⁵ Isaiah then said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of armies,⁶ ‘Behold, the days are coming when everything that is in your house, and what your fathers have stored up to this day, will be carried to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord. ⁷ ‘And some of your sons who will come from you, whom you will father, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’” ⁸ Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “For there will be peace and truth in my days.” – NASB 

I am always negatively amazed when I read this passage. Amazed that Hezekiah would care so little for the generations to come. There is no protective fatherly instinct and no desire to pass on a Godly legacy. At least not a strong one. 

He was considered one of the righteous kings of Judah, and yet had no great sorrow in seeing righteous rule and prosperity for Israel come to an end after his days.  

Abraham Vs. Lot

There is another example of a man who is labeled righteous in the Bible, who never saw Godly posterity. His name was Lot. Lot had an uncle Abraham who is even now—more than three thousand years later—considered the father not only of all Israel, but of all those who belong to the family of God by faith. 

What a contrast. Not only did Lot not have Godly offspring, he ended up being the father of the Moabites and the Ammonites through an incestuous relationship with his daughters. The Moabites and Ammonites were enemies of Israel, God’s people, later on in history when Abraham’s descendants claimed their promised inheritance. 

The Progression

So, we see a progression in the account of Lot, starting from the standpoint of him simply holding together his own right-standing with God, not making provision for the faith of his children, and ending up as the last righteous man in his lineage. From there, the progression is toward evil until we see two entire nations standing firmly as enemies of God and His people. 

No Neutrality

What I’ve learned from Hezekiah, Lot, and Abraham is that there is no neutral territory. According to these Biblical examples, it seems it’s possible to be spiritually lazy to a degree and ride out the wave you’re on to your own death and die before crossing the line into unrighteousness or forsaking your own faith. 

But, if you do this, your trajectory is wrong and you risk either falling out of the faith yourself, entirely, or, as in the cases set out above, setting your children up to walk in unrighteousness.

By Faith, Not Sight

So, let’s be like Abraham, always proactive in walking by faith. Walking where God asks us to by faith, not going after the lush beauty of Sodom like Lot did when he split off from Abraham (see Gen. 13:2-13). It takes no faith to go after the things that are attractive to our natural eyes and it can lead to the destruction of generations to come.

But if we walk by faith, in obedience to all God calls us to, we can leave a Godly legacy for many generations, according to the template left to us by Abraham. Let’s have a care for our children and set them up for spiritual success, creating good soil for the Lord to work in in their lives. Sure, our children will have their own choices to make, but there are certainly things we can do to set them up for either spiritual failure or success.    

Spiritual Inheritance

Proverbs 13:22 says a righteous man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children. If that is the case with material things, how much more should that apply to spiritual life?