The portion of God's Word that we read this morning is Proverbs 13. Proverbs 13. We'll read the entire chapter this morning. I call your attention, as the text for this sermon, to the first half of verse 22. This is the Word of God in Proverbs 13. A wise son heareth his father's instruction, but a scorner heareth not rebuke. A man shall eat good by the fruit of his mouth, but the soul of the transgressors shall eat violence. He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life, but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction. The soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing, but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat. A righteous man hateth lying, but a wicked man is loathsome and cometh to shame. Righteousness keepeth him that is upright in the way, but wickedness overthroweth the sinner. There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing. There is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches. The ransom of a man's life are his riches, but the poor heareth not rebuke. The light of the righteous rejoiceth, but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out. Only by pride cometh contention, but with the well-advised is wisdom. Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished, but he that gathereth by labor shall increase. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed, but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded. The law of the wise is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death. Good understanding giveth favor, but the way of transgressors is hard. Every prudent man dealeth with knowledge, but a fool layeth open his folly. A wicked messenger falleth into mischief, but a faithful ambassador is health. Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction, but he that regardeth reproof shall be honored. The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul, but it is an abomination to fools to depart from evil. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. Evil pursueth sinners, but to the righteous good shall be repaid. The good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children, and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just. Much food is in the tillage of the poor, but there is that is destroyed for want of judgment. He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. The righteous eateth to the satisfying of his soul, but the belly of the wicked shall want. So far we read God's holy and inspired Word. Call your attention to just the first half of verse 22. 22a. A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, we consider a text this morning from the book of Proverbs at the occasion of baptism. being the sacrament that has in part its focus upon the relationship between parents and children. The baptism that has as its focus the family. The text for this sermon comes from the book of Proverbs. And what you could say with respect to the book of Proverbs is that in a certain sense it is a manual for the instruction of children. A manual for parents in how they are to raise their children. The book of Proverbs, as we well know, has absolutely everything in it. In very short, memorable, powerful statements. The book of Proverbs teaches us so many different things on so many different subjects. It teaches us concerning The life of wickedness and foolishness and the consequences of sin. It teaches us, as we know, the way of wisdom. We take a text from that book of Proverbs. Proverbs, the writings of a father to a son. And we apply that this morning to the sacrament of baptism. What is unique about the text that we consider this morning is the fact that it is a text that calls our attention not just to what we normally think of at the sacrament of baptism, namely, the relationship of parents to their children, but it calls our attention to something beyond that. That of grandparents and grandchildren. The text says specifically that a good man, a godly man, is one who leaves an inheritance not just for his children, but he leaves an inheritance for his children's children, his grandchildren. And so we go beyond this morning what we normally think of at the occasion of baptism. Normally it's Ted and Abby and Adam and Catherine think about the children that God has given you and that were just baptized this morning. But we go beyond that this morning and we say, Adam and Catherine, Ted and Abby, think about the grandchildren. that God may give to you in the future. And that's the Word of God to all of us as children, and as parents, and as grandparents. We think covenantally this morning. That's the perspective of the text. It's a covenantal perspective because the work of God in His covenant is not just to gather His people from a generation, singular, But the promise of God is that He will gather His people from believing parents in generations, plural, so that this is what characterizes a good man, a godly man. He leaves an inheritance not just for His children, but He leaves an inheritance for His grandchildren too. We face a very basic question this morning, and that is this, what do you want to leave to your children? What do you want to leave to your grandchildren? Maybe that's not the best way to ask the question. Maybe this is a better way. What are you working really hard right now to leave for your children, and to leave for your grandchildren. Because what you want to leave, and what you think about leaving, is very different sometimes than what you're actually doing in the life that