Ronald and Nancy Reagan had something in common in their
childhood, and that was that they both had fallen fathers. When Ron
came home one day as an 11 year old boy he found his father flat on
his back on the front porch, and there was no one there to help. He
said, "He was drunk, dead to the world. I stood over him a minute or
two. I wanted to let myself into the house and go to bed and pretend
he wasn't there..."
Nancy's experience was even worse. She writes in her
autobiography, "I was told as a child my father wasn't at the hospital
when I was born. It must have hurt mother as much as it did me
when I heard about it. I have no idea how old I was before he saw me
for the first time, but I visited him only a few times over the years
before he died in the 1960's. He was my father but I somehow never
could think of him that way because there had never been any
relationship of any kind."
Alcoholism and abandonment was is what our former President
and his wife remember about fatherhood. But it is a mistake to
conclude that only those who are themselves failures are fallen
fathers. The record of the Bible and history will not support such a
conclusion. Being a good father is job that even the most successful of
men fail at. The West German Industrialist Friedrick Flick was a
business genius who built an empire of 300 firms, and a personal
fortune of over a billion dollars. But he had one very conspicuous
shortcoming. He could not control his own children. Success in any
area of life is not guarantee that a man will not fail and foul out as a
father.
David was one of the most successful men of the Bible. He was a
man after God's own heart, and he led Israel to power and wealth,
but he left behind a family all messed up because of his failure as a
father. Eli the great priest had sons that would be a disgrace to a
pornographer because they sexually assaulted women as they came to
worship. The list could go on and on, but the point is not to make
fatherhood depressing, but to see that it has always been hard to be a
successful father. There is hope for success, however, even in this
difficult business of being a dad. We want to look at both the
hardness and the hope in fatherhood by looking at the life of Adam.
We want to look at him from 3 perspectives.
I. ADAM AS THE FIRST FATHER.
Adam was at one time the only father on the face of the earth. He
had no Dr. Spock, and even if he did there was no one to call for help.
There were no books or articles, nor any examples to follow. He
could not reflect and say this is how my father would deal with me in
this situation. Adam had no training to be a father. Most of us at
least saw a baby before we became fathers, but not Adam. He was
the first man to ever see a baby born. You think its scary now, but
what must it have been for a man who had no experience whatever?
Somehow Adam managed and everybody survived. The male
population of the world was doubled in one day. Now there was
another potential father on earth, and this baby did become the
second father in history, but Cain also became the first to murder.
This did not do anything to enhance the record of the first father. We
will look at this further in the next point. But what we learn from this
experience of the first father is that fatherhood has different stages,
and some of them are easy and some are hard.
Cain, as a newborn baby, was without a doubt the delight of Adam
and Eve. He was the first baby; the first toddler; the first to talk and
walk, and do all the things that make children so enjoyable. It seems
hard to have small children, but this is really the easy time. When
precious little Cain grows up he will become a pain. He ended up
killing their second born. Adam had a host of unusual and
unrepeatable experiences as the first father. For one thing, he was
only one year older than his first baby himself in terms of time.
Adam was only created about a year before Cain was born. Nobody
has ever had this experience. Then, he of course was also the first
grandfather, great grandfather, and great great and so on and on.
Adam was the first in many ways and no one can ever take these titles
away from him.
What we need to see here is that every human being who has ever
lived came out of the body of Adam. He is literally the father of
every person ever born. Eve was taken out of his body and so there is
not even one exception. Not even Jesus, for he has called the second
or last Adam. He to came into a body who came from the seed of
Adam. The entire human race is an extension of the body of Adam.
He was the first father of all, and the father of all first.
As the first father he was also the first father to ever lose a child to
death. Millions have since then, but Adam was the first, and this is
one of the hard parts of fatherhood. Daniel Webster, the eloquent
orator, got a letter in his senate office telling of his son being killed in
the Mexican War. He wrote to his second son and said, "I hardly
know how I shall keep up under this blow. I have always regarded it
as a great misfortune to out live my children, but the will of heaven be
done in all things."
