day no. 16,846: whoever trains the children, controls the future

“Whoever trains the children controls the future.” — Steve Wilkins, The Public School Movement

This principle is in place whether or not it is pursued faithfully in covenant with God or wickedly in covenant with sin. The way they are raised is the way the children will go. This, of course, is not entirely without exception, but it is to say that exceptional circumstances are required in order to change this trajectory. This principle is a gift of God to godly parents who stand on His promises, but it can serve as a curse to those who take for granted the grace of God. The wicked watching from outside the covenant have not been blind to the potential that parenting provides for the future; and not wanting children of their own, they have set their sights on the spiritually orphaned children of the covenant with an eye to convert them to apostasy.

“Without undervaluing any other human agency, it may be safely affirmed that the Common School, improved and energized, as it can easily be, may become the most effective and benignant of all the forces of civilization.” — Horace Mann

Sin has not missed the memo.

Schools do more to shape the future than Sunday mornings; not because Sunday mornings lack power or effectiveness, but because the Lord's Day was never meant to replace the six days of schooling that takes place when sitting in one's house, walking by the way, lying down in the evening, or rising up in the morning.

School is wherever you are being taught.

"You may not be paedobaptist or postmill, but the left is and that's why they're winning." — Ben Merkle

You may not lay claim to your children or to the future, but that isn't stopping sin from doing so. It has no reason to assume its success, but nevertheless, it arrogantly plows ahead. You, however, have promises from God in His Word about your children. It is not arrogant to believe them. It is not priggish or presumptive to have faith in God. Our children belong to Him and so does the future. In Christ, our children will be kept in covenant and the future conquered by Him through them.

The future belongs to those who want it bad enough to fight for it now. The meek, who will inherit the future, do so not because they hung back, but because they girded themselves up under the mighty hand of God, and got to work.