Arouse, Arouse, Arouse!

My brethren and sisters, have you improved your opportunities to bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? God wants you to co-operate with Him in this work. Will you do it? May God help every father and every mother to arouse to the responsibilities that rest upon them. You must not let mischief come to your children; you must not see it coming, and say no word of warning to them. I am now grown old, and my children are men; but I could not today see one of them going into wrong ways and say nothing to him about it. I would be responsible if I did not counsel them in regard to the way of the Lord.1NL 87.7

We are too independent in our ideas and ways. Many want to lead, and thus they get out of the path of meekness and obedience. We take our own way altogether too much. We act too often like stubborn children. This is not pleasing to the Lord.1NL 87.8

I ask you to consider these words. Do not, I beg of you, correct your children in anger. That is the time of all times when you should act with humility and patience and prayer. Then is the time to kneel down with the children and ask the Lord for pardon. Seek to win them to Christ by the manifestation of kindness and love, and you will see that a higher power than that of earth is co-operating with your efforts....1NL 88.1

When the time of final award shall come, you will want to hear from the lips of the Saviour the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” May God help you to be converted daily. Fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, old and young, work in harmony with Christ, so that the Spirit of God and holy angels can dwell with you and mold your lives. And if these influences are fashioning the lives of parents, the characters of the children will be renewed after the likeness of Christ. If parents do their work faithfully, the children will not be left to go to ruin.1NL 88.2

“The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil.” “Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts; and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.”...1NL 88.3

I want you to get your minds on the possibilities of a thorough conversion; for when this experience comes to you, you will strike a note that will be recognized as having its origin in God. Let us seek for such a conversion.... Let us seek for a deeper consecration. God will accept us as we come to Him in our weakness, and will impart to us that which we so greatly need—the spirit of perfect submission to the will of God.—Manuscript 53, 1912.1NL 88.4