From the first family in this world until today the loss of a child
has been one of the hardest burdens to bear. Our heavenly Father
entered into this heaviest of burdens, and He endured the loss of His
Son to death. He was the one Father who did not ever need to
experience this suffering, but he chose it freely that Adam and all the
father of history might, like David, have hope of seeing and being
with their lost children forever, by faith in that Son of God who died
that all might live. Next we look at-
II. ADAM AS THE FALLEN FATHER.
Adam was an ideal man, but he fell before he became a father so
that when Cain was born Adam not only became the first father, but
he became the first fallen father. This means there has never been a
time in the history of man when there was a perfect father. The
heavenly Father was always there, but there has never been an
unfallen human father. The only one who could have changed this
was Jesus, but He never became a father, and so we are stuck with
this reality. There was once an ideal man and woman. There was once
an ideal environment. But there has never been ideal relationship of parent
and child, because there has never been an ideal parent. This could
lead to pessimism if there was no good news to balance things out.
We could end up thinking like Lord Chesterfield who said, "As
fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and
considering the general runs of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be
childless." There is much evidence to support his negative conviction
in a fallen world with nothing but fallen fathers and children.
It is a reality that we have to face up to, for all the notable fathers
of the Bible had a very mixed record of success. It was not just Adam
who had good and bad children. Look at Abraham the father of the
faithful. His boys Isaac and Ishmael fought as boys, and their
descendants, the Jews and Arabs, have kept the whole world under
tension to the modern day. David had sons who raped, murdered,
and led rebellion against him. Even his favorite son Solomon, who
became such a notable success, also led Israel into idolatry because of
his many foreign wives. In the New Testament the most notable
father is the father of the Prodigal. He was a good and righteous
man, but he had one son who was a rebel, and the other was a spoiled
snob.
The point is, the easy part of fatherhood is when children are
babies and young. Adam, no doubt, had a ball with his little Cain, for
this was the joyful part of fatherhood. But when a child grows up to
be independent fathers feel the burden of their role. How can they
keep their children on the right path? Adam couldn't do it, and most
of the fathers of the Bible could not do it. Cain became his deepest
pain, and as a fallen father Adam learned by experience how God was
hurt by his own disobedience. When a father sees a son rebel and
hurt everyone he loves, then a father begins to taste of the pain of
God. It is a terrible way to get an education in the depth of spiritual
pain, but there are few fathers who escape this lesson in suffering.
Is there any value in such pain? Yes there is, for it makes the
fallen father realize that the only solution to the fall of man is grace.
You can't beat sin out of man, nor can you teach it out, or train it out.
The only answer is forgiveness. God forgave Adam, and one of the
most amazing stories of grace we have in the Bible is God's
preservation of Cain. If capital punishment was ever called for, it
was in the case of Cain. But God put a mark on Cain to protect him
so that no one would kill him. To do so would result in suffering
vengeance 7 times over. The only ultimate answer to sin is
forgiveness. There is no other way to get rid of it. It is the only
answer of the heavenly Father, and it is the only answer the fallen
father has that will make a difference in the world, and in their
families. Forgiveness was the only reason the family of man survived,
and the only way any father can keep his family alive is by the power
of forgiveness. Adam knew how to receive it and give it, and this
leads to our third point-
III. ADAM AS THE FAITHFUL FATHER.
We do not have a lot of evidence to evaluate the family life of
Adam, but what little we do have is quite revealing as to his positive
role as the father of human family. He was down, but not out. He did
not say that this is such a lousy world to raise kids in that he refused
to have them. He obeyed God's command to be fruitful and
reproduce. We do not know how many children he had, but with the
three clearly named and then the general statement that he had other
sons and daughters, we have an absolute minimum of 7, and it was
likely much higher than that. It could have been dozens.
His record of faithfulness to his family is unsurpassed. Adam was
married to the same woman for 930 years. This was the longest
marriage in history. Methuselah lived 39 years longer than Adam,
but he did not get married and have his first child until he was 187,
and so he was no where near the record of Adam. This means also
that Adam was a father longer than any other man who ever lived.
But more important, his fall did not make him the scum of the earth.
He was not a bad man, nor a bad father. He was fallen and not
perfect, but a fallen and imperfect father can still do a lot of things
right, and Adam did.
He saw to it that his two boys got a religious education. Both Cain
and Able grew up and brought offerings to the Lord. They were
taught to honor God and make sacrifice to Him. Adam saw to it that
his boys learned a positive respect for their Creator. To be sure,
Cain was only externally respectful while his heart was far from God,
but he knew the right way. Able was the righteous son, and he did
what was pleasing to God. It was a 50-50 ratio of success and failure
for Adam. The point is, he made sure that his children knew the way
that was pleasing to God. A father cannot impose his faith on his
children and make them love and honor God, but he can make sure
that that option is one of their choices. If they do not take the right
choice, the father has still fulfilled his role.
