The Sins of the Fathers

My Sermon today entitled “The Sins of the Fathers” takes a look at what the Bible calls iniquity, and examines just how this term differs from the word sin?

Turn first of all to Psalm 51, and keep your Bible open at that place. Psalm 51: We have been speaking in recent weeks about the Blood of Jesus, and the efficacy of His blood in our Salvation, and we have been seeing the cost of His human sacrifice on our behalf. But in order for us to fully experience Life abundant, and not just Life eternal, … {remember that he came to bring us both abundant and eternal life} we need to appropriate (use) the efficacy or the effectiveness of His blood every day in order

to come out of sin and come into salvation – and in order to defeat the Devil. Many Christians have come into their Salvation, but are not yet free from the guilt and lure of sin. Many others struggle every day with temptation, and although they may rarely fall and fail the Saviour the battles that they fight on a daily basis can be exhausting and tiresome

to say the least!

We need to know what the Blood of Jesus has done, what it has accomplished and what it has ratified. There is nothing that the blood cannot take care of and accomplish. We as Christians have the daily availability of the blood to us, and what I am about to share with you is not intended to produce despair, nor to produce hopelessness or depression, but to show you why there is a necessity for all to be BORN AGAIN!

Let us read a few verses now from Psalms 51.

(This is David speaking here)

(1) Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness; according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. (2) Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity,

Underline that word, for iniquity is not just sin. To sin is to miss the mark, wherever the light was, the required standard was, you missed the mark. To transgress means that you have sinned or done wrong against a person, thus breaking Gods rules, … but iniquity was that sin, or that tendency to evil that has not been (so far) defeated or overcome in your life, and could be inherent from many generations back. Iniquity can be a built in tendency, (passed down from one generation to another)

a weakness in the will to overcome or defeat a particular evil.

Sometimes called a “Generational Curse”

Iniquity is that unrestrained sin or that addictive behaviour that someone else had and it is still in the family. You inherited a

propensity towards that kind of failing.

Notice what David says here:

(2) Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

(3) For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. (here he speaks of all three iniquity, sin and transgressions)

(4) Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight: that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. (Now notice this)

(5) Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me”. The amplified Bible puts it this way:

{Behold I was brought forth in a state of iniquity, my mother was sinful, who conceived me and I too am sinful.} (Amplified)

He is saying that because my Mother was sinful, I was born in the same state that my Mother was in, so I too am like her!

Here is an illustration of the fact that we are born in sin, born with the inherent sins, the sinful traits and tendencies of our parents. Now hold your place in Psalm 51, and go with me to the Book of Exodus, and stay with me for I want to lay a

foundation for some very hard things that I must say; and go to Exodus Chapter 20 where we find the Fourth Commandment.

(remember that nothing I will say today is meant to be a Justification for WHAT you are doing, what I am showing you is an explanation of WHY you are doing it)

and the Blood of Jesus is your deliverance, so that you do not have to keep on doing it again! You can break the chain by the Blood. The Blood of Jesus alone has the power to do it, you are not stranded, you can come out!

Now then … Exodus 20:4-6

“Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor the likeness of any form that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands, of them that love me and keep my commandments”.

So here God says that there is a choice. The One that hates me, the one that chooses to ignore me, the one that turns away from me, for that one, the sins of the Fathers will follow down through the generations – and the curse that comes from rejecting God will follow every one of them. But he adds, that for the one who will allow my Word to enter in, the one who will be born into my family, the one who will love me and keep my commandments, for that one, I will show mercy to him and thousands like him.

This all then poses the question for some, that if the “Sins of the fathers” have been visited upon the children, were they

“born like this?”

That question has always been pushed around church circles and

theological circles, Was the homosexual born like that, Was the adulterer born an adulterer, was the alcoholic born an alcoholic, was the promiscuous man or woman born that way? … and most Christians would immediately answer the question with the word NO!

I want to challenge that today, because before you should say NO, let me bring you to a place of understanding how you were born. You were born a Sinner! You were not born a “Christian” you were not born flawless, you did not come out of your Mothers womb speaking in tongues, and saying prayers. You were born into this world as a “child of the devil!” (that’s what the Bible says) I know that that may shock you, but you came into this world, as a sinner, just like David the psalmist, just like me, just like everyone else. You did not have to commit any sin to be a sinner, you were born a sinner, that sin was transferred to you in your spiritual DNA. You were born as a sinner – and 1 John 1:8 says that if you say any differently, you are a liar, and you’re only deceiving yourself.

So the first thing that we need to establish is “how did we come here?” and we came here as children of the devil. Satan had a right to us for we came here as sinners… in our spiritual DNA – Sinners, with the capacity to sin. Isn’t that right?

You were not taught how to sin, your Parents or teachers did not take you aside one day and teach you how to tell lies, or how to take something that didn’t belong to you, all of that was in your nature, it came naturally in your sinful nature. It was already in your make-up … to SIN; but Iniquity, would determine the pattern or tendencies – or the road down which your sins would lead you. Iniquity determines in that sinful nature, if will you lean towards being an alcoholic, or an adulterer, or a thief, or a killer, or a liar … or whatever.

