Luke 1:17 “And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous – to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Every once in a while God makes it clear that something that had been prophesied is taking place, and this is one of those occasions. This is a direct fulfillment of the last two verses of the Old Testament, Malachi 4:5-6, and I’m sure Zechariah recognized that. That’s perhaps one reason he was so incredulous, because he couldn’t believe that he was going to participate in the direct fulfillment of Scripture. (Actually, God’s plans are so big that they include every one of us, but only some of those plans are recorded in the Bible.) The specific prophecy is one that we urgently need to see fulfilled today. Both in Malachi and here it speaks of turning the hearts of the fathers to their children. Virtually all of the problems in society today can be traced directly to the breakdown of the family. We are infested with deadbeat, derelict fathers! To be fair, few of those had a good example of fatherhood in their own upbringing, but that’s no excuse. No human father is perfect, but today, many give up before they even start. Biological fatherhood is all too easy, but emotional and spiritual fatherhood is a lifetime endeavor. Every nation I know about needs a revival in this area. Men need to know how to be men, neither brutes nor effeminate, they need to know how to be husbands, both strong and caring, and they need to know how to be fathers, both loving and firm. There’s not a man alive who doesn’t have room to grow in more than one of those areas! I think the reason the prophecy focuses on fatherhood is that it is so explicitly generational; values die if they aren’t passed from one generation to the next. The Bible is filled with admonitions to communicate the truths of God to succeeding generations, and the focus is always on fathers taking the responsibility for that. For a long time we have twisted that around to make it a motherhood thing, and that has left fathers feeling less and less connected and needed. That’s tragic! I could give multiple examples, personally connected to me, of tragic situations that are the direct result of the breakdown of fatherhood. We need the ministry of John the Baptist in a big way today!

I have two children, but no sons. However, I have many spiritual sons, so I need to get this across to them. I do quite a few weddings, and I try to communicate this to the couples in the counseling that I require before I will do one. In either case, I need to operate in “the spirit and power of Elijah” to get the truth across, because my own intellect and persuasive skills won’t get the job done. My personal ministry is quite limited in scope, but I can pray, and there are no limits to that!

Father, I do pray for men to wake up to fatherhood. May they wake up first to You as their Father, regardless of what sort of physical father they had, so that You may correct their misconceptions about fatherhood. May they see and grasp both the joys and the responsibilities inherent in fatherhood, and so not run from it but embrace it with joy and gratitude. May they be instruments of generational blessing, rather than curses, so that the schemes of the devil may be defeated, Your Name be hallowed, and Your kingdom come as Your will is done, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!