‘Abraham will surely become a great and
powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.
For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household
after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that
the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.’ (Gen. 18:18-19)
When God was
purposing to build a nation of people for his own, he chose Abraham as the
person who would be its foundational figure. His name Abraham means ‘father of
nations.’ In fact, not only did his
offspring later develop into the nation of Israel, but several other nations
also came from him, such as Edom, Midian and Dedan, and so on.
Verse 19 above suggests the key role that
fatherhood plays in the life, growth and development of a nation. Of
course, it goes without saying that motherhood obviously also plays a critical
role. Simply put, without mothers there would be no nation! However, the strength of the foundation of a
nation’s life, its backbone if you will, lies in the quality of its
fatherhood. When fatherhood is strong, the nation is strong.
Conversely, when fatherhood is weak, the nation is weak and can be easily
overcome.
The critical point to understand in
vv.18-19 is that the fulfilment of the Lord’s promise to Abraham to build a
great and powerful nation through him, was contingent upon the fact that he
would ‘direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of
the Lord by doing what is right and just.’
This directly places the concept of traditional nuclear family right at
the very heart of what it means to be a nation. A nation is essentially a
family made up of many families. Therefore,
it is strong when family life within it is strong, and family life is strong
when its understanding of fatherhood is strong. If the mother is the
nest-maker of the home, and if the way she feels on any given occasion is the
barometer of life in the home, then the father represents the strong beams that
support the home and hold it together through thick and thin. By contrast, when fatherhood is weak and
ineffective or even absent, family life as God intended it becomes
dysfunctional to a lesser or greater extent, and in consequence the nation becomes
proportionately weaker and fragmented.
If the enemies of a nation wish to render
it weaker, then slowly but progressively undermining its understanding of
fatherhood over a period of decades would be a strategic method to
employ. Weaken men by removing their confidence, confusing them and
making them doubt their God-given role as fathers, and simultaneously attack
and deconstruct the concept of the traditional nuclear family, and this nation
will ultimately fall or be taken over just as surely as night follows
day! No nation is stronger than its general quality of family life, and
no family is stronger than the quality of its fatherhood.[1],[2]
The words of v.19 highlight the crucial
role demanded of godly fatherhood: ‘he will direct his children and his
household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and
just.’ In embracing fatherhood, a man’s God-given role and
responsibility is to oversee and manage the reins of the life of his family, in
order to direct his children and household to learn, adhere to and keep the way
of the Lord, in the hope that this will then be reflected in them living
righteous lives in the fear of God. This
lies at the heart of the blessing a family’s life, and in consequence also at
the heart of the ongoing blessing and well-being of the life of a nation.
Link to a YouTube message on fatherhood
You can enjoy listening to a message on fatherhood below:
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