Pick Your Own Millstone

If you play the horses now and then and think it doesn't matter, because the kids will never find out...then pick your own millstone! If you read the morning paper every morning, and know the latest news and ball game scores, and your son decides that this is important, but your Bible collects dust on the living room table, and your son decides that this must not be important...then pick your own millstone! Jesus said that children were like priceless jewels, and "of such is the kingdom of heaven". But he also said that if anyone causes one of these little ones to sin, "It would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea." (Matt. 18:6)

Why did Jesus consider children to be so important? Kill a man, and you destroy a life, but when you pervert a child, you plant a seed, which grows and multiplies as it comes to manhood, shaking off its evil influence upon all it meets. The child becomes an adult, marries, has children and to them, the seed is transferred and the weed of evil spreads further and further through the years. Kill a man, and you do great evil. But pervert a child and you multiply evil a hundred‑fold.

Every one of us leaves a deposit upon another's soul. A child's mind is like a sensitive film...it is an endless computer bank, recording, absorbing everything seen, heard, tasted, smelled, and felt. A picture is being etched like an ever‑turning movie film. It takes in the smell of cookies, or the lack. It receives the harsh word, the deceit, the love that is seen, or the prayers that are spoken. God has placed us in the world as families. For every chick and child that is born, he has appointed two defenders, a mother and a father. God is holding them personally responsible. It is a scary situation! Edgar A. Guest has written:

"Who touches a boy, by the Master's plan...
Is shaping the course of the future man;
Father or mother or teacher or priest...
Friend or stranger or saint or beast
Is dealing with one who is living seed
And may be the man whom the world shall need.
For who can measure the pride and joy
That may some day grow from a little boy?"▐

Jesus said, "Do not hinder them"..."do not cause them to stumble". In the gangs, in the urban street children, we have all the makings of a sad and horrible future. And somewhere out there are parents, who gave birth to them, and are now being fitted for their particular millstone! God is not mocked!