Tuesday, December 31, 2013

The First King of Israel Part 2

I finally finished I Samuel and I am a few chapters into II Samuel. I had a personal revelation while finishing I Samuel. I realized the significance of the last verses of the Old Testament:

Malachi 4:5-6
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

I had mentioned in the last post on I Samuel about how Samuel was a great man of God and prophet and yet his own sons were called evil. It's hard for me to think that Samuel could let this happen, but this isn't an uncommon thing in the world we live in. However, then I see Saul, who wasn't the best example of a father (trying to kill David, ect...) and look how well Jonathan turned out.

The OT is replete with these situations of fathers and sons relationships going wrong. So the final words of the OT wring clear with a greater importance for me now: Christ came to restore the broken relationships. The most messed up relationship of all messed up relationship is the one between father and child. I think this is because its such an important relationship. A father has power to break the generational curses in his family just as he has the power to bring curses on his family. A son has a choice to obey or rebel, just as his father did before him. Sometimes a son follows in his fathers footsteps and does evil. Sometimes, like Jonathan, a son will choose a different path.

Happy New Year

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