Children Are Blameless before God
Doctrine and Covenants 93:40
40 But I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth.
President Boyd K. Packer said:
“There is nothing in the scriptures, there is nothing in what we publish, there is nothing in what we believe or teach that gives license to parents or anyone else to neglect or abuse or molest our own or anyone else’s children.
“There is in the scriptures, there is in what we publish, there is in what we believe, there is in what we teach, counsel, commandments, even warnings that we are to protect, to love, to care for, and to ‘teach [children] to walk in the ways of truth’ (Mosiah 4:15). To betray them is utterly unthinkable.
“Among the strongest warnings and the severest penalties in the revelations are those relating to little children. Jesus said, ‘But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea’ (Matthew 18:6).
“In the days of the prophet Mormon, some who did not understand that little children are ‘blameless before God’ (Mosiah 3:21) and are ‘alive in Christ’ (Moroni 8:12) wanted to baptize little children. Mormon said they ‘[denied] the mercies of Christ, and [set] at naught the atonement of him and the power of his redemption’ (Moroni 8:20).
“Mormon sternly rebuked them, saying: ‘He that supposeth that little children need baptism is in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; for he hath neither faith, hope, nor charity; wherefore, should he be cut off while in the thought, he must go down to hell. . . .
“‘Behold, I speak with boldness, having authority from God’ (Moroni 8:14, 16).
“Only when a child reaches that age of accountability, set by the Lord at eight years of age (see D&C 68:27), is their baptism essential. Before that age, they are innocent.
“Children should not be ignored or neglected. They absolutely must not be abused or molested. Children must not be abandoned or estranged by divorce. Parents are responsible to provide for their children.
“The Lord said, ‘All children have claim upon their parents for their maintenance until they are of age’ (D&C 83:4).
“We are to look after their physical, their spiritual, and their emotional needs. The Book of Mormon teaches, ‘Ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the evil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness’ (Mosiah 4:14).
“Nothing compares with a father who is responsible and in turn teaches his children responsibility. Nothing compares with a mother who is present with them to comfort them and give them assurance. Love, protection, and tenderness are all of consummate worth.
“The Lord said, ‘I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth’ (D&C 93:40).
“All too often, a parent is left alone to raise children. The Lord has a way of strengthening that parent to meet alone what should be the responsibility of two parents. For either parent to deliberately abandon their children is a very grievous mistake.”
(“Children,” Ensign, May 2002, 8–9.)
