Be Tender, But Be True

Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.

GENESIS 4:7

I LOVE TO ENCOURAGE MY CHILDREN. I CONSISTENTLY LOOK for positive qualities and personal choices I can commend and praise. My kids may grow weary of hearing me say, “I love you,” and, “I’m proud of you,” but I’d rather they get tired of it than to never hear those phrases at all.

But it’s not the full story.

To be a Christian parent, I also have to tell them they’re not okay. In fact, they’re sinners; apart from Christ, they are as dead in their transgressions and sins (Ephesians 2:1) as any adult. Charles Spurgeon, who wasn’t one to mince words, blew away our sentimental notions in this regard: “Unless you have a very clear sense of the utter ruin and spiritual death of children, you will be incapable of being made a blessing to them.”^a

Spurgeon had much more to say about this:

[The doctrine of the cross] will necessitate your teaching the child his need of a Savior. You must not hold back from this necessary task. Do not flatter the child with delusive rubbish about his nature being good and needing to be developed. Tell him he must be born again. Don’t bolster him up with the notion of his own innocence, but show him his sin. Mention the childish sins to which he is prone, and pray the Holy Spirit to work conviction in his heart and conscience. Deal with the young in much the same way as you would with the old. Be thorough and honest with them. Flimsy religion is good for neither young nor old. These boys and girls need pardon through the precious blood as surely as any of us.^b

There’s a reason my children fuss and fight and sass—they were born with wicked, wayward hearts. There’s a reason they are selfish, impatient, and sometimes vindictive—they inherited a sin nature from their parents, and they need a Savior to change them.

If I focus only on their self-esteem in a positive sense, they may never realize their need for a Savior. “Do not hesitate to tell the child of his ruin,” Spurgeon warned, “or else he will not desire the remedy. Tell him also of the punishment of sin, and warn him of its terror. Be tender, but be true. Do not hide from the youthful sinner the truth, however terrible it may be.”^c

I particularly like that phrase, “Be tender, but be true.” Some of us focus only on being true, so we’re never tender. Our kids tune us out because truth without love is very difficult to swallow. Others of us are so concerned about being tender that we’re never true. We thus wound our kids by not giving them all the information they need. Spurgeon encourages us to be both tender and true.

In pointing to the necessity of speaking plainly about the consequences of sin, Spurgeon praised a father who all but declared his oldest son damned following an unexpected death:

The father did not, as some would have done, say to his family, “We hope your brother has gone to heaven.” Instead, overcoming his natural feelings, he was enabled by divine grace to assemble his other children together and to say to them, “My sons and daughters, your brother is dead. I fear he is in hell. You knew his life and conduct. You saw how he behaved. Now God has snatched him away in his sins.” Then he solemnly told them of the place of woe to which he believed—yes, with most certainty knew—his son had gone, begging them to shun it and to flee from the wrath to come.^d

While this may sound harsh, remember that tenderness must be joined with truth: “Had he acted,” wrote Spurgeon, “as some would have done, with tenderness of heart, but not with honesty of purpose, he would have said he hoped his son had gone to heaven. What would the other children have thought about that? ‘If he is gone to heaven, there is no need for us to fear. We may live as we like.’ ” ^e

I want my children to see their promise in Jesus Christ—but I also want them to be very aware of their ruin without him. There is no hope apart from him. There is no chance they can win for themselves the ultimate victory over the base desires and rebellion they were born with.

I am called to say to my children what God said to Cain: “Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7). From Cain’s subsequent murder of Abel (even after receiving this warning) and the teaching of the New Testament, we know that none of us can master sin on our own strength; but the Holy Spirit provides redemption and empowerment for those who will confess their sin, admit their hopeless state, and throw themselves on the grace of God.

In this culture, we read much about the importance of building self-esteem. There’s a place for that, but not at the expense of explaining our children’s desperate need for a Savior. We must be tender, but we must also be true.

Heavenly Father, teach us to tell our children the whole truth, to find the right balance between being “tender” but also “true.” We want our children to know they are loved and special, but also that they need the spiritual remedy of your Son’s forgiveness. In his name we pray, amen.