FATHERS & KNOWLEDGE (PT. 6)

“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.” Hosea 4:6

Knowledge has numerous meanings. First, it means: “the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association.” We are the sum total of what we have been taught or what we have experienced. It is a fact that we learn by association. Men cannot afford to underestimate the power of influence. As brothers, we are to sharpen one another. As husbands, we are to lead while at the same time, we are to walk together in unity. As fathers, the responsibility is to lead by example—imparting the treasures of knowledge that have kept us from one generation to the next. How will sons know what it is to be a father without an example of fatherhood? How can boys become men without brothers sharpening them along the way?

Exodus 20:1-6 reads: “And God spake all these words: (2) I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. (3)You shall have no other gods before me. (4) You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. (5) You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of their fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, (6) but showing mercy to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

These verses are just as much about fathers as the commandments. In fact, Moses is speaking directly to men and specifically to fathers. These verses reveal the following: a) God did not create men as slaves, especially in a foreign land. b) Men were not to commit idolatry. In short, men were not to have idols. Men were not to bow down or worship their manufactured gods.  Moses is speaking to the people of God but directly to the men. How do we know this? We know this because Moses identifies the men as responsible for future generations. Simply put, children do what their fathers do. But children cannot do what they do not know. The entire family is to benefit from the covering of a father.

It is our human nature to do what is patterned before us. Put another way, we learn more from what we see versus what we hear. There is nothing more powerful than an example, and there is no one more responsible than the man.  

Men need to know about themselves what God knows about them. This is the only way to protect the children from the sins of their fathers!