you are living. That's the question that we face in the sermon this morning. The sermon revolves around the idea of inheritance. Inheritance is what we pass on to our children and to our grandchildren. What are we passing down to the generations that follow us? I call your attention this morning to this text under the theme, Leaving a Spiritual Inheritance. Let's look in the first place at what this means. In the second place, at how this is done. And then in the third place, let's consider why. Leaving a spiritual inheritance. What, how, and why? We have to face, at the very beginning of the sermon, a question and answer it very clearly. The question is, what type of inheritance is Proverbs 13, verse 22 speaking of? Is Proverbs 13, verse 22 speaking of a physical, literal inheritance in the form of money and possessions that we pass down to children and grandchildren? Or is Proverbs 13, verse 22 speaking of something different? As the theme of the sermon indicates, Proverbs 13 verse 22 is not talking about passing down money and possessions to our children and grandchildren. Proverbs 13.22 is speaking of passing down a spiritual inheritance to our posterity. There's good reason to say that, contrary to what most commentaries will say on this text. Most commentaries will refer to a good man as a good saver and a good steward, so that at the end of his life when he passes away, because he was a good saver, a good steward of his physical gifts, he has something to give to the generations that come forth from him. That's not the way to interpret Proverbs 13, verse 22. There are several reasons for that. One of them is a very practical reason, and that is for most throughout the history of the New Testament, to do what the text says in a physical sense is almost an impossibility. If a man has a decent-sized family of his own, he could end up with dozens and dozens of grandchildren. And he could be the best saver, and he could be the best steward of his money, and still at the end of his life literally have nothing to give to his children, much less the dozens and dozens of grandchildren that he has. And you follow that with the second point, and the implication of that would be very serious in light of the text. A good man leaves an inheritance for his grandchildren. The implication of which is that if your lot is such that you cannot do that, You're no longer the good and godly man of the text. As we know, God is no respecter of persons. As we know from even this past week's prayer day sermon, God's will for some is to give much, and God's will for others is to give little, so that those who have very little in terms of the things of this earth may never be able to give anything. to their children, much less to their grandchildren, but are very much still good and godly men. If you interpreted this in a physical sense, it would undermine so many, and not just undermine, but contradict so many very important biblical truths. Those two reasons are legitimate. It's not the main reason though, this is not to be interpreted as a physical inheritance. The main reason has to do with the fact that this passage is found in the Old Testament. And as a passage found in the Old Testament, it needs to be interpreted in light of the Old Testament types and the Old Testament shadows. For an Old Testament saint, when he read this, and when he was faithful to this Word, there was a very physical component to the inheritance that was passed down. But that's Old Testament, interpreted in light of the New Testament, Therefore, as we interpret this for us today, the conclusion is that we have here something spiritual that we are passing down to our children and to our grandchildren. That leads us into the meaning to demonstrate what I just said regarding how to interpret a passage like this. If you were an Old Testament saint, and you read Proverbs 13, verse 22, a good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children, and you hear that word inheritance, and the passing down of that inheritance to children and to grandchildren, what is it that you think of immediately. And I think we know the answer to that question when we put ourselves in the Old Testament framework. An Old Testament father and grandfather who read Proverbs 13.22. Here's the word inheritance. It says immediately in response to that. It's the land that the Lord has given to me. Inheritance. Inheritance. Inheritance. Think Joshua. Joshua. Joshua. Which we had a series of sermons on within the past couple of years. Over and over and over again. In that book of the Bible, the word inheritance comes up. The Lord's inheritance to the children of Israel was the land of Canaan. And to each individual family, it was the plot of land in their particular tribe. That was their inheritance as a member of each particular tribe. And that inheritance was what they had the responsibility to pass down to their children, and consequently to their grandchildren. Yes, it was physical. But even in the Old Testament, and the saints even in the Old Testament understood this. It wasn't in the end. about a physical piece of land in the Middle East, just east of the Mediterranean Sea, in between the Jordan River. It wasn't about the fact that that land had intrinsic property value to it. Even in the Old Testament, they understood that the significance of this plot of land that God has given to me is the fact that this land and my section in it represents my life with God. That piece of land that each Israelite owned was only significant