May 17, 2009
Text: Proverbs 13:22
Proposition: What inheritance should we leave for our children?
Introduction
We would like to leave our children and our grandchildren something. It is good to have something left over when we die. It is difficult to do sometimes. If you have to spend very much time in a care home the money you have saved all of your life can be used up in a short amount of time. A bad investment can leave you with no inheritance to give your children. We can’t take anything with us to the grave, but it is nice to be able to leave something behind for our children.
I. Our possessions
II. A good name
III. True riches
I. Our possessions (Why leave our possessions to our children?)
A. It is our responsibility
1. Proverbs 19:14
2. II Corinthians 12:14
3. Parents are to save up for their children. We are to save money for their education and leave them something when we die.
B. Sometimes you shouldn’t leave your possessions to your children
1. Ecclesiastes 2:18-21
2. Sometimes children are fools. They don’t know how to work, and they don’t want to work. Solomon didn’t have a wise son. Solomon inherited the throne from his father David. David had worked hard to prepare his kingdom for his son.
3. II Samuel 7:1, David had conquered all Israel’s enemies.
4. He conquered all the land that God had promised to Abraham in Genesis 15:18, (II Samuel 8:3 and I Kings 4:21)
5. He gathered gold, silver, bronze, iron, timber, and stone.
6. I Chronicles 22:14-16
7. Using the values Zondervan’s Pictorial Bible Dictionary for a talent at 75.5 lbs. we have (a talent of gold was usually more than this)
- 100,000 talents of gold = 7,550,000 lbs of gold =$9,909,148,500 (14.583 ounces troy = 1 pound avoirdupois) ($900 an ounce gold)
- 1,000,000 talents of silver = 75,500,000 lbs. of silver = $14,313,214,500 (14.583 troy ounces = 1 pound avoirdupois, $13 an ounce silver)
8. This is what David left for Solomon to build the temple plus the rest of his kingdom.
9. David left his possessions to the wisest man to ever live besides Jesus. Solomon kept his father’s wealth and increased it.
10. Solomon left his possessions to a fool. Rheoboam lost 10 tribes and he lost a lot of the wealth his father left him.
11. II Chronicles 12:9
12. Many times children are fools with what their father leaves them.
a. One woman I knew she had a trust fund left to her by her grandfather that paid her $11,000 a month. She was in debt and didn’t have enough money.
b. Another man I knew he was a trust fund kid. He was related to Chef Boy RD family. I don’t know how much money he got a month, but he tried running his own bar. He lost the bar, his house, and his wife ran off with a cult group. Before all that happened I had put a new pump in his well. Inside his house he had many different kinds of fancy pipes for smoking drugs. He wasted his money on drugs and alcohol.
c. Another man my mother-in-law told Alissa about spent several years in prison for burying a bus load of children in his father’s rock quarry. He was mad at his father and wanted him to pay for something. They were able to get the children out alive. Now he is the sole heir to his father’s estate.
d. Giving your legacy to one who has not labored with you is vanity and a great evil.
e. Teach your children to work and to value what they have then you won’t have to leave your wealth to a fool. If he is a fool leave it to someone else.
f. Proverbs 17:2
II. A good name (Why leave them a good name?)
A. A good name is more desirable than great riches.
1. Pro 22:1 A good name is to be more desired than great riches, Favor is better than silver and gold
2. Ecc 7:1 A good name is better than a good ointment, And the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth
3. My great-grandfather Ulysses Grant Garner told his 7 children, “I can’t give you much except for a good name, see to it that you keep it that way.” He wasn’t rich, but he did give them a good name, and my grandmother kept it that way.
B. Give them the good name of Christian
1. James 2:7
2. Some may blaspheme the name of Christian, but it is a good name and we are to keep it that way.
3. I Peter 4:14-16
4. When a family member suffers for doing what is right the rest of the family generally wants everyone to know what their family member did. If they suffer for doing something shameful they don’t want anyone to know that they are related and they don’t want anyone to know what they have done
5. If we suffer for the name of Christ we are not to be ashamed, but if we are a thief, murderer, or immoral and we claim the name Christian we bring shame to the name of Christ.
III. Entrust them with the true riches (What are the true riches?)
A. We can leave our children a billion dollars, but they will leave all of it here just like we did when they die. They can even use that billion dollars to make 10 billion but they will still leave all of it here. Dollars don’t have any value in heaven. Gold isn’t even of much value in heaven. It is so common there that God uses is to pave the streets. Gold is like asphalt in heaven.
B. Treasure in heaven are the true riches
1. Luke 16:1-13
2. The treasures we have here are not true riches. We can’t take them with us. We can pass them on, but there are no guarantees that they will remain with our descendants. Riches are uncertain.
3. Matthew 6:19-20, thieves steal possessions, rust destroys cars and moths eat clothes. Nothing here is permanent. Everything you have can be taken away.
4. Job was the greatest of all the men of the east. He lost everything.
5. Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world could lose everything he has.
6. The riches of heaven are certain. They are for eternity. When you are in heaven no one can take them away and they can’t be lost.
C. Give them the commandments of God.
1. Genesis 18:19
2. Jeremiah 35
3. In Jeremiah 35 we learn that Jonadab gave his children 4 commands
a. Drink no wine
b. Build no house
c. Sew no seed
d. Plant no vineyard
4. Jonadab lived in the days of Jehu over 300 years before this. His children had kept his command. They wouldn’t even break the command if a prophet of God in the house of God told them to.
5. God was pleased with the Rechabites. He knew they wouldn’t drink wine. That is why he told Jeremiah to give them wine. He wanted them for an example of how his people should obey God. He said, “Jonadab will not lack a man to stand before me.”
6. Jonabad gave his children an inheritance of remembering they were strangers in the land. They were not Israelites, they were descendants of the Kenites, but they lived among the Israelites.
7. We are strangers (aliens) in this land, I Peter 2:11
8. Our main goal in training and raising our children is to teach them that we are aliens on this earth. The true riches are not on this earth. It is nice to have money and wealth on this earth, but most important we are to lay up treasures in heaven and help our children learn to do the same. | 
