In the sacrament of baptism the parents are required to take solemn vows, and thereby assume weighty responsibilities; and the vows once taken can never be reversed. To vow vainly or rashly by that glorious and dreadful name JEHOVAH is to invite disaster; for the decrees of God are as unchangeable as His being. Thus saith the Lord: "Ye shall not swear by My name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God. I am the Lord" (Lev. 19: 12). The writer of Eccles. says, "Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay" (Ecc. 5: 5). And there is the commandment written by the finger of God, and sealed for all eternity: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain" (Ex. 20: 7).

The vows that the parents are required to take are set forth in Eph. 6: 4, "And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Parents who knowingly avoid taking these vows, do not alter the consequences. For, thus saith the Lord: "What nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments as righteous as all this law, which I have set before you this day; only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently lest thou forget the things thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life; but teach them thy son and thy son's sons" (Deut. 4: 9).

It should be clearly understood that the responsibility rests, in the first place, with the parents, and not on the Church. Responsibility cannot be shifted to the Sabbath School. The Holy Scriptures lay the responsibility squarely upon the parents, saying "When thy son ask thee, in time to come, saying, what mean the testimonies and the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God hath commanded you? Then shalt you say unto thy son, We are Pharaoh's bondmen and the Lord brought us out with a strong hand."

Every individual is required to fulfil his obligations to God; and he shall answer for his failure before the Throne of Judgment; as it is recorded in the Book of Revelation, "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works." To avoid taking the vows does not constitute a release from parental obligation.

The significance of the baptismal vows is this: The parents acknowledge God as their God, and claim the covenant promise for their child. "I will be a God unto thee, and thy seed after thee." And the covenant promise is, re-stated by Peter after Pentecost: "The promise is to you and your children." The parents bring their child to be received into the Church of God, and the Church is required to hold the child in spiritual affection, and pray for the enrichment of its personality and loveliness of its character; in a very real sense the baptised infant is indeed the child of the Church. The Lord Jesus Christ, when He had set a child by Him, said to His disciples, "Whosoever shall receive this child in My name receiveth Me." Thus when the covenant promise is claimed for a child, the Church receiveth the child into membership. The parental vows are taken, the institution of baptism by our Lord administered, the responsibilities of both parents and the Church lovingly undertaken.

The divinely imposed responsibility of parents to their children is used by God to reveal His own care over His people, as a mother's tenderness and care in her watchfulness and love over her child, and the compassion and affection of a father with regard to the helpfulness of the charge committed to his trust. So said the Psalmist - "As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him."

The endearing, intimate relationship between parents and children binds them in the closest union; so that the parents become the natural objects of the child's love, reverence, gratitude, devotion and confidence, and when parents neglect the spiritual welfare of their children, that confidence is betrayed.

Into the hands of parents a charge has been committed. A life that will reach out to all eternity; which will either be conformed to the divine image and hold the citizen rights of heaven, or be forsaken of God and dwell in the habitations of a lost world. The child has a religious and moral nature, and it is the trust committed to parents to enlighten and cultivate the religious nature, that the child may aspire to be adorned with that perfection purposed by God to be manifest in all His redeemed. Parents may be greatly concerned about the material well-being of their children; but God insists, by His commandment, that the child's eternal salvation should claim the parents' first-interests. The most formative years of the child's life are in their hands, while the character and personality are being moulded. And God's command, "Bring the child up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," includes the whole training and discipline of the child.

In 1st Samuel 2 we have recorded the dreadful and terrible consequences of neglect on the part of the parent. There came a man of God unto Eli saying. "the Lord saith, 'For them that honour Me I will honour, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.' Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial, they knew not God," and Hophni and Phinehas came under God's condemnation, because of their own wickedness; nevertheless, Eli's neglect was not overlooked, for God said, "Because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not, God swore that the iniquity of the house of Eli would not be purged by sacrifice." Those who conscientiously strive to fulfil their parental vows have the assurance of the Word of God that their efforts shall not be in vain. The promise is: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. 22: 6).

The promises of God do not vary in degrees of possibility, for all His promises are secured by His omnipotent holiness. The Holy Scriptures set down the method by which parents should bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In the 119th Psalm we read: "By what means shall a young man learn his ways to purify? If he according to thy word thereto attentive be."

The Bible is the text book that God has given to parents. The Psalmist claimed that the Scriptures gave him more understanding than his teachers, and made him wiser than the wisdom of experience gave to the aged. "Than all my teachers now I have more understanding far; because my meditation thy testimonies are. In understanding I excel those that are ancients, for I have endeavoured to keep all Thy commandments." It was a practical wisdom that consisted in the fear of the Lord, and when applied, proved to be a "lamp to his feet and a light unto his path."

It was the Scriptures that Eunice used in training her child, Timothy. And above all other recommendations, our Lord Jesus Christ used the Scriptures to answer the problems that faced men in His day on the earth. The Holy Bible is the centre of all authority, and the fountain head of wisdom for it is THE WORD OF GOD.