Some fathers are blamed for their sons bad choices, but Adam is
not blamed for the evil choice of Cain. We can't say Adam left him
such a poor example that it was inevitable that he went the wrong
way. Able did not go that way, but went the way he was taught. We
have every reason to believe that Adam was a great father, and was
one who lived his life in fellowship with God, and in obedience to His
will. He fell, but he did not go on in rebellion. He was grateful for
God's guidance, and when he saw Eve bring forth another son he
acknowledged God as the giver of this new life to replace the son he
had lost. It was the line of Seth that brought forth the righteous in a
world of great corruption. Enoch who walked with God and the
righteous Noah whom God used to preserve the human race were just
two examples.
Adam produced the fallen race, but he also produced the righteous
race of those who sought to live in obedience to God. There is no
escape being the evidence, for he was a fallen but nevertheless a
faithful father, and he did a great job of teaching and being an
example of righteousness. In Gen. 5:3 we have this interesting text
that says Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born, and it stresses
that this son was in his likeness, and in his own image. Seth
apparently looked just like Adam. This was not said of his first 2
boys. He was a chip off the old block, and this was a great
encouragement to Adam. Some of him would live on in his son even
though he knew he had to die because of his sin. Fathers love it when
their children look like him. Richard Armour wrote-
My day-old is plenty scrawny,
His mouth is wide with screams, or yawny,
His ears seem larger than he's needing,
His nose is flat, his chin's receding,
His skin is very, very red,
He has no hair upon his head,
And yet I'm proud as proud can be,
To hear you say he looks like me.
Adam was proud of Seth and rightly so, for Seth carried on the
tradition of his faithful father, and he was a righteous man in a fallen
world. It is very good news that it is possible to be a major force for
good in a world that you have made so bad yourself. All of us are
spotted with adamic muck. We have contributed t the fallenness of
our world. We have all been part of the problem, but by the grace of
God we can still be part of the answer, and a major part of the
answer is in being a faithful father. Just hanging in there trying to
have an impact on our children's lives, even when some of them are,
like Cain, going off the deep end of rebellion, is what being a faithful
father is all about.
When you have two sons and one becomes a homicide victim, and
the other is the murderer, you would have a tendency to call it quits
on the role of fatherhood. Adam did not choose defeat in this
pessimistic situation. He said I will try again, and because he was
faithful there was a line of the human race worth saving when God
judged the world. Had Adam given up on fatherhood because of
failure it would have been the end of history for man. We are
ultimately saved by the last Adam, the Lord Jesus, but let's not forget
there would have been nobody to save had it not been for the
faithfulness of the first Adam.
Adam is just a prime example of what God can do through a fallen
father who will be faithful in spite of his fallenness. Fathers can have
such a powerful influence on the future because of how they impact
their children. All of Cain's line perished in the flood, but the line of
Seth survived, because even a fallen father can have a powerful
impact on the future.
However you may find fault with the Bible movies of Cecil B. De
Mille you can't escape the fact that he has made parts of the Bible
well known to millions who otherwise may never have known a thing
about the Bible. His father use to read a chapter of the Old
Testament and the New Testament to him every night. He read to
make an impact on his son, and this he surely did. De Mille reflecting
on his father's reading wrote, "He painted a great picture as he read,
and the picture came to life before your eyes. Some of those pictures
I brought to life again in later years. I have been able to recreate
them on the screen." A fallen father faithful in is honoring of the
Word of God will have an impact on His children for good.
Some of the greatest influence for the good of the family in our
world today are the result of fallen fathers who were nevertheless
faithful fathers. Dr. James Dobson is one of the most notable. He
says his father had all kinds of faults, but he also said this at his
father's funeral. "This man whose body lies before me was not only
my father and my friend, but he was also the source of great
inspiration for me. Few people realize that most of my writings are
actually and expression of his views and his teachings. Whenever we
were together, he would talk and I usually took notes. That's the kind
of relationship we had, and his loss is devastating to me." I can
imagine Seth saying something like that at Adam's funeral.
It is true that we must trace the fall of man to Adam, and there is
no way to minimize the harm he brought to the human race by his sin.
But the fact remains that somebody has to have been an example of
righteousness in that beginning generation, and the evidence points to
Adam. God used His influence to send through history a line of fallen
but faithful people whom God used to accomplish His purpose. There
is not another sin recorded in the life of Adam after his fall. His wife
stayed with him for 930 years, and he taught his children to honor
God. The message of his life is that fathering is hard, failure is easy,
but never give up, for fallen though we be, God can use our
faithfulness to accomplish His purpose in the world.