insofar as they were in a land at the heart of which was Jerusalem, and at the heart of which was the temple of God, and at the heart of which was the ark of God, meaning this. God was in this land. He was pictured as dwelling in the tabernacle and temple and in that ark of the covenant. And my presence in the land, around that temple and ark, represented the very life that I as a man, I as a father, I as a grandfather, have with my God, Jehovah. And that inheritance that I have received from God, I pass down to my children and to my grandchildren, so that they have life with Jehovah. That fact means, in the end, that the inheritance itself was Jehovah. That's something that we're familiar with from Psalm 16, verses 5 and 6. The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup. Thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. Yea, I have a goodly inheritance. Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance. Yes, the inheritance was a physical piece of land that represented Jehovah Himself and life with Him. Beloved, this affected everything that an Old Testament saint, father, and grandfather would do relative to the piece of land that was his inheritance. He would never sell it. Number one, when Naboth refused to give up his land when the offer of Ahab was presented, Naboth wasn't just thinking about himself, that he was thinking about his children, his grandchildren. This is my life with God in the promised land of Canaan. You would never sell that land. You would defend that land with everything that is in you. A more unfamiliar name in the Old Testament, but one of the mighty men of David, Shammah. We read in 2 Samuel 23, defended the field of lentils when he was attacked by the Philistines. When everyone else fled, He stood in the middle of that land because it was the land of God, His inheritance, and He defended it against the enemies. He wasn't going to let anybody take the inheritance that God had given Him. Never sell it. Defend it with everything that you have. Care for it. Maintain it. Keep it nice in a very literal way in the Old Testament. Don't let the piece of land that God has given me go into disarray because of my negligence with respect to that land. A man in the Old Testament would have had a strong invested interest in the plots of land around him, and more broadly, in the land of Canaan as a whole. Because a man in the Old Testament knows that the land that he has, and the strength of his maintaining it, is dependent upon, in a certain sense, the strength of the whole. If the nation as a whole walks in disobedience to God, That's going to have an effect upon not just the ones who are walking in disobedience, but it's going to have an effect upon me. If the plot of land that I'm in is a few over from the border to where the Philistines may live, I know that the man next to me needs to defend that land. I have an interest in his plot of land. Because I know if the Philistines come here, they're only one step from coming into my land. My point with this is that an Israelite in the Old Testament would not have thought individualistically. He could not. As he thought about his inheritance with God, what was going on with his neighbors, what was going on in the land as a whole, had an effect upon him. He would have been very concerned about that. And the ability to pass down the inheritance to children and grandchildren depended in part upon the strength of the whole. A man in the Old Testament would have not just not sold it, He defended it, cared for it, cared about everybody. But He also would have in His home, with His children, with His grandchildren, explained it. Would have explained the why. Would have explained the how. Would have explained the therefore. Why this piece of land in Canaan? The why is because there's Jehovah in heaven who has an electing, sovereign, gracious love upon us of all people. Not because we're better than any surrounding nation, but because He chose in His grace and mercy to give to us this portion. in the land of Israel and dwell with us there." That's the why. He would have explained the how. How did we get here? And he would explain that by saying, we used to be in Egypt, where we were slaves. where we were in bondage, where we were in misery. But through the shedding of blood, and the putting of that blood upon doors, so that when the angel of death passed by, he did not destroy us, but through that blood, And through the powerful and miraculous work of God, we were brought out of Egypt and we were brought into the land of Canaan. And they would have explained the therefore to the land. And the therefore is this. We need to love God. We need to obey God. Out of mere grace and mercy, He loved us and saved us through the precious blood of the promised Messiah. And now, what it means for us to live in this land is to show God our love for Him by our obedience. My point with this, very simply, is that that was the inheritance and they would do everything to protect it. And they would explain it. And they would pass it down to the children and to the grandchildren. I went on at length to explain that because it demonstrates what the spiritual New Testament application of the inheritance is. What is it that we pass down to our children as parents and to our grandchildren as grandparents? It's not a physical piece of property. It's Jehovah Himself. And the life that we have with Jehovah in and through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Now immediately I follow that with saying