The Next Generation - Passing It On
"We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done." Psalm 78: 4b
Why was it that the children of Joshua were not as committed to the Lord as their fathers. or that his grandchildren did not even know the Lord and His works? We can ask the same question of other great men of God in the Bible. Look at Abraham and David who were great men of God. They were not perfect, but they were men who were totally devoted to God, yet, they were not able to carry their beliefs and convictions on to the next generation. Their sons were men of compromise who never had the convictions of their fathers. As a result, there grew up a third generation who completely destroyed the nation of Israel because of their lack of devotion to the Lord.
How does this happen? Are we really able to pass on our beliefs and convictions to our children? Men like Joshua, David, and Abraham, were men whose beliefs had been tried and tested to the point they were now convictions. Convictions don't move regardless of what may be going on around them. But we can't pass on our convictions to our children. They have to develop their own through their trials and test. For our children, our convictions can easily become just their beliefs unless we allow them to go through the fires of life(1 Corinthians 3: 13-15). Beliefs then have the tendency to become opinions to their children and opinions are just soft sand that is easily blown by the prevailing wind.
Our children are growing up in a world where many believe we have already lost the cultural war. The convictions of generations past are so strongly out of step with today's generation that they think of those of the past as fanatics. Although we may not approve, we can understand how our children can begin to compromise on issues that we would never have considered. Who would have ever thought that Solomon, the son of David and the wisest man in all the world, would choose the way of the world. Solomon was a perfect example of a man with one foot in the world and one foot in the Kingdom. As his children grew up in a home where the dad lived sometimes for God and sometimes for the world, conflict was the order of the day in their life. Solomon's children watched their dad say one thing and do another. In three generations of David, it went from a man of conviction, to a man of compromise, to a generation who wanted nothing to do with their God.
The same holds true for us today. My parents would have never considered going to a PG movie, much less an R rated movie. They would have never considered marriage to be anything but a union between a woman and a man. God was first, second, and third in their lives, and they did not move! I can remember when Clark Gable uttered that famous line in the movie, GONE WITH THE WIND - "frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." It was the first time a curse word was used in a movie. My parents were shocked. My generation thought it was cool. We could not wait to tell our friends to go see the movie. Then came a little more cursing, then a little nudity, and now today, there are no limits to the vulgarity displayed and we Christians actually give our money to see it. COMPROMISE!! Oh, we excuse it in that it is just a little in a few scenes, the acting is great, or the movie is going to get the academy award. We tell our friends -"you gotta go see this movie. There are a few curse words, a little nudity, but the story is great." Before we realize it, our lives begin to be filled with compromise. As our children watch us in our Christ like act at church the next Sunday, and then see us a different person on Monday through Saturday, their lives begin to be filled with conflict. It does not take long before they want nothing to do with our Christianity. They see us as hypocrites. Some say the hardest person to lead to the Lord is a person who grew up in a compromising home.
Can we really pass on our beliefs and convictions to the next generation? Yes, I believe we can. But it is going to take a complete humbling of self and a total repentance on our part. We have to seek the God who is, surrender our beliefs to His precepts, and be willing to stand - and not move! To do this we must be willing to spend time with God and really get to know and love Him more than we do the world. We need to feed our souls with the Word of God rather than the words of the world. It takes time. The Bible tells us the most important thing we can do is to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds(Matthew 22:37). We must first get our selves in shape before we can influence the next generation.
