Father … the Begetter!

God uses BEGETTING to record in the Bible how the children come into the world. To understand this we need to understand what happened to Adam while he was asleep in the garden. Remember, Adam was alone! And God declared that it was not good for him to be alone. "And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him" (Genesis 2:18).

Yes, it is the Lord God who "knoweth our frame" (Ps. 103:14), for Adam was made in God's image! From his side God gently removed one of his ribs, and from that RIB God made the woman. From that moment Adam would be INCOMPLETE without his HELP MEET! She would be an extension of him forevermore. Amen! Every genealogical listing in the Bible refers to the fathers begetting the children.

Why?

For this let’s turn to 2 Chronicles 6:9 to where God is talking to David about the future temple in order to get the gist of another term God uses. “Not withstanding thou shalt not build the house; but thy son which shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build the house for my name.” Note this curious thing. The son was in his father’s loins. In Hebrews 7:5,10, we see that “the sons of Levi” came “out of the loins of Abraham” even though they were generations apart.

What am I getting to? It is this! Begetting has to do with children coming into the world THROUGH the father with the mother being the extension to father. The MAN is INCOMPLETE without the WOMAN. She is the necessary EXTENSION!

She BARES the children for the FATHER. They were in his LOINS, and from the moment of the conception of the child in the womb, the development of the child in the womb to the BIRTH of the child into the world; the whole PROCESS is called BEGETTING!

BEGGETTING is 99% of the time in Scripture associated with the Father. The exception is Zechariah 13:2-3 and is where God is dealing with Israel’s problem with the false prophets and their idols. In verse 3, it reads: “And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that beget him---.”

Furthermore, there is only one time in all of history that the Bible clearly stated to a man that an earthly father was not to be involved in the begetting of a PARTICULAR child. “But while he (Joseph) thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.” Jesus Christ! Amen! Amen! “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

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Father … the Nurse!

This sounds peculiar to our ears … a nursing father! Yet the Scripture has just such a term. Do we dare believe that NURSING and FATHER could be somehow associated? 

Let’s take a look. In Isaiah 49:22-23 we see this. “Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed that wait on me.”

In the same breath God said this: NURSING FATHERS! Listen to Moses in his complaint to the Lord! “Have I conceived all these people? Have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers?”

There, you have it! God in the same thought expresses the term NURSING interchangeably with fathers and mothers. This does sound strange doesn’t it? But yet if we mediate on this by considering the whole of Scripture, we will move closer to God’s view and further away from the world’s view of these matters! Amen!

A nursing father means to render or be firm or to be faithful, or to be true, to point to the right hand for the child. Hence, he exhibits faithfulness and long continuance to the child. The nursing father is steadfast, sure, and trusty! A nursing father is to put trust inside while turning to the right his child. The nursing by the mother of her child in providing milk is to POINT to something GREATER … and this GREATER is the nurturing relationship of the father with his child by the milk of God’s word.

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Father … the Protector

The father is the first-line of defense through which all the outside threats to the spiritual, emotional and physical welfare of the children must go. The father is the hard-nosed real life discerner of the dangers to his family. He will seek out the children’s heart, and will want to keep it … to provide the complete wall of protection that will be needed to keep his little JOEY’S in the proper path for life. The father will plead:

“My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.” (Proverbs 23:26)

The father’s protection for the children cannot be too much! Never mind what “the agents change” have told you about this. The BOOK says these are PERILOUS TIMES!

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Father … the Provider

The children’s provision is from the father. Jesus taught this principle in his sermon on the mountain in Matthew 7:7-11 when he was teaching one of the elements of prayer. Note especially how the Lord taught about the father knowing INATELY how to provide good things for his children.

“Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

Please, you must not fail to see the parallel between the care of the earthly father for his children, and the care our Heavenly Father has for the believer … the Christian.

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Father … the Teacher

It is given to the fathers the responsibility to teach, to instruct and train their children. The Book of Proverbs was written by a father to give instruction and exhortation to his sons. The father is pleading with his children “to know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding” in order to GET WISDOM.

God commanded Israel’s fathers in Deuteronomy 6 to teach the words he commanded them … to their children. “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. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”

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Father … the Ruler

It is the father who sets the PRINCIPLES, PRECEPTS and COMMANDMENTS for the home. It cannot be done any other way. There can be no democratic process … for God never makes any one else in the family responsible when things go wrong. At the judgment seat the fathers are the ones to give account to God. In the instructions given to the New Testament church for the qualifications of the office of a bishop or a deacon, it is said a man must know how to rule well his own house.

The bishop must be: “One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)"

This is what he should not be! The father should not be covetous or mean-spirited, nor a contentious man. This is what he should be! The father should be a diligent, patient man who is blameless, sober, and known for applying fair and impartial judgments, all these while possessing a discerning, caring, gracious spirit.

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Father … the Prayer Warrior

From the time before their birth, till the time they are ready to leave the umbrella of the home; the father will cry out to God, for the mercies of God, and the blessings that will come by the grace of God … for his children. In humility he will realize that he needs the wisdom and the understanding to successfully bring up his little ones to the LORD. Even while they are in the womb, the father will sing as close as possible to the mother’s belly … to his little ones with songs and hymns of praise to God. The father never stops praying for the children.

“Thus did Job continually.” [Job 1:5b]

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Father … the Corrector

The primary correction comes from the father in a child’s life, and its presence proves the love of father for the children. This is in similitude to our Heavenly Father’s love for the child of God. “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”[Hebrews 12:6]

There is one word of caution here. The father must firmly have in focus a vision of that which is for the ultimate good of his child. Correction should always be calmly expressed in the present time with the future time of the child in mind.

A further note to be brought to bear: a heavenly voice by an earthly father will accomplish an earthly good by POINTING the child to the RIGHT WAY! Chasten … with consistency … but not in anger.

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Father … the Comforter

In Psalm 103:13, the father is shown to be very sensitive to the souls of his children. “Like as father piteth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.”

He wants to comfort them by his assuring presence in the middle of their day, to day problems. Comfort! Comfort! The father loves to comfort his children. In a sense this comfort is a wellspring that flows from the very same attribute of the Heavenly Father as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.

The comfort of the God the Father is found in many places throughout the Book but especially, I love that which the Spirit of God says in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4. “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.”

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Father … the Counselor

There will come a day when the children will leave the home of the father. The father has done all he can. The father beget them, he nursed them, he protected them, he provided for them, he taught them, he ruled them, he corrected them, he comforted them and now he counsels them in the things of life eternal and in the things of this life. Many tears here, folks! Let the tears flow! “Put thou my tears into thy bottle, are they not in your book?” [Psalm56:8]. Amen! “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.”

Friends, we live in a “dark age”. (These are perilous times.) If you believe this to be so, then, here is my question. Do you, my friends, fellowship with God? You cannot fellowship with God if you walk in DARKNESS! If you have RECEIVED the Son of God … even Jesus Christ, then you will walk in the LIGHT! “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.“ If you walk in the LIGHT then you will embrace the God-ordained institution called the FAMILY. The family, as given by the light of the Word of God … Who is Jesus Christ … is revealed to us by the written word of God, the Bible.

Next: The Mother ... according to The Bible!