Father's Pulpit - Spurgeon Theology on Fatherhood Part 3

Podcast Episode Description: The Father’s Pulpit — Charles Spurgeon’s Theology of Fatherhood

In this episode of The Father’s Pulpit, we explore Charles Spurgeon’s theology of fatherhood and how the “Prince of Preachers” understood the calling of a father in the home, the church, and the Christian life. Spurgeon preached often about the spiritual responsibility of parents, the importance of raising children in the fear of the Lord, and the sacred duty of fathers to lead their families with truth, tenderness, prayer, and biblical conviction.

This episode looks at Charles Spurgeon on fatherhood, drawing from his sermons, writings, and pastoral counsel to uncover a deeply biblical vision of what it means to be a Christian father. We consider how Spurgeon viewed the father as a spiritual guide, a teacher of Scripture, a man of prayer, and an example of godly character before his children.

Whether you are a father, a pastor, a preacher, or a Christian seeking a richer theology of the home, this episode will help you see fatherhood not merely as a family role, but as a holy calling before God. Through the lens of Spurgeon’s preaching, we are reminded that the father’s influence is one of the first pulpits a child will ever hear.

Topics in this episode include:

Charles Spurgeon, fatherhood, Christian fatherhood, theology of fatherhood, biblical parenting, family worship, fathers and spiritual leadership, Spurgeon sermons, pastoral theology, Christian home, raising children in the Lord, and the father’s role in discipleship.

Listen to The Father’s Pulpit and rediscover a biblical, pastoral, and deeply practical vision of fatherhood through the theology of Charles Spurgeon.

Transcript

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The Father's Pulpit. Spurgeon's Theology for Fathers, Husbands, and Men of God. Part 3. How to Lead When It Is Hard. The specific challenges that test and prove the Father's Calling. Drawn from the sermons of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London. Part 3, How to Lead When It Is Hard. The specific challenges that test and prove the Father's Calling. Parts 1 and 2 establish the foundation and describe what the Father is building. Part 3 turns to the questions that come when the building is hard. What do you do when the child you have loved and raised and prayed for becomes the prodigal? What do you do when the son you were willing to die for uses his life to wound you? How do you pray for your children when the praying has gone on for years without visible result? And what does God's own fathering of his people teach you about how to do yours? These are not peripheral questions. They are the questions that determine whether a man's fatherhood is genuinely rooted or merely comfortable. Every father will face at least one of them. The man who has thought through them before the crisis arrives will carry them better than the man who meets them without preparation. Four chapters. The first is the portrait of the father in the Prodigal Son Parable, the running father, the kissing much, the reception that has no condemnation in it, and what it reveals about what fatherhood is for. The second is David and Absalom, the father who loved the son who tried to destroy him, and what that grief is and what to do with it. The third is about prayer for your children, what persistence looks like, what it costs, and why it is the most powerful thing a father does. The fourth is about God's own teaching style with his children, and the portrait of the father who leads not by force but by love. Chapter 9. The Running Father. What the parable reveals about what fatherhood is actually for. The parable of the prodigal son is usually read as a story about the son, his rebellion, his degradation, his return. But Spurgeon read it as a story about the Father. The Son is the occasion. The Father is the subject. What Christ is teaching, pressed into every detail of the Father's behavior, is not what the son deserved or what the son felt or what the son decided. It is what the father did when he saw his son coming, a great way off, and everything that followed. He preached an entire sermon on the single phrase, and kissed him much. Not and forgave him. Not and welcomed him back. And kissed him much. The excess of the reception, the extravagance of the love, the father who cannot stop himself from demonstrating with his whole body that this son is his and is wanted and his home, this is what Spurgeon pressed on his congregation as the portrait of God's love for the returning sinner. And by extension, the portrait of what a father's love for his children is designed to show the world. The eyes of mercy are quicker than the eyes of repentance. Spurgeon opened the sermon by pressing into the father's role in the reunion. It is not the son who initiates the reconciliation in the sense that matters most. It is the father. I do not know that the prodigal saw his father, but his father saw him. The eyes of mercy are quicker than the eyes of repentance. Even the eye of our faith is dim compared with the eye of God's love. He sees a sinner long before a sinner sees him. When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him. Slow are the steps of repentance, but swift are the feet of forgiveness. God can run where we can scarcely limp, and if we are limping towards him, he will run towards us. The father ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him, kissed him eagerly. He did not delay a moment, for though he was out of breath, he was not out of love. And kissed him, Sermon No. 2236, Luke 15.20. Out of breath but not out of love. Spurgeon is pressing into the quality of the Father's reception. This is not a dignified, measured, conditional