This story is a powerful warning regarding how Christians are to raise their children. Lot’s daughters grew up in Sodom. And there is no evidence that they were children of God. Lot had thrown them into the culture, and raised them in the heart of paganism. The consequences should surprise no one. How about our children? Do we raise them in the church? Or do we simply toss them to the cultural winds?
Spurgeon provides a wonderful illustration of the proper Christian nurturing of youth:
‘On the mantel-shelf of my grandmother’s parlour, among other marvels, was an apple in a phial. It quite filled up the body of the bottle, and my wondering enquiry was, “How could it have gotten into its place?” By stealth I climbed a chair to see if the bottom would unscrew, or if there had been a join in the glass throughout the length of the phial. I was satisfied by careful observation that neither of these theories could be supported, and the apple remained to me an enigma and a mystery. Walking in the garden I saw a phial placed on a tree bearing within it a tiny apple, which was growing within the crystal; and now I saw it all; the apple was put into the bottle while it was little, and it grew there. Just so must we catch the little men and women who swarm our streets — we call them boys and girls — and introduce them within the influence of the church, for alas! It is hard indeed to reach them when they have ripened in carelessness and sin.’
— John Currid