Learning From the Past
Genesis 26:7 When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “She is my wife.” He thought, “The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful.”
Does this sound familiar? Well, if you read Gen 12:13 and Gen 20:2 Abraham did the same thing two different times. Once he did it to Pharaoh and then to Abimelech king of Gerar. Now Isaac has denied Rebekah to Abimelech, the very same king of Gerar that his father did Sarah his mother. The sins of the father have come to his son.
Why did this have to happen? Was this God’s fault? Did the powers of darkness tempt or deceive them into doing such a thing? Well, one thing we know it was certainly not God’s will or God would never have stopped the kings from having sexual relations with the two women. Was it the powers of darkness? They certainly could have put this fear in both Abraham and Isaac of being killed because of their wives being so beautiful. And they could have encouraged the king’s officials to ask each men about their wives. It could have even been a test by God to see if both men would trust God to protect them and their wives. And it could have been that the men just cared more for their lives than having the women as their wives.
What I would like to center in on is how the actions of parents influence their children. We have heard the old saying that says, “Do as I say, and not as I do.” Well, that might ease somewhat the conscious of the parents, but it doesn’t mean much to the children that love and respect their parents so much. It is only natural for anyone to imitate what they admire. We see this with our children and even adults doing and saying the same things of their sports hero's or musicians.
We dress like them, walk and talk like them and even fall into the same lifestyle of sin like them.
My mother used to tell me that, “Birds of a feather flock together.” Then she would add, “You need to choose your friends very carefully, because chances are you will end up just like them. If you want to be a good person and have a good life then you need to have friends that they and their parents live that way.” As I look back on my life and others that I have known I can certainly see the truth in mom’s old saying. I am proud to say that all of my friends have had wonderful lives and I am proud of them. Sad to say I do know some people that didn’t turn out to be good people and had terrible lives, and as I look back to their youth they didn’t choose wisely with whom they associated with.
As parents there is a great deal of responsibility, but also accountability. We set the mold so to speak for future generations. We don’t just influence our children, but they will their children, their children will influence their children and so on. Being a pastor for 32 years I have seen and heard many things regarding this very thing. I have had parents glow with pride as they tell me of how wonderful persons their children have become. How much they love Jesus, go to church and serve the Lord. How successful they have become and have wonderful loving families. But I have also been with people that have had tears running down their cheeks as they shared the sadness and tragedy in their children’s lives and their grandchildren’s lives. I even had a person ask me once if they were the reason for the way their children turned out. I never had to answer it, because they already knew the answer. Just because we are good parents doesn’t mean that our children will always turn out good, or bad parents will always have bad children. Our children have a free will just as we parents do. They will have to deal with God regarding their own sins just as we will ours.
So where does all this bring us? Probably to the reality that we can make our children go to church and memorize half the Bible, but where the greatest influence lies with our children will be how Christ-like we live and most of all how much we love Jesus. If we do not have a personal relationship with Jesus, they will see Christianity as just another organization that wants our money and time. As parents, grandparents, neighbors, and people in general, our greatest opportunity to help others to want Jesus to be their Lord and Savior is the day to day life we live. We will not be perfect as only Jesus was on earth and is, but with the help of the Holy Spirit and our determination, we can help mold not only those we love and come in contact with but future generations!
Prayer: Holy Spirit please help us to live a Christ-like life in such a way as to help glorify Jesus and help others to want to trust, obey and love Jesus too.
In Jesus’ name we ask this.
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