welcome. The Father runs. He falls on the neck of the returning son. He kisses him eagerly, repeatedly, before the son has said a single word of confession. The excess of the welcome is the point. This is what the parable is teaching about God's posture toward the returning sinner. But it is also teaching something about what fatherly love looks like at its best. The father in this parable does not stand at the door with folded arms, waiting to hear the apology before deciding whether it is adequate. He runs. He sees the shape of the returning sun from a great way off and he runs. The love was already there, already active, already looking for the sun on the horizon long before the sun appeared. He saw. Spurgeon pressed the single word saw with great force, because he believed the quality of seeing in the Father's reception was itself the theology. His father saw him. God has a way of seeing men and women that you and I cannot understand. He saw who it was, saw where he had come from, saw the swineherd's dress, saw the filth upon his hands and feet, saw his rags, saw his penitent look, saw what he had been, saw what he was, and saw what he would soon be. It was not with icy eyes that the father looked on his returning son. Love leaped into them, and as he beheld him, he had compassion on him. There was no anger in his heart towards his son. He had nothing but pity for his poor boy who had got into such a pitiable condition. It was true that it was all his own fault, but that did not come before his father's mind. And kissed him, Sermon No. 2236, Luke 15.20. That did not come before his father's mind. That is the sentence that deserves the most attention. The son's fault, the willful rebellion, the wasted inheritance, the degradation, the long refusal to come home, none of it was the first thing the father's love looked at when the son appeared on the horizon. What came before the father's mind was compassion for the state the boy was in. The thin face. The worn clothes. The exhaustion. The distance he had traveled. This is not sentimentality. Spurgeon was not describing a father who minimized what the son had done. The son had done real damage. The welcome was not a statement that none of it mattered. It was a statement about the order in which the father chose to arrange things in his own heart the love first, the welcome first, the reception first. And then, bring out the robe and the ring. The reckoning would come, in the form of a restored relationship in which the son would live as a son rather than as a hired servant. But the reckoning was not the first thing. Much love, much forgiveness, full restoration. Spurgeon broke the meaning of kissed him much into three movements, each one revealing something specific about what the father's reception communicated to the son. What does this much kissing mean? First, much love truly felt, for God never gives an expression of love without feeling it in his infinite heart. Second, these many kisses meant much forgiveness. There is no soreness left, I have not only forgiven, but I have forgotten too. I will never accuse you of it any more. I will never love you any the less. And thirdly, full restoration. By that kiss, his sonship was owned. The father said to the wretched wanderer, You are my son. He gave him such a kiss as he would only give to his own son. Despite all that you have done, you belong to me. However far you have gone in vice and folly, I own you. You are bone of my bone. And kissed him, Sermon No. 2236, Luke 1520. You belong to me. That is the declaration that the running father makes to the returning prodigal, before the robe is brought and before the ring is placed on the finger and before the feast is laid. The son is not demoted to a servant and then reinstated as he proves himself. He is received immediately, fully, into the sonship he had forfeited. The relationship is restored before the restoration is earned. Spurgeon applied this to every man who was carrying the memory of his own prodigal years, who had wandered from God and wondered whether the reception would be warm or cold when he turned for home. But he also pressed it as the portrait of how a father's love for his children should function, not as a reward for the child's performance, not as a verdict delivered after the confession has been evaluated, but as the active, running, out-of-breath welcome of a man whose love for his son was already there and could not contain itself when the son appeared. What this means for you, practically. The running father in the parable is a portrait of God. But he is also a model for human fatherhood. The qualities that make him remarkable, the watching, the running, the kissing, much, the seeing what the son was before noticing what he had done, are the qualities that Spurgeon believed every father was called to develop in relation to his own children. Not the naive version that never requires accountability. The father of the parable has not forgotten what the son did. The full restoration he offers is the restoration to relationship, not the cancellation of consequences. The son still has to live with the choices he made. But the father is not going to make him earn his way back into the family. He is already family. The love was never conditional. The practical question this chapter raises is, does your love for your children have this quality? Not the performance contingent version that warms when they do well and cools when they fail. The watching the horizon version, the love that is already looking for them, already running to meet them, that sees the penitent look before it sees the rags. There is one more detail in the parable that Spurgeon found remarkable. The father was watching. When the sun appeared on the horizon, the father saw him from a great way off. That means he had been looking. The father who weeps over the prodigal son is not surprised when the sun turns for home. He has been watching the horizon. He has been looking for that shape in the distance. He has been ready to run. Be that father, watch. Keep the love ready. When the sun appears on the horizon, however far he has gone, however deep the mess he has made of himself, let the love be already in motion before the confession is offered. Questions for reflection. 