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"When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would
send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would
sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking,
'Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their
hearts.' This was Job's regular custom." -Job 1:5
What
a beautiful picture of a man in whose heart the fear of God
dwells! His greatest concern is that his children not sin
against God or forsake Him in their hearts. He is so deeply
conscious of the weakness of their nature that, even when he
does not know of a positive transgression, the very thought of
their having been in circumstances of temptation makes him
afraid for their souls. He so fully realizes his position and
privilege as father that he calls for them to be sanctified
and takes upon himself the continual offering of the needed
sacrifice. Job is another example among Bible saints of a
servant of God in whom faith makes its home and by whose
intercession and fear of God his children are redeemed. God
could hardly have said of him, "There is no one on earth like
him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and
shuns evil" (Job 1:8), if this element of true holiness had
been lacking. The book might have been complete without it as
far as the record of Job's patience and faith is concerned,
but we would have missed the much-needed lesson that a man's
entire consecration to God implies the consecration of his
family life too. Let us study the lesson his example teaches.
l. A deep fear of finding sin in himself or his
children is one of the marks of a godly parent. It was to
conquer and make free from sin that God entered into the
parental covenant with Abraham. It was because of sin, and to
deliver from its root, that the blood of the lamb was
sprinkled in the Passover. It was to lead out of sin and into
the service of God that parents were appointed instructors of
their children. In all God's dealings with us in redemption
and in grace, in His revelation through Christ and His cross,
He has had one objective: to save us from sin and to make us
partakers of His holiness. If the parent is to be God's
co-worker, if the authority God delegates to him is to be used
correctly, and if the blessing promised him is to come to
pass, God must find the parent in harmony with himself, hating
sin with a perfect hatred and seeking, above all, to keep it
out of his home.
But our views of sin are often
superficial. How easily we are satisfied that all is well!
Under the appearance of what is good and loving, sin may be
lurking. Our children may be growing up quietly renouncing God
in their hearts! Parents must ask God to give them an accurate
sense of what sin is in their children-its curse, its dishonor
to God, and its power.
We must ask Him to work in us a
very deep and clear conviction that His great objective in
taking us into covenant as His ministers to the children is
that they may be delivered from sin. This is His one aim: that
the power of Christ's victory over sin may be seen in the
children, and our homes may be holy to the Lord.
2.
Careful watchfulness where there is certain to be temptation
will be the natural result of such an aversion to sin. Job
knew that at a time of feasting there would be certain
temptations for his sons. When these days were past, he sent
for them and sanctified them. These young men surely received
a strong impression of the awfulness of sin by the action of
their God-fearing father, such that a kind of watchfulness
would be awakened in them and a fear of forgetting God. Every
thoughtful parent knows that there are times and places when
the temptations of sin will be more apt to surprise even the
most well-behaved child. Such are the times, both before and
after a child goes into a situation or circumstance where he
may be tempted, that a praying father and mother should do
what Job did, bring the children before God in repentance and
faith and where possible to confront them with questions
concerning their behavior.
A Christian man, recently
converted, told of the indelible impression made on him by his
mother when she sat him down, just before he was to happily
embark on his first long journey away from home, and prayed
with him that he might be kept from sin.
Let us ask
God to make us very watchful and very wise in availing
ourselves of opportunities to admonish our children and to
pray audibly with them. There are times when the conscience of
a child is especially sensitive and a word fitly spoken will
sink deeply into the heart. There are also occasions when the
conscience has been ignored and a word of prayer will help to
awaken it and restore its authority. A parent in sympathy with
God's purpose for destroying sin, and who holds himself at
God's disposal, will be guided as to when and how to stir and
strengthen in his child the consciousness of sin and its
danger.
3. A godly parent has power with God to
intercede. Job not only spoke to his children but he also
sanctified them through burnt offerings, as was the custom.
The parent who has accepted the sign of the sprinkling of the
blood for his child and who has applied the blood on the
doorposts of his home, has a right to plead with God on behalf
of that blood covering. His faith obtains pardon for the
child-he can intercede for the grace that can save and
sanctify.
We have, through the whole course of God's
dealings with parents, from Noah forward, seen that God gives
the parent the right and the power to appear and to act on
behalf of his child and that such representative action is
accepted. To grasp hold of the power of this is the very
essence of parental faith; to act upon it is the secret of
parental authority and blessing. The whole family dynamic is
based upon this. All other influences a parent exerts depend
on his being clear on this point: I am the steward of God's
grace to my child; I represent my child with God and am heard
on his behalf. This gives him confidence to say, I represent
God to my child; I have authority and influence with my son or
daughter because of my relationship to God. I have overcome
the power of my child's sin by pleading with God for him, and
together we shall conquer its manifestation.
Dear
parents, let us earnestly plead that God by His Spirit will
enlighten our hearts to understand our calling to intercede
and prevail for our children. In our family's life, the first
thing of importance must not be our earthly happiness, or even
the supply of our daily needs, nor seeing to the children's
education for a life of prosperity and usefulness, but rather
the yielding of ourselves to God in order to be conveyors of
His grace and blessing to our children. Let us live for God's
purpose: deliverance from sin. Thus our family life will
forever be brightened with God's presence and with the joy of
our heavenly home to come, of which our earthly one is but the
nursery and the image.
Prayer of Consecration
Gracious God, I humbly ask you to stamp deeply in my
heart the lessons your holy Word was given to teach. May Job,
who has taught your saints so much about patience in the hour
of trial and of your wondrous grace in delivering from it, be
to all parents a role model of one who fears God.
Impress on us, we pray, the fear of God in its full
extent and power, sorrowing over the sins of our children and
interceding for them as for our own soul. Teach us, Lord, to
abhor sin, the one thing you hate, and may we make it our aim
to keep our children from its enticement and destruction.
May we realize our God-given position as intercessors
and plead the blood for them as we do for ourselves, having
full confidence that our prayers are heard. Teach us to bring
them with us in prayer, praying at the right time and in the
right way, that from us they may learn both the fear of God
and the confidence of faith. O God, if we are indeed your
children, may these traits produce holiness in us and thus
mark our home and family life as belonging wholly to you.
Amen.
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