Following in Their Parents’ Steps
Are you pressuring your children to preach or to be missionaries? Gasp!
Abraham did more than just pressure his household. See what God said about him.
For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him (Gen. 18:19).
Joshua said. “…As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” He did not say, “I don’t know about my family.” He said, “…As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15). Whatever authority or influence I have, I want to use it so that my children will serve God.
Paul said about Timothy, “But ye know the proof of him, that, as a son with the father, he hath served with me in the Gospel” (Philippians 2:22). So I take my sons, Timothy and Joshua, with me preaching in schools and churches. Now they are doing the same thing I’ve been doing for over 50 years. And I can teach them things that took me a long time to learn.
When I was a young man my father sent me to preach in seven or eight schools a month where he had preached for years. Mom took me to a Bible club where she had a ministry, and she had me preach to the children. I never thought my father was bullying me into doing his thing. He was not out of place or usurping God’s calling. My parents did not ask me what I thought about it or if God had called me. They just sent me.
By cooperating with my parents and obeying them I was obeying the Great Commission far more effectively than I had been obeying it. Instead of sharing the Gospel occasionally with a few people I was now preaching the good news to hundreds of people a week. I am indebted to my parents for guiding me into a vocation of obedience to the Great Commission.
The idea that you have to sense a special call from God to preach is not in the Bible. God already commanded us to preach the Gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15). Even when the Bible lists the qualifications of a pastor, there is no mention of a call.
Jesus commanded us to go and make disciples, to baptize them and to teach them to obey all of His commands (Matthew 28:19, 20). So Jesus commands us to make disciples and to teach them to make disciples. My wife and I are obeying those commands with our children.
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach
them diligently unto thy children… (Dt 6:6, 7).
But you can’t tell your adult children what to do! At least that’s what the world says. God says, “Children obey your parents.” The word children, is not the word for little children or the word for minors who are not yet of age. He used the word meaning offspring.
God specifically commended the descendants of Jonadab the son of Rechab because they obeyed their father—even though they were adults, married and away from home. They obeyed—even in things that God does not require: Jonadab forbad his sons to build houses. They had to live in tents. They were not allowed to plant gardens. What kind of liberty is that? But notice what God said about them.
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Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Because ye have obeyed the commandment of Johadab your father, and kept all his precepts, and done according unto all that he hath commanded you: Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before Me for ever (Jeremiah 35:18, 19).
There is a dreadful urgency in the command to proclaim the good news. Most people are going on the broad way to the lake of fire. We have the message of salvation. There are many who could be saved. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Most people who call themselves Christians don’t bother to warn sinners or tell them the good news of salvation.
The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest (Mat. 9:37, 38).
I make no apology for showing our children the urgency of serving God. I don’t want them to live like those who show they don’t even care that multitudes are going to the lake of fire!
“Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Cor. 5:11).
I don’t want Jesus, the Judge, to say to me or to any of my children, “You wicked, lazy servant!” (Mat. 25:26). I don’t want Him to say,
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth (Rev. 3:15, 16).
I will have to give account to God for myself and for what my children do with their lives.
Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves; for they watch for your souls as they that must give account… (Heb. 13:17).
God held Eli accountable for the immoral life his sons followed. God said,
For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not (1 Samuel 3:13).
Just yesterday, and it often happens, men and women here in Africa tell us how glad they are to see that our sons are following in their parents’ footsteps.
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