child doesn’t need to know about. So what if it is cute, leave it alone. When it looks in the mirror, it won’t make that interpretation that I look cute because the parents have never instilled it in there. It is just a face in the mirror that’s all. These are the principles of what the children hears about themselves.

New Born Babes in the Church and Infants in the Literal Sense

The minister’s character, motives, and actions, and the conduct of fellow members of the church, are freely discussed. Severe judgment is pronounced, gossip or slander repeated, and this in the hearing of the unconverted. Often these things are spoken by parents in the hearing of their own children. Thus are destroyed respect for God’s messengers, and reverence for their message.  {COL 45.1} 

This is talking about characteristics in the church that aren’t right, We talk about these things in front of the child. What develops in the child’s mind? My parents are better than those people, I don’t have to listen if they tell me anything. We put teachers in front of them and they give the teachers a hard time as the teachers were discussed at home with the children hearing

  Thus in the homes of professed Christians many youth are educated to be infidels. And the parents question why their children are so little interested in the gospel, and so ready to doubt the truth of the Bible. They wonder that it is so difficult to reach them with moral and religious influences. They do not see that their own example has hardened the hearts of their children. The good seed finds no place to take root, and Satan catches it away.  {COL 46.1}

If the preacher in your understanding has fallen into sin, don’t whisper it to anyone because those infants, adult or baby infant, are going to be affected by the one they once thought was giving them the pure truth. The pure truth was there but the persons failure must not be thrown into the infant mind to get confused with what it heard is the truth, was the evil of what it is being talked about so the child doesn’t grow up to be a infidel.

As we have studied and looked at this, doesn’t it get you, what responsibility we really have? Is it not that children need honour their parents? That is one of the commandments. What about the children of the church? What responsibilities that are heaped upon the mother and the father and the ministry of the church, how is it to be regarded with great care? The ministry has a sacred responsibility to represent God correctly. The mothers and fathers and members of the church have the same responsibility.

Hebrews 13:7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of [their] conversation. 8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. 17Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that [is] unprofitable for you. 

Obey them who have the rule over you. Why? because like a mother and father, the ministry also is watching so that the beauty of Jesus will be brought forth. The character of Jesus will be developed and if they must give an account. Don’t we have to give an account for what we have done? Then make it easier for them; the children.

God grant us to have the sensitivity to identify the growing Christ in one another. identify the growing Christ in the infant and person who has recently found the truth. In one another at different stages we will look at the outside surface and think we can treat this child or person as we like because of the way they come across to us, look for the divine image and nurture that. That is what will continue to hold us together as a church as we will only see Jesus in one another and ignore everything else. As we see Jesus and bring Him forward and let the mind afresh with God be illuminated only with the meditations of Jesus, the same thing will happen with adult as with infants, only God and goodness will develop and become a personal experience that will be an integrated picture of light.

Amen.