The Parents' Faithlessness

 I hope we all know the absolute importance of parents in the lives of their children. I am sure that all of us can look back on our lives and see things that our parents did or didn't do that had a huge effect on our lives. Perhaps they led us to Jesus, but maybe they were alcoholics or drug addicts, and their addiction made our lives very difficult. The same is true for us and our children. What have we done or what are we doing that will have a lasting impact of them, for good or for evil?

The Israelites failed to enter the Promised Land after hearing the report of the men who were sent into the land to spy it out before their invasion. Therefore, God sentenced all of the people to wander in the wilderness until all of that generation had died. (Numbers 14:33) God told them that their children would be like shepherds wandering in the wilderness those 40 years. In that way they would pay for the faithlessness of their parents, until all of the parents' generation had died. I would say they had to pay a pretty high price for the faithlessness of their parents, wouldn't you?

This is such a good example of the sins of the parents being visited upon their children and their children's children. The parents' faithlessness caused all of them to have to live in the desert for 40 years. Those were 40 years that all of them could have been living in the land flowing with milk and honey. It caused all of them to have to endure life in a desert, as they looked back on what might have been. God doesn't ever want that to happen to any of us.

That is why God's Word is consistent from the Genesis to Revelation that parents have to be diligent to raise their children well. They are called not to be faithless, but to be faithful to the Lord. They are to show their children by their actions that they trust God in everything, and they are to use their words to teach them the ways of God. When that happens as God designed for it to be done, the children do not have to pay the price for their parents faithlessness, but they are blessed by their faithfulness and given a great start on their lives.

#NHBaptistdotorg

Tomorrow, I intend to read Numbers 16-18.