127. Go Well with you and your Children
Deuteronomy 12:28 Observe and hear al these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the Lord thy God.
The Lord, through Moses, repeats the conditional promise: if you obey the commandments and do what is good and right, then it will go well with you and your descendants. This conditional promise is a theme of Moses in Deuteronomy and it is a major theme of the Bible. Do good and it will be well. This is the heart of the Mosaic Covenant at Mt. Sinai. “You keep your part of the covenant and I will keep mine with blessing. Break it and I will curse.”
This covenant is eternally true. But we failed; we broke it; we miss the blessing; life is not good. However, the Good News is that Jesus Christ kept the Commandments perfectly in thought, word and deed, suffered the penalty for our breaking of them, thereby forgiving us our sins and giving us God’s righteousness. So by faith we claim the promise: it will go well with us. Because of Christ life is good.
The other part of this promise is that it will go well with your children after you. This may be hard to believe, but it is comforting to take to heart. How do you know that succeeding generations will have eternal life and enjoy heaven’s blessings with you? Observe and hear God’s words and it will be so. A godly family goes to church, hears the gospel, and prays for the children and grandchildren and so on. Trust the Lord to keep His promises for succeeding generations. Continue to hold them in prayer before the Lord. It will go well with your children forever.This means all your descendants will have a good life and go to heaven. Can you believe it?
Someone once traced all the descendants of Jonathan Edwards and found that life went well with most of them. The descendants of a common criminal of the time did not fare so well. The moral: pray for your kids.