Last August on the eve of President Fidel Castro’s 75^th birthday, he handed a Cuban flag to the leader of the young communist organisation. He was passing on the torch of communism to the next generation.

One press release said, “Castro was metaphorically enacting what he calls his most powerful dream – that Cuba's younger generations take over from him once he's gone to keep his revolution alive.” Castro does not want his ‘dream’ to fail and not having achieved it himself, he is making sure that his beliefs and principles will be carried on by the next generations.

This highlights the important Biblical concept of the covenant. What Castro was doing with his beliefs and convictions, is what God told His people to do with His Word and truth – pass them on. God commanded Abraham to pass on to succeeding generations His covenant, that is, pass on to our children the blessings, truths and promises God has given us.

Without our realising, we pass ‘something’ on to our children and the succeeding generations. Our ways and practices and lifestyles, proceed from a set of beliefs about life. Passing on something is an inescapable concept. It is not an issue of Covenant v. no Covenant. It is an issue of whose covenant, whose ideals and values are we going to adopt and practice, God’s or Satan’s? We are either giving our children a heritage of truth and righteousness, or we are giving them something else. If it is not God’s truth then it is a lie.

No one really started from ‘scratch’ – apart from Adam and Eve. That’s why God gave them His covenant. He wanted them to start on the right foot. He gave them His Word and told them to obey. They didn’t and so there is now a right and a wrong way to live – God’s way and man’s way.

When Noah went out of the ark, and each of his sons went their way, they carried with them Noah’s teaching. He, no doubt, told them about God’s covenant, His promises and His faithfulness. He would have told them to keep that covenant and to pass it on to their children and to their children’s children. Somewhere down the line, a generation stopped telling their children, or at least stopped believing it themselves. They started believing something else, and passed the ’new thing’ on.

We all now start with a legacy bequeathed to us from our parents and predecessors. As soon as we can understand, our minds are fed with the beliefs of our parents and superiors. They instruct us in their ways and convictions, just as Castro is doing. We can change and exercise our own minds. As we mature, we accept it, or don’t accept it. And that is a very important decision – far more important than most people realise. To deny God’s covenant as true, and to promote our own understanding of truth has serious consequences.

We are, as Scripture so often reminds us, covenant keepers or covenant breakers. We are one or the other.

We are responsible for passing on the covenant as God gave it, or we change it or reject it. Only God of course can change the heart, but He has laid on us the responsibility of making known His truth to our generation.

Asaph tells us, under inspiration, that God;

established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; that the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they might arise and declare them to their children, that they might set their hope in God. Psalm 78:5

Castro wants his generation to have his beliefs and convictions because he firmly believes he has what is right and true. He has no doubts about what he believes. So he is passing on the torch.

What a lesson for Christians! How earnest are we to ensure that our children and generation know the truth of God? Are we passing on the covenant teaching and promises of God? As our legislators are fast discarding much of what has a hint of Biblical teaching and values about it, the Church has more than ever a great responsibil­ity to ensure that its members per­forms this most important duty.

Part of the problem seems to be that we have lost our zeal for God. Time and again the Bible says, “The zeal of the Lord will do this” (2 Kings 19:31, Isaiah 9:7). The disciples of Jesus saw the fulfillment of (Psalm 69:9) in the demonstration of His zeal in the temple.

We need to re-capture a zeal for God. Paul commended the Jews for their zeal, even although it was in ignorance “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God but not according to know­ledge” (Rom 10:2). Epaphras also was commended “I bear him witness that he has a great zeal for you and for those in Laodicea and for those in Hierapolis” (Col 4:13).

Terrible things are happen­ing in the world as a result of misguided zeal. Passion for truth and righteousness is a commendable virtue and not to be confused with erratic and extreme behaviour of the irrational.

True Godly passion will be reflected in our compassion. Unless we have compassion, our zeal will not be from the right source. It must never be said that we had every passion except compassion. Christ had passion but His compassion was more obvious. So it ought to be with His disciples.