1. Spurgeon said the eyes of mercy are quicker than the eyes of repentance. The father saw the sun before the sun looked up. Are you the kind of father who is watching the horizon for your children? Is your love already in motion before they ask for it? 2. He said, out of breath but not out of love. The father ran. Is there a child in your life you have been waiting to welcome back, waiting for the right apology, the right proof of change, the right conditions, rather than running to meet? 3. The father's first thought was not the son's fault but compassion for the son's state. When your children fail, what is your first instinct? The calculation of the fault or the care for the person? What shapes that instinct? He said the much kissing communicated much love, much forgiveness, and full restoration before any proof of change was offered. Is there a child or a relationship in your family where restoration is being withheld until trust is rebuilt? What is the right order of those things? The prodigal father was watching the horizon. He was ready. He had not given up. Is there a child in your life who has wandered, from the family, from the faith, from the relationship, for whom you are still watching? What does watching look like in practice? Chapter 10. O my son Absalom. What to do when a child you love is breaking your heart? There is a grief that belongs specifically to the father of a wayward child. It is not the grief of losing a stranger. It is the grief of being wounded by the person you love most, in the place where you are most vulnerable, by the one for whom you would willingly have died. David's cry over Absalom is the most raw expression of that grief in all of Scripture, and it is raw precisely because nothing in David's life could have prepared him for it. He had faced enemies. He had fought battles. He had endured persecution and betrayal by men he trusted. But none of it was like this. O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom. Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son. Spurgeon returned to that cry more than once across his ministry. He found in it not embarrassment but a portrait of something true and important, the depth of a father's love for a son who does not deserve it, which is precisely the kind of love God has for his wayward people. He still opened wide his breast. Spurgeon opened his most sustained reflection on the David Absalom grief by pressing into the specific quality of David's love that made the grief so devastating. From the very fact that David loved this young man so much, his sorrows must have been peculiarly poignant. If a man can bring his mind to thrust out from his bosom one who is proved ungrateful, then half the battle is over. If love can cut the link, can say, I have done with thee, I will reckon thee now no more my child, then the heart steals itself against its deepest sorrow, and the arrow rattleth only against the harness. But it was not so with David, he still opened wide his breast to his unworthy son. David always clung to this child of his even in the time of his greatest iniquity. When at last he was compelled to send out his army against the rebel, he commanded, Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom. David's grief, Sermon No. 2728, Psalm 612. He still opened wide his breast. That is the phrase that carries everything. David did not protect himself from Absalom's capacity to wound him by closing himself off. He remained open. The love that made the wound possible is the same love that made the cry inevitable. O my son Absalom, the cry of a man who has not defended himself against the grief because he has not defended himself against the love. And Spurgeon does not rebuke David for this. He finds in it a portrait of something right. The father who has stopped loving the prodigal son has solved his problem. He will not be wounded again. But he has also become something less than a father. David's open breast, his willingness to go on loving a son who was trying to kill him, his command to deal gently even with the rebel, this is the love that Spurgeon held up as the model. Not the love that protects itself, the love that cannot stop. God himself does not rebuke this love. Spurgeon pressed something specific about David's grief that is easy to miss in a quick reading, God never rebuked it. The cry of Absalom my son appears nowhere in Scripture as an example of weakness or misplaced affection. God does not correct David for loving too much. Spurgeon found this theologically significant. As a father himself, the Lord yearns over his erring children, and he can never be grieved with us if we do the same. Nowhere do you meet with rebukes of natural parental love unless it unwisely winks at sin. Even David's bitter lamentation, O Absalom, my son, my son, would God I had died for thee, is not censured by the Lord. These desires are so consistent with the natural instincts which He Himself implanted that, even if they are not always granted, they are never reprehended. Even if our child should turn out to be an Esau, or an Ishmael, or an Absalom, the prayers of the Father for Him are not forbidden. Do not be afraid at any time when pleading for the souls of your children, be importunate, be eager, be earnest. Sermon on Parental