FBC Daily Devotional – December 27, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Monday morning to you, and I hope you had a wonderful Christmas celebration over the weekend, and were able to get together with some family or friends, or even if it was just, even if it was just a handful of people.

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Maybe your Christmas day was spent alone. And if it was,

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I know that probably was painful, was hurtful, but by God's grace, you were blessed with the presence of Christ, knowing that the one whose birth we were celebrating on Saturday, he was with you, he is your savior, and I hope that was an encouragement to you.

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But if you were able to get with family and friends, I hope you had a good day. No matter what the case, how you spent the day,

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I hope you had a good Christmas. And now, looking forward to the new year, and wind down 2021 here in a few days, and look forward to the dawn of 2022.

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Well, we're wrapping up this year's Bible reading plan.

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It's really part one of two parts, where the Bible reading plan takes us through the Bible in two years' time, and so we're halfway through when we get to the end of the week this week.

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And today, we're in 2 Kings chapters 15 and 16, and what I wanna really focus on this morning is

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I've heard the idea, and maybe you have too, that if a kid turns out wrong, that it's gotta be the parent's fault, because after all, you have this promise in the

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Bible that if you train up a child in the way he should go when he's old, he'll not depart from it.

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And so that's often been interpreted as sort of like a guarantee, that you just do the right things, you follow the right formula, and your children, when they grow up into adulthood, they'll be the right kind of people.

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They'll be the right, they'll follow Christ, they'll be godly people, and so forth. And of course, the corollary will be that if they don't, therefore, the parents must not have brought them up in the right way, must not have trained them in the right way, so it's gotta be the parent's fault.

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If they turn out good, parents get the credit. If they turn out bad, it's the parent's fault. I've heard that argument expressed more times than I care to mention in 40 -some years of ministry.

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But I think what we read in 2 Kings 15 and 16 really kind of turns that interpretation on its head.

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And actually, there are other places we're gonna discover in Kings where it does as well, but here especially, because you have this king come to the throne in chapter 16,

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Ahaz, and the summary of Ahaz's ministry is this.

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It says, Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem, and he did not do what was right in the sight of the

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Lord his God, as his father David had done. And of course, he's talking about his ancestor, Ahaz's ancestor

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David. He's far removed from David at this point. But it goes on to say, but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel.

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Indeed, this is how evil he was. He made his son pass through the fire according to the abomination of the nations whom the

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Lord had cast out from before the children of Israel. Goodness gracious, where in the world did he learn this?

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His parents must have been horrible. They must have been terrible idolaters.

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Well, interestingly, his father was a king by the name of Jotham. And here's a summary of Jotham's life and reign.

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It says, Jotham was 25 years old when he became king, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem.

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His mother's name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok, and he did what was right in the sight of the

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Lord. He did according to all that Uzziah his father had done. All right, so Ahaz's father was

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Jotham, and Jotham did what was right in the sight of the Lord. And Jotham's father was

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Uzziah, or Azariah as chapter 15 speaks of him. And the summary of Azariah is this, that he was 16 years old when he became king, and he reigned 52 years in Jerusalem.

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His mother's name was Jechaliah of Jerusalem, and he did what was right in the sight of the

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Lord according to all that his father Amaziah had done. So you've got

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Ahaz's father, and grandfather, and great -grandfather, who were all excellent role models for him in terms of how their life and ministry and reign as kings is generally summarized.

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They did what was right in the sight of the Lord. And then along comes Ahaz, and he completely walks away from all of that, and he does what is evil in the eyes of the

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Lord, and sacrifices his son, and sacrificed and burned incense in the high hills, high places, the high hills, and so forth.

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He was a wicked man. He didn't learn that from his father or his grandfather or his great -grandfather.

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How do you explain that? I explain it quite simply, that every man is responsible for how he responds to the training that he receives, be it good or ill.

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And we're gonna see later on in Kings where there were kings who did evil, and I believe it's one of the descendants of Ahaz's.

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I haven't jumped far enough ahead before this session to look at it, but descendants of evil kings who did right.

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And if you follow the logic that the parent is going to instill in the kid what they're gonna do, and the child is going to follow in the footsteps of the parent in some way or another, then you have to conclude that every child who's the offspring of an evil king is going to be an evil king.

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That's not what we see. How is this possible? Everyone does what's right in the

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Lord's eyes because of God's grace in their life. And that cannot be presumed upon.

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It is erroneous for a parent to say, even today, if I just do all the right things, if I just teach my kids all the right things, if I make sure they're in church, if I present a good example to them, and we do all the right things with our kids, then they will turn out right.

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Not without the grace of God. By the grace of God, we turn out right.

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By the grace of God, we do what is right. And so I think that's a good corrective for us to have that yes, we do train our children.

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Yes, we do live right. Yes, we do make right choices. And we encourage them to make right choices and try to help them to make right choices and all the rest of that.

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But when all is said and done, when they come of age and they're on their own and they have their own responsibilities, they're responsible before the

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Lord for how they accept or reject what they have received through their child training years.

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So if you're a parent that has had a child err, go astray, and you look back and you just, you bang your head against a wall and you just feel terribly guilty thinking,

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I must have done something wrong. Well, you might have, I'm not saying you did or didn't, but I'm just saying not necessarily, not necessarily.

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And I'm not suggesting either that these parents and grandparents of Ahaz were perfect either, because we know that that's not the case.

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Uzziah had made some terrible mistakes in his reign, but as far as the general tenor of his reign, he did what was right in the sight of the

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Lord. Now, here's the thing. There is no perfect parent. There isn't one. All of us fail.

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All of us make mistakes. And yet, what's the general tenor? What's the general trajectory that our life is on and that we try to point our children to?

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What's that general trajectory? Whether or not they follow a positive, godly trajectory that we set, establish for them, that's their responsibility.

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We pray for God in his grace to, that they would take it. So I hope that's in some way helpful to you and maybe it's encouraging to you, perhaps.

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But anyway, I see this in Kings and I thought that would be a blessing today.

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Father, we do thank you for your grace. And we realize that none of us, none of us can live the life we ought to live, a life that's pleasing to you, doing what's right in your sight, apart from your grace.

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We pray it for ourselves. We pray it for our children. We pray that you would do gracious works in our families.

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And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well,

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I hope you have have a good rest of your day today. And I trust God will bless you in it.