You say, why is that? Well, because children are a blessing, amen?
Look at verse 3, lo, children are a heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are the children of the youth.
You ever notice that God compares children to arrows?
Why is that? Because when you shoot an arrow, it goes further than the way you can go.
We want to make sure that we raise our children in such a way that they actually go further than us.
That when we launch them out to fight against the principalities and powers and the rules of the darkness of this world,
when they're sent out to do great works for God, they actually do more than what Dad did.
They actually are able to do greater works than what Mom did. Why? Because we trained them right.
We discipled our children in the right ways so that when you're long gone, you're dead and you're six feet under, you went home to be with the Lord.
Your legacy is still being carried out, your children are still serving the Lord, your labor is not in vain.
Why? Because you discipled, I was going to say you disciplined with that too, you discipled your children.
By the way, discipline is part of discipleship, amen? You discipled your children, you taught them the ways of the Lord.
Their generation is going to be a scary generation to live in when they grow up.
You might want to consider that ladder in. And that should be a motivation to you to train them in the ways of the Lord so that when you launch them out, they go further than you've ever gone.
That's the goal. That's how you can make sure that your ladder in is more than the first.