Love, Volume 19. The prayers of the Father for him are not forbidden. Even for Absalom. Even for the son who is actively trying to destroy you. The love is not wrong. The grief is not a failure. The persistence in prayer for a child who does not deserve the prayer is not weakness, it is precisely the kind of parental love that mirrors God's own love for his erring children. This matters practically for the father who has a child in open rebellion. He may feel that continuing to love, continuing to pray, continuing to grieve over a child who has chosen a destructive path, is somehow undignified or enabling or theologically incorrect. Spurgeon is releasing him from that concern. The Lord yearns over his erring children. He never rebuked Abraham for praying, O that Ishmael might live before thee. He never rebuked David for, O Absalom, my son. The longing itself, the persistent, costly, unrewarded love of a father for a wayward child, is not a thing God corrects. It is a thing he shares. How sharper than a serpent's tooth. Spurgeon did not minimize the pain of this kind of grief. He quoted Shakespeare's line more than once because he believed it was true, how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child. And he pressed on a specific feature of that pain that distinguishes it from other kinds of difficulty. No cross is so heavy to carry as a living cross. Those things which we allow to take the chief place in our bosoms have the most power to give us grief. The child who was the nearest to your heart had the greatest opportunity to cut you to the quick. Absalom was David's darling, and therefore Absalom's rebellion struck the deepest. Those tears, O my son Absalom, were tears that came from the very depth of the wells of human tenderness. They could not be stayed by dignity or by policy. They were the unavoidable overflow of a heart that loved too well to defend itself. David's Grief, Sermon No. 2728, Psalm 61 2. A heart that loved too well to defend itself. That is Spurgeon's description of David's love for Absalom, and it is a description he offers without apology. The man whose love is deep enough to produce that kind of grief has not made a mistake in loving. He has loved as a father is designed to love. The depth of the wound is the measure of the love. And the love, even the love that makes itself this vulnerable to this much pain, is not something God regrets placing in the Father's chest. What does the Father do with this grief? Spurgeon's word, which he draws from the Psalm David wrote during the Absalom Crisis, is the same word he gives for every grief. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. The grief does not go to the enemy, or to the silence, or to the performance of not being affected. It goes to God. The overwhelmed heart cries out to the rock that is higher. And the rock receives what no human ear could hold. What this means for you, practically. The father of a wayward child is being asked to carry something that has no comfortable resolution in the short term. He cannot fix the child. He cannot take back the choices the child has made. He cannot unknow what he knows about what his child is doing with the life he was raised to live differently. He can only love and pray, and keep the door open, and watch the horizon. Spurgeon's word to that man is threefold. First, the grief is not wrong. What you are feeling is the natural overflow of a love that God placed in you and does not regret placing there. Even for Absalom, the cry is not censured. Let yourself feel it honestly, and bring it to God honestly. Second, the love is not weakness. Continuing to love a child who is breaking your heart is not enabling. It is not naivety. It is the running father posture maintained through the long seasons when the sun has not yet appeared on the horizon. It is watching the road and keeping the love ready. Third, the prayer is not forbidden. Plead for the soul of your child with everything you have. Bring the specific grief to God with the same intensity David brought the Absalom grief, the overwhelming, uncontainable, willing to die for him kind. God has not told you that this is too much to ask. He has not censured this prayer. He is the Father who yearns over his erring children, and he receives the prayer of the Father who yearns over his. Questions for reflection. 1. Spurgeon said David still opened wide his breast to an unworthy son, he did not defend himself against the love. Is there a child in your life you have been protecting yourself from by closing off the love? What would it cost to keep the breast open? 2. He said the prayers of the Father for the wayward child are not forbidden, even for Absalom. Are you praying for your most difficult or most distant child with the intensity of, Oh would God I had died for thee? What would that intensity look like? 3. He said the love that makes itself vulnerable enough to produce this kind of grief is not a mistake. Does your love for your children make you this vulnerable? Is there a child whose choices are currently breaking your heart? 4. David cried, Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. The overwhelmed heart goes to God. When you are carrying the grief of a wayward child, where does it go first? To God, or to silence, or to management? 