this, you and I don't have the power, you and I don't have the ability to work that life into the hearts and into the souls of the children and of the grandchildren that God has given us as parents and grandparents. But that's what that land represented. In its essence, it was Jehovah Himself and life with Him in Christ. And that's what we pass down. And we pass that down to our children and grandchildren by doing two things. By passing down to them in the first place the truth. The truth of God. Revealed in the 66 books of the Bible. The truth of God. as He is manifested in His Son Jesus Christ. The truth of God, which has as its heart and center Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The truth of God as it has passed down to us as a Reformed church and as a Protestant Reformed church. That, beloved, is what we defend. Never sell. Maintain and take care of and develop. Have an invested interest in the church as a whole. and explain the whys and the hows and the therefores of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Beloved, we pass down to our children and our grandchildren, very simply, the glorious Gospel of Jesus. But it's not just about passing down the black on white of truth. That's the heart of it. That's why our Reformed fathers in The questions asked are very specific questions. Do you promise and intend to see these children raised in the aforesaid doctrine which you just confessed to believe as truth? We have to pass down the truth. But we also pass down this. What does it mean to live the truth? that God has given to us. We pass down to our children and grandchildren, as parents and grandparents, the living, vibrant example of what a man of faith and a woman of faith looks like. We pass down by our life, by our words, by who we are as we live before God. What it means to be a believer, a disciple of Jesus Christ. It's principle. It's practice. It's doctrine. It's godliness. It's orthodoxy. It's orthopraxy, which is the living of the truth that God has given to us. Beloved, both components need to be there. The foundation is the doctrine and the truth of God's Word as He passed it down to us, the Gospel. But it's empty if we are not passing down what it means to live it. Every single day, in every single sphere of our lives. That leads us to the question of how. Before I go through some specific examples of how, Our perspective on this needs to be proper. One of the things that we can point out in this regard is the fact that the text says, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. A good man. There's something of the headship of a man that is implied and taught in the text. This is not to say in any respect that a wife, a mother, a woman in the church has no part in passing down a spiritual inheritance to children and grandchildren. They do a huge part. But you men, fathers and grandfathers, as leaders in the home and leaders in the church, are the ones who chart the path. You chart the path. That's where the family follows. And the church follows. This is something that comes especially to the godly head of homes as fathers and grandfathers. In the second place, our perspective needs to be proper from this point of view, and that is that the text, as I said in the introduction, is covenantal. Talking about not just parents and children, but talking about grandparents and grandchildren. And certainly one of the implications is that as a parent, if I am passing down the doctrine and the life that follows the doctrine to my children, The inevitable fruit of that will be that they pass it down to their children and therefore my grandchildren so that the text plays itself out by a grandfather through a son. Through his son, it's passed down. True. Certainly true. But let's not limit it to that. I'm staring out into an audience this morning. Where grandparents are present. and grandparents who have a direct impact upon the life, not just of their children anymore, but of their grandchildren. So yes, there is the chain through which this happens, but there's also a direct chain and link from grandpa and grandma to grandson and granddaughter. And that leads me to my third point regarding the proper perspective, and that is that to leave this inheritance is not a one-time Activity. That's where the spiritual inheritance is different than a physical inheritance. When we think about a physical inheritance, that happens at a specific time. A man dies. He has his money and possessions, and at that time of his death, that's when it goes from him down to his children or his grandchildren. It's very time specific, moment specific. This is very different. And the form of the text indicates that. Leaveth, the text says. It's not One time, here it is. But the idea is that it is a continuous activity. You as parents, you as grandparents, are constantly, by your life, by your words, by your actions, leaving an inheritance for your children and grandchildren. You guys think about your own children right now, but the text in its application to you as young parents and all of us as young parents and myself as a young parent, starts now, relative to our grandchildren. What we're doing all of our life long in our teaching and by how we live is the passing down of an inheritance to our posterity. How do we do this? Here the applications are endless in a certain sense. I call your attention to five things. Number one is the basic point that we have to set forth to our children and grandchildren the truth, which requires in the first place that we as