We Choose the Best in Friendships
Put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them. Numbers 6:27.
God's Word places great stress upon the influence of association, even upon men and women. How much greater is its power on the developing mind and character of children and youth. The company they keep, the principles they adopt, the habits they form, will decide the question of their usefulness here, and of their future, eternal interest....
Through contact with the irreligious, the pleasure-loving, and the corrupt, many, many youth lose the simplicity and purity, the faith in God, and the spirit of self-sacrifice that Christian fathers and mothers have cherished and guarded by careful instruction and earnest prayer....
As a rule, men and women who have broad ideas, unselfish purposes, noble aspirations, are those in whom these characteristics were developed by their associations in early years. In all His dealings with Israel, God urged upon them the importance of guarding the associations of their children. All the arrangements of civil, religious, and social life were made with a view to preserving the children from harmful companionship, and making them, from their earliest years, familiar with the precepts and principles of the law of God. The object-lesson given at the birth of the nation was of a nature deeply to impress all hearts. Before the last terrible judgment came upon the Egyptians in the death of the first-born, God commanded His people to gather their children into their own homes. The doorpost of every house was marked with blood, and within the protection assured by this token all were to abide. So today parents who love and fear God are to keep their children under “the bond of the covenant,”—within the protection of those sacred influences made possible through Christ's redeeming blood.11The Ministry of Healing, 402-404.
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