5. The running father was watching the horizon. Even in the grief of the Absalom season, the watching continues. Are you still watching the horizon for your wayward child, still looking for the day the shape appears in the distance? What does keeping that watch alive look like for you? Chapter 11. The Father Who Prays. Intercession for your children is your most powerful work. There is a specific temptation that belongs to the Father who has been praying for his children for years without visible result. It is not the temptation to stop praying entirely, he is too committed for that. It is the temptation to let the intensity drain out of the prayer while the form of it continues. He still prays. But the fire has gone out. The specific, urgent, expecting God to answer quality of the prayer has given way to a kind of faithful but low-energy repetition. He has stopped believing that the praying is actually doing anything. Spurgeon had a name for this. He called it fainting. And he preached an entire sermon against it, drawn from Jesus' own stated purpose in telling the parable of the importunate widow, he told this parable to the effect that men ought always to pray and not to faint. The man who prays for his children is not merely performing a spiritual discipline. He is the primary agent of intercession for the souls entrusted to him. His prayer is not supplementary to the work of the household, it is the engine of it. And the enemy of that engine is not distraction or busyness. It is the slow cooling of urgency into form. The conversion of that dear child is your main plea. Spurgeon applied the parable's lesson directly to fathers who were praying for unconverted children. He was not describing an aspiration. He was issuing an instruction. Week by week, month by month, year by year, the conversion of that dear child is to be the father's main plea. She is not to take even ten or twenty years of unsuccessful prayer as a reason why she should cease, she is to set God no times nor seasons, but so long as there is life in her and life in the dear eyes. Object of her solicitude, she is to continue still to plead with the mighty God of Jacob. Oh, for grace to stand foot to foot with the angel of God, and never, never, never relax our hold, feeling that the cause we plead is one in which we must be successful, for souls depend on it. The glory of God is connected with it. The Importunate Widow, Sermon No. 856, Luke 18, 1-8. 10 or 20 years of unsuccessful prayer is not a reason to cease. He said that plainly. He was speaking to the Father in front of him who had been praying for a specific child for a specific number of years without visible result, and he was telling him, the timeline is not the measure. The cause is too large to give up on. Souls depend on it. The glory of God is connected with it. Never, never, never relax the hold. The phrase main plea is worth pressing. Not a regular item on the prayer list. The main plea. The primary intercession. The one thing you bring to God with the full weight of everything you feel about your child's soul. This is not a casual petition, it is the Father wrestling with God on behalf of the one he loves. Always in the spirit of prayer. The specific instruction Jesus attached to the parable, Men ought always to pray, was one Spurgeon examined carefully, because he understood that always could easily be misread. Our Lord meant by saying men ought always to pray, that they ought to be always in the spirit of prayer, always ready to pray. Like the old knights, always in warfare, not always on their steeds dashing forward with their lances and rest to unhorse an adversary, but always wearing their weapons where they could readily reach them, and always ready to encounter wounds or death for the sake of the cause which they championed. Those grim warriors often slept in their armor, so even when we sleep, we are still to be in the spirit of prayer, so that if perchance we wake in the night we might still be with God. The Importate Widow, Sermon No. 856, Luke 18 1-8. Sleeping in his armor. That is the image of the man who is always in the spirit of prayer. He is not always on his knees in formal petition. But he is always armed, always in the posture of a man who can reach his weapon quickly, always oriented toward God in such a way that the prayer is available the moment the need presents itself. For the father praying for his children, this means carrying the intercession into the ordinary moments of the day. The morning drive that becomes a prayer for the child he is most concerned about. The moment of seeing his child's room and sending up an ejaculatory cry to God for that child's soul. The night waking that becomes a deliberate wrestling with God on behalf of a specific name. He is sleeping in his armor. The prayer is always available because the love is always present. Not once or twice but incessantly. Spurgeon pressed a specific failure mode that he believed was common among praying fathers, the failure to be frequent enough in the prayer itself, as distinct from the spirit of prayer. Our Lord would have us learn that men should be more frequent in prayer. Not only should they always have the spirit of prayer and make their whole lives a prayer, and persevere in any one object which is dear to them, but over and above this they should frequently, especially, personally cry unto God. They are not to be like a boy who knocks at a door and runs away before it can be opened. It is of no use knocking like that. I am afraid that is the way many of us pray, giving a knock or two and then going off, and coming again when we feel like it, running away before the door can be opened. The Importunate Widow, Sermon No. 856, Luke 18 1-8. Knocking and running away. That is Spurgeon's image for the prayer that has lost its urgency. The form of the prayer is maintained, but the expectation has evaporated. The man knocks and leaves before the door opens, because some part of him has stopped believing that the door is going to open. The importunate widow did not knock and run. She came back. And came back. And came back again. Not because she had evidence that the unjust judge was going to change his mind. Because she had a cause that could not be given up and no other door to knock on. The