parents and as grandparents know that truth, love that truth, immerse ourselves in that truth, And therefore, pass that down to our children and to our grandchildren. This is what we want our children and our grandchildren to say about us. My dad, my grandpa, he taught me the truth. My dad did because every Sunday we went to church twice, no matter what. And every day, no matter how busy we were, and no matter how many activities we had to do, we spent time in the Word of God together. And before he taught me how to hunt, to fish, to hit a ball, to shoot a basket, my dad taught me the Bible. and the Reformed faith. Because it wasn't just when we went to church. It wasn't just the fact that he sent me to catechism. It wasn't just the fact that we had a time of family worship daily. But he brought it up in everything we did. He was always talking about God. He was always talking about Jesus, his Savior. He was always teaching me while I was hunting and fishing and while we were doing other things about what it means to do this in light of the truth of God's Word. My dad, my grandpa right now, by the way that he speaks, teaches me the truth. Beloved, that's what we want our children to say. Before they say, he taught me all these other things and passed that down to us, it's this. He led our home in such a way that what was of highest priority was to make sure that I, as his son or daughter, grandson or granddaughter, know the truth. In the second place, this inheritance is passed down by parents and grandparents having a love for the church. This is where God dwells. Through the preaching of the Gospel, God works and strengthens and maintains faith. A man who has the concern of his children and grandchildren spiritually is a church man. He loves the church. He loves everything about the church. He's an active participant in the church. There's nothing more powerful than to hear a grandpa Talk about what the church means to him. To hear a grandpa say, I can't do anything else, but I can go to church. Because I love to be with God's people and I love to hear the voice of Jesus speak to me the gospel of grace. Beloved, there's nothing more damaging to our children and grandchildren than to be a man that is constantly critical of the church. To be the man who is always complaining. We can have legitimate criticisms at times, but if we have them as fathers and grandfathers, we don't speak them in front of our children and our grandchildren. We speak them to those who need to hear them in the appropriate way, if it's legitimate. Because when I speak that way to my children and grandchildren, always complaining, always critical, The elders never get it right. The minister's sermons are always too long or too short. The broader assemblies are going in the wrong direction in this or in that. Nothing's ever right. If that's the way that you think about the church, talk about the church, and your children and grandchildren hear that time and time again, it shapes the way that they think about the church. But a man who says, I love the church. It's everything to me. The truth that the church teaches is everything to me. We need to defend it. We need to live it. We need to give our all for it. And gives that testimony. Time and time again, to children and grandchildren, leaves an inheritance that is powerful for our children and for our grandchildren. A good man who leaves the inheritance to his posterity is a man who loves the church and everything that that means. In the third place, a man who leaves this inheritance for his children and grandchildren is a man who continues to support our good Christian schools too. We're sitting here today with the inheritance of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers who went through the sacrifice because it was at that time very different than what it is today, to make sure that the schools were maintained and could get off the ground so that we bear the fruit of that today. God has used our schools in a powerful way to pass down to our children and grandchildren the life that God has with them in Jesus Christ. And so a father and a grandfather who passes down this inheritance is involved with and supports the schools. That too is very powerful when a grandfather, even though he doesn't have any children anymore in the schools, is at the society meetings. and is supporting in prayers with his family and grandchildren the Christian schools that God has given us. The support doesn't stop when our children leave the halls of the schools that we send them to. It continues all of our life long. And that's a powerful way to pass down this spiritual inheritance. In the fourth place, a man leaves this inheritance. And here we see a couple of applications regarding life, how we live. Leaves this inheritance by living a godly life in marriage. We know theologically, doctrinally, That the outstanding picture of our covenant life with God is marriage. A husband and a wife. Picturing Christ and His bride, the church. That needs to be so in front of our minds as parents and grandparents. For our own life personally, as we live with our spouses, because only in the way of being the head as Christ, and the one who submits as the church, in love for each other continually, only in that way is there joy and blessing in that marriage. But we live that way for the sake of our children and grandchildren. Our children and grandchildren need to see a father who loves his wife by what he says, by how he lives. We don't want to raise our children in