Appendix 3. Show Them Only What Is Clean
What is God like? God is holy, God is clean, and God is light. He has no sin or dirt in him, not so much as the point of a needle. God first showed believers a life that sets the example, and he kept every promise.
It is only natural for God’s children to live holy lives after his image and fulfill the role of a lamp. Do you love your children? Then show your children your holy and pure life. If parents, to teach their children about dirt, showed them the sewer and made the house as filthy as a garbage can, and then said, “See how dirty it is? That’s why you have to live clean!” those parents would be the most foolish and unwise of people. And there are parents like this, too. When children, without thinking, repeat in front of their parents a swear word they picked up outside, the parents take up the rod, demand to know where they learned such a word, and force them to say it again. The terrified child, afraid of the rod, swears again, and at that the parents take up the rod and tell them to say it again. The parents get angry because the child made a mistake and let the word slip out once, yet these foolish parents are the very ones who make the child repeat it. That is not teaching. Isn’t it an unwise act that plants the swear word deep in the child’s heart?
If, at every moment, parents first show their children a clean house, gentle words of respect for each other and loving looks, the children will come to have a sense of what is clean without even knowing it, and will not be able to stand even a little dirt.
Faith is the same. Once you hear the word of truth, you cannot listen to the words of the world. Once you receive the love of brothers and sisters in faith who are members of one body, you do not go looking for comfort from the people of the world. Once you meet the God of love, you will not be able to bear the places in the world where Satan leads, and you will leave them. I hope you will keep in mind that only when parents first know the truth rightly, love what is clean and serve God well will the children, naturally, not go out into the world.