father praying for his children is in exactly this position. He has a cause that cannot be given up. His child's soul is not something he can write off. And he has a door to knock on that is infinitely more likely to open than the door of the unjust judge, the door of the God who hears his elect cry to him day and night and has promised to answer speedily. What this means for you, practically. The practical challenge of this chapter is honest assessment. Not of whether you pray for your children, you do. The question is whether the prayer has maintained its intensity, its specificity, its expectation. Do you pray for each child by name, with specific petitions about specific things God needs to do in that specific child? Not the general parental prayer for safety and happiness. The urgent, wrestling, importunate prayer of a father who understands that the soul of his child is at stake and that he is the primary intercessor? Have you set God a time limit? Have you quietly downgraded your expectation after a few years without visible result? Has the prayer that was once urgent become routine? Spurgeon's word to that man is, never, never, never relax the hold. The cause is too large. The stakes are too high. The door is more likely to open than you currently believe. Keep knocking. Do not run away before the door opens. The father who prays like this for his children is doing the most powerful work available to him. Not the most visible. Not the most immediately gratifying. The most powerful. The prayer that reaches where he cannot reach, that moves what he cannot move, that does what no amount of instruction or example or deliberate parenting strategy can do. It reaches the soul of his child and places it in the hands of the God who has promised to hear his elect, who cry day and night to him. Cry day and night. Never stop. Questions for reflection. 1. Spurgeon said the conversion of your dear child should be your main plea, not a regular item on the list, but the primary intercession. Does your prayer for your children carry that weight? What is currently the main plea of your prayer life? He said 10 or 20 years of unsuccessful prayer is not a reason to cease. How long have you been praying for specific children for specific things? Has the length of the wait begun to drain the intensity? What would renewing the urgency look like? 3. He describes sleeping in the armor, always in the spirit of prayer, always carrying the intercession through the ordinary moments of the day. What does that look like for you? When do you pray for your children between formal prayer times? 4. He warned against the boy who knocks at the door and runs away before it opens, the form of prayer maintained without the expectation. Does your prayer for your children currently carry genuine expectation? Do you believe God is going to answer? 5. He said never, never, never relax the hold. The cause is too large, souls depend on it. Is there a child for whom you have quietly relaxed the hold? What would it look like to take it up again with full intensity? Chapter 12. Teaching them to go. What God's own fathering shows you about how to do yours. The eleventh chapter of Hosea contains one of the most unexpected images of God in all of Scripture. God is speaking about Israel, whom He has loved since their beginning and whom He has watched wander and rebel across generations. He is describing what He has been doing with them throughout their history. And the image He uses is not the image of a general commanding an army, or a judge issuing verdicts, or a king administering a kingdom. It is the image of a father or mother teaching a small child to walk. I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms. Spurgeon found in this image not only a description of how God relates to his people, but a portrait of what the best human fathering looks like, drawn from the way God himself does it. He pressed it as practical instruction for every man trying to lead his children toward God. As they do who have to teach little children to walk. I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms, as they do who have to teach little children to walk, supporting their tottering footsteps, and instructing them how to put one foot before the other, until they are able, at last, to run alone. Calvin says it means, I have led him on foot. As a child who cannot yet walk with a firm foot is, by degrees, accustomed to do so, and the nurse, or the father, or the mother, who leads him, has a regard for his infancy. So, also, have I led Israel, as much as his feet could bear. As if this condescension were not sufficient, in addition to this, he becomes a physician too, and grants healing. Heaven's nurse children, Sermon No. 1021, Hosea 11:3. As much as his feet could bear. That phrase is the heart of the passage. God's teaching of Israel was calibrated to their capacity. He did not demand adult performance from an infant people. He moved at the pace their feet could sustain. He held the arms while the legs were still learning. He adjusted his instruction to the actual state of the one being instructed, not to the state he wished they were in. This is practical fathering instruction from the character of God himself. The father who leads his children in the knowledge of God is not supposed to demand from them what they are not yet capable of. He teaches them as much as their feet can bear. He holds their arms while they are learning. He keeps adjusting to the actual capacity of the child in front of him, not the idealized child he wishes he had. Because they are their own. Spurgeon then pressed into the question that goes to the heart of what makes the teaching persist when the learning is slow and the returns are not immediately visible. Why is it that a father