We are constantly being told that the number one issue in this year’s election is the economy and jobs, not morals or the real threat of losing our religious rights. If that is true our nation is in worse shape than many think. While we shouldn’t minimize the pain of massive numbers of people who are out of work and struggling, putting our finances above our godliness is a path to ultimate ruin. America’s parents have managed to produce some recent statistics that show we have a collective wishbone where we should have a backbone. We think more of things than we do of righteousness. We humans aren’t smart enough to live without God’s guidance; “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverb 14:12). Perhaps the greatest danger of such “economy-first” thinking is how it affects the future. When it comes to parenting and thinking of future generations who will wear our name, we Americans aren’t getting a passing grade. Most people believe that morals and general reliance on God are declining. So, what is the answer?
In the large study Bible I carried with me to college, beside Genesis 7:7 where the history reads, “And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood,” there was a marginal note that said “Small results for Noah.”  I’ve thought of that each time I’ve studied the flood and considered it wrong; for if every man had done as Noah did, the entire world would have been spared! This issue of Think focuses on persuading parents and grandparents to look into the future––not just a few days or years––but to consider five generations from now! What will be their values? What religion will they follow? Will they believe in Christ at all? What will they be teaching their children?
Here’s the specific point of this month’s issue: Each generation of parents must see itself as part of a bigger picture. We are each links in a chain—and the ultimate task is to get the entire chain to heaven. Ours is not the only generation; it is but one, and that only a speck in the great scheme of things. Each carries on its shoulders the burden of conferring faithful Christianity to the next generations with an additional element added: a passion for teaching them the importance of parenting their children in how to parent; to pass on this sacred duty of keeping the Christian chain unbroken from now until the trumpet blows. That is, if I train my children to be Christians, I have done well, but if I fail to impress them with their duty to keep the chain unbroken, I’ve created a frightening risk in our bloodline.
People who lived under the Old Testament were warned about this very thing:
Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. When you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything, and do evil in the sight of the Lord your God to provoke Him to anger… (Deuteronomy 4:23-25).
2 Kings 17:41 is hauntingly similar,  “So these nations feared the Lord, yet served their carved images; also their children and their children’s children have continued doing as their fathers did, even to this day.”
I met an old devout Christian man in Richmond, Virginia, one day who was a self-taught expert on the War Between the States. He theorized that we receive from our ancestors not only genes determining hair color and height, but more: pieces of actual memories that were ingrained in their psyche. As he strolled over old battlefields, he felt a sense that he’d been there before under great fear and stress; his great-grand-father had fought on that soil. I’ve never really been able to accept this idea, but I never doubted that godly values can be transmitted many decades (or centuries) by planting them deeply in our children and grandchildren. The apostle Paul claimed that Eunice and Lois had done it for Timothy (2 Timothy 1:5).
King David once brought his son Solomon up close to him and said this: “As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever” (1 Chronicles 28:9). We should say the same to our sons and daughters.
We do not inherit the sin of our ancestors (Ezekiel 18:20), but we inherit the qualities of their influence on us. Our prayer is that you will teach your children to bear the sense of duty to keep the Christian chain unbroken, and as always to think on these things.