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Eph. 4:25: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;. Eph. 6: 1-4, Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
While we are told to honor our parents, and to love our wife, this letter addresses the role that fathers have when they are gifted children. A father’s duties to his children, are to oversee, train, and raise them up by lovingly reproving, correcting, and teaching them in God’s ways. This duty cannot be assigned to another, whether it be a pastor, a teacher, a counselor or an uncle. The rights of the father are imprinted upon a child at birth. The child knows their mother and father as such and their roles are irreplaceable. The duty of the father is not merely to correct a child when they disobey, but rather tom teach them the right way first.
Proverbs 22:6 tells us that if the father teaches a child at a young age in God’s ways, the child is then imprinted with a spiritual compass to know their direction as they grow. “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” A child should see their father as a strong loving role model always willing to teach his family from God’s word. A father must be divinely led by God’s Spirit all the days of his life, as there are always eyes watching him.
Listen to these words from Deuteronomy 6, “The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”
Verse 20, tells the father that when the son (child) asks of the father, “What do these words mean (the teachings of God), the father will then have an answer for them." There is no better story in the Bible of the failure of a father in teaching his sons at an early age and failing to correct them as they grew than that of Eli the priest and his two sons, Phineas and Hophni.
This story is told in the first four chapters of First Samuel. Eli was a priest in the Tabernacle of God. He was a Levite and was blessed to have been gifted two sons. The sons chose to coat-tail their father’s work by becoming “assistants” in the house of God. They mishandled their duties, took money, stole the choicest meats, and slept with women who hung around the entrance, looking for help. The sins of the sons were great before the Lord. Eli was aware of the transgressions of his sons, and he confronted them by asking, “Why do you do these things?”. That was it. He told them what they already knew. He as their father and a priest of God, failed to reprove and correct them. His sons refused to honor God and their father.
Eli failed to honor God by choosing to honor his sons first. A prophet was sent to Eli and told him, that as he hd failed in his duties as a father and as a priest, that God would raise up another to replace Eli and he and his sons would all die in a single day. Eli’s response was “let God do what he will”. That was it. That summarized his failures as a father.
In the next battle Israel went into, Phineas and Hophni thought it best to carry the Ark of the Covenant into battle as an “idol” so that Israel would prevail in battle. Israel lost thirty thousand men, including Phineas and Hophni and the Ark. When Eli heard of the battle loss and the deaths of his sons, he fell backwards his chair, broke his neck and died.
The penalty for Eli as a father, in not training, overseeing, and raising his sons in the admonition of the Lord, was their deaths, the loss of the army, and Eli’s death as well. While all of this was going on, God was raising up Samuel to take Eli’s place. Dads, what is stopping you from becoming the spiritual leader and teacher in your house? Your children’s fate is in your hands.
Today is the day for you to begin honoring God. It is your duty alone, and nobody else's.