such a way when they think about dad, the first thing that they say about dad is he's never here. Number one, he's always at work, and if he's not at work, he's with his friends. If he's not with his friends, he's doing his own thing, hither, thither, and on. But not here with mom and with us. That's not Christ. That's not what the plot of land represented. What it represented was this. Christ is with His bride. He loves His bride. He cares for His bride. May it be so that with our children, they say with respect to grandpa and with dad, I just knew it. He loved mom. He loves Grandma. At the end of the life, when Grandma was dying, I went there and I saw every day the self-sacrificing love and devotion to a spouse. By how he said things, by what he did, by what she said, by what she did, it was clear that this marriage was special. Because it was a marriage rooted and grounded in the Word of God. It was a marriage that pointed us to the great marriage and our life with Jehovah. As you think about this idea of the text, think about it in terms of your life with your spouse. your children see, and what your children hear. There's a reason God has in His Word, Ephesians 5. It's so that we live the picture, as a picture, the reality of Christ and His church, which is nothing less than the essence of what that land in Canaan, passed down to generations, pictured. One more point, and that is this. We pass down this inheritance. and the way that we are able, as a grandfather or a grandmother, to end our life. You can't help but think of that with a text like this. It's inheritance. And yes, I made the point that It's all our life long. It begins now. But at the same time, the idea of inheritance leads us to the end of someone's life. Because that's when, as we think about inheritance, normally it's passed down to one's posterity. And because the text also talks about not just a father and a children, but it talks about a grandfather and grandchildren, it leads us to consider this point. This is a powerful way in which the inheritance is passed down. When at the end of a life, an old saint, grandfather or grandmother, looks in the eyes of his children and his grandchildren, and he says or she says, it's okay. Yes, there's some natural fear facing the last enemy. But in the end, the strength of faith says this, I know I have victory over the last enemy of death. And to stare a child or to stare a grandchild in the eyes and say that, The clearest testimony of what the gospel of grace is, is the passing down of the inheritance that God has given us. I'm at peace. I have victory. You need to believe. And everything that meant so much to me, especially now, as I face the end of my life. That passes down what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. We do this because we believe that the children and grandchildren that God has given us are His. That's the why. Why do we pass this down? We pass this down because we believe the promise of God that says, I am the God of you and your children. And because they are God's children, and God is a God of means, He uses the godly instruction, He uses the godly example of parents and grandparents to lead our children and grandchildren, which are God's children, into the truth. That's the why we do this. Not because we believe we have the inherent power to give them life with Jehovah. We do this because we believe the promises of God that He uses, parents and grandparents, for the spiritual good of their children. And that leads us in conclusion to say a couple of things. The heart of it is this, we can't do this. We can't work in our hearts of our children and grandchildren, the life of Jesus Christ. It's impossible. God can. And God does. And so what we do Number one is we get on our hands and knees and we repent. Because as you hear the sermon this morning, every one of us in a state of honesty has to say, I fall so short in all of these areas. And that's true. And so we say to God, we're sorry for those sins. And that's powerful too for our children and grandchildren to say to them, if need be, we're sorry for the sins that we have committed. That's the Gospel. Confession and forgiveness. But knowing this, that it's only God and not us and who we are as sinners, we repent and we ask God to forgive. And we pray to God, don't hold my sins and weaknesses against my children. Don't keep from them the inheritance that I know I have. because of the sins that I have walked in. So we live a lifelong repentance and confession before God, and then we pray. We pray through all of this to God. We pray, God, grant to my children, grant to my grandchildren, the life that Thou hast granted to me. We can say this morning, by the grace of God, that the reality of this text is present before us. That's baptism. Parents, grandparents, great-grandparents here, young couples, babies being baptized, believing. the truth of God's Word. He has done this. By His grace, God has used parents and grandparents to pass down the spiritual inheritance. And now we hear this Word right now, no matter where we are, and we say with respect to it, God, work in me, work in us, so that we pass down to our children and grandchildren that same inheritance. Amen. Our Father in heaven, we pray, bless Thy Word as it was brought this morning. Use it to guide us and instruct us in our life of faith before Thee. We pray now that Thou will continue to be with us as we sing in conclusion to our worship and give us a good day as we strive to keep it holy. In Jesus' name, Amen.