takes such pains in teaching his child to walk? Because the child is his own offspring. And the reason why the Lord has been so patient with us, and will be so still, is because we are his children, still his children, still his children. There is wondrous power in that. If there is nobody else to speak up for him, his father always will. God does not bring into the foreground what we are, so much as what he means to make us. He puts our blackness away and sees us as we shall be when we shall bear the image of the heavenly. For Christ's sake, beholding the face of his anointed, he loves us and goes on to instruct us still. Heaven's Nurse Children, Sermon No. 1021, Hosea 11:3. If there is nobody else to speak up for him, his father always will. That sentence contains the whole of it. The father who persists in teaching and praying and leading when the child is resistant and the work seems fruitless and nobody outside the house is watching, he persists because the child is his. That is the whole reason. Not because the results are encouraging. Because this is his child, and the relationship makes the persistence not just possible but inevitable. And then the application to God, he sees us not as we are but as what he means to make us. He keeps the future in view when the present is discouraging. The father who can do this for his own children, who can look at the difficult or resistant or wayward child and hold in view what God means to make of them, is the father whose instruction can persist through the seasons when it seems to be finding no purchase. Chords of a man, bands of love. The passage in Hosea continues beyond the image of teaching to walk. It adds a description of the instrument through which God draws his people forward. Not ropes. Not commands. Not compulsion. Cords of a man. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love. Thus does the gracious Spirit of God work in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure. Not with ropes and chains that would compel against the will, overhauling them roughly, but with forces suited for minds and hearts. The love of Christ constrains us. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. The Father does not drag his child toward God, he draws him. The instrument is love, and love alone. Heaven's nurse children, Sermon No. 1021, Hosea 11:3. The instrument is love, and love alone. This is what God uses to draw his children toward himself. Not law, not fear, not religious compulsion. The cords of a man, the kind of love that one person genuinely has for another, and bands of love. He draws rather than drags. This is the model for the father who leads his household toward God. He draws his children by the quality of his own love for God and for them. Not by insisting. Not by religious compulsion. Not by making faith feel like a burden they are required to carry. By being a man whose actual relationship with God is visible, warm, genuine, and attractive enough that his children want what he has. The cords of love that Spurgeon is describing are not a strategy. They are the natural overflow of a man who genuinely knows God and genuinely loves his children. You cannot manufacture the cords. You can only develop the love that produces them, the daily, unglamorous, persevering walk with God that eventually becomes, in the eyes of the children watching it, the most compelling case for faith they have ever seen. What this means for you, practically. The four chapters of part three have carried a single thread, how to lead when it is hard. When the child is lost, when the child you love is wounding you. When the prayer has gone on for years. When the teaching is slow and the progress is invisible. Hosea 11 gives the final word the same God who is leading you is the model for how you lead your children. He holds their arms while they learn. He moves at the pace their feet can bear. He draws with love rather than driving with compulsion. He sees them not as they are but as what he means to make them. He persists because they are his, and the relationship makes the persistence inevitable. Be that father. Take the arms. Move at their pace. Keep the future in view when the present is discouraging. Draw with love rather than driving with compulsion. And when you find yourself wondering why you keep doing this when the results are not visible, remember the word spurgeon pressed on every father in his congregation who is asking that question. Because they are your own. Still your children. Still yours. That is enough. Questions for reflection. 1. God taught Ephraim as much as his feet could bear, calibrating the teaching to the child's actual capacity. How attentive are you to the actual spiritual capacity of each of your children right now? Are you teaching at the pace they can genuinely carry? 2. He said the father persists because the child is his own, not because the results are encouraging, but because the relationship makes the persistence inevitable. When the teaching or the praying is not producing visible fruit, what sustains you? Is it the relationship or the results? 3. Spurgeon said God sees us as what he means to make us, not as what we are. Can you do that for your most difficult child? Can you hold in view what God means to make of them when the present is discouraging? The instrument is bands of love, the father draws his children toward God rather than driving them. Does your household leadership feel more like drawing or driving? What would shift it toward the former? 5. Part 3 has been about leading when it is hard, the running father, the absolute grief, the persistent prayer, the teaching that is slow. Of these four, which is the most pressing challenge in your household right now? What is the next step of faithfulness in that specific area?