“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Growing Dominion, Part 108
“House and riches are the inheritance of fathers: and a prudent wife is from the Lord” (Prov. 19:14).
When we serve God, and He blesses us, one of the things that happens is that wealth accumulates. Since all of us die, what is to be done with all our stuff when we go to be with the Lord? The text here says that we pass it on to our children. This is given simply as a statement of fact, but Proverbs elsewhere says that a good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children (13:22). There is an assumption that some Christians have that the really “spiritual” thing is to give all their children’s inheritance to missions, but this is misguided. Like many similar issues, it is dangerously misguided because of the element of truth in it. We are to be generous, and we are to leave a generous inheritance (as God enables) to generous children. But the only way they will be generous is if they have been taught and instructed that way as a way of life—as the way of Christ.
This text also shows the clear limits on what parents can do. They can leave their house to their son, and they can leave their wealth to him. But if he is to have a prudent wife, then God will have to do it. That is not something they can settle upon him. This testifies to the truth that everything is ultimately in the hands of God.