I have no doubt about this. You were born as a sinner, but your family ancestry – family traits will determine which tendencies, which weaknesses you will lean towards, and you will have the potential to continue in that way, or on that road, for as long as you walk without God. Without the power of God and the Blood of Jesus, you will pass on that trait, that propensity to the next generation, to your children; and so on … Its Gods word.

One two or three generations ago, there may well have been someone in your family who had a certain propensity toward the exact weaknesses with which YOU wrestle and fight today? There may have been murderers in the past generations and those who spent time in prison for it, and you are wondering why your child is taking pleasure in killing all the cats in your neighbourhood, or bullying other children at School? Maybe you did the same?

If you have been born into a family, where your Grandfather

cheated on his family, or where your Father cheated on your Mother, the likelihood is that if you do not do something about it, then, you too will end up cheating on your partner, and passing on that tendency, and nature to your children.

If you do not change the nature with which you were born, God says that you remain a child of the devil, and his aim is to steal, kill and destroy everything around you. If you continue in that state, the state of which the Psalmist says you were born, then by your associations with others in a similar state, you are nourishing and building that fallen iniquitous nature and making it all the more difficult to change. Pull a thread in your coat and its fairly east to mend, but rip a hundred and tear the garment and its virtually impossible to fix it!

Some have found themselves living a certain way, and saying;

“I don’t know why I am doing these things, …why my boy is playing with girl dolls, why my child is using bad language and is so rebellious, … why I am lifting things in shops and not paying for them, why I am so depressed every day, why I fight with my husband who I love dearly, why am I cheating on my wife, why am I failing my children …why am I the way I am? They do not understand how they got like that – what it was that produced and continues producing these traits in their lives. The fact is, that it is a part of you, and has been part of your family for generations and if you don’t change, there will be no change!

We can no longer ignore these things in the Church, we must speak out and reach out to those gripped, mastered and controlled by generational curses. We must set about breaking the power of the Devil in many lives. Especially if we care about the children of our society, we must stop them from being infected and affected by such evils. It is time to break the chains that bind so many. Time for we Preachers to preach the Blood of Jesus, and to proclaim the wonder working power that it shall never lose. We must shine a fresh light into this human darkness that hurts so many.

Now many ask me, “how can I change the nature I was born with?” To ask such a question is the first step on the road to freedom. In order to change how you were born, you must be BORN AGAIN! You must be born again into another family, and born again with another nature, a new nature.

And the reason why God wants you to be Born Again, is not that you can START being religious, but that you can STOP

living in iniquity!

As I said at the beginning of this message, Jesus came to give both eternal and abundant life. God does not want his children being tired and defeated every day by the world and the flesh and the devil, and living in fear of the future. God wants his children to live abundantly, under the covering and cleansing of the Blood of Jesus and in the anointing of the Holy Spirit … an abundant full and overflowing life.

God does not want you STUCK or imprisoned in a weakness or tendency over which you have no control, so He planned your salvation in His blessed Son the Lord Jesus. God does not want you STUCK in your old nature but he wants to give you a NEW nature, a Divine nature – HIS own, the divine nature of God.

So then you get BORN AGAIN and I’ve been told from childhood that once you get Born Again, that everything in the garden will become rosy, and I found out that that was not the whole truth? I was told that if I just gave my heart and my life to Jesus, that old things would pass away and all things would become new, but I discovered that that also was not the whole truth. Because I gave my heart to Jesus and I have had nothing but trouble and trial and testing all of my life!

But my troubles were not the consequences, or the results of my sin, my troubles have been from the one trying to rob me of my Salvation. You see the Devil does not like to give any of us up easily, – he will fight for every soul who turns to Jesus. He will fight for your faith, fight for your health, fight for your money, fight for your position, fight for your destiny, and fight for your very life. I may have trouble trial and tests to face every day, but on the day when I realized that “The Blood of Jesus Christ, Gods Son, cleanses me from all Sin” 1 John 1:7 I realized that I was free (at last) from any family trait, free from an old nature, free from an old pattern, an old path and an old problem, and free to walk and work and worship at peace with God. Because “He whom the Son sets free, is free indeed.” Being Born Again enables you to change family!

Once you have become a “Child of God” then and only then do you receive pardon and power for the abundant life. Most of my problems after I became a Christian stemmed from the ignorance of just who I had become in Christ. I knew that I was born again, born again into Gods family, I knew that I was pardoned, and I knew that I was supposed to be empowered to live, and that the blood of Jesus was keeping me clean, but I too struggled every day to stay clean, without realizing that it was impossible for me to stay clean.

Therein lies the dilemma that many Christians face, and

many continue to face long after they have been born again.

They fail to truly embrace the fact that “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from ALL sin” 1 John 1:7

They fail to realize that Salvation means Justification in the sight of God, and walk every day in the fear of the “Accuser”

which is another name for the Devil. This is what robs many of the ability and power to change. Let me illustrate this;

You see when the Devil comes up in front of me and opens as it were, his book of accusations, I see there all of my failures, I can see all of my mistakes, all of my weaknesses, all of my carnality and all of my sin. Its there staring me in the face!

I know its there for I did do those things of which I am being accused. Without a relationship with God through Jesus, we remain “children of the devil” and our devilish father is right in his assessments and his accusations of us.

But when we have been born again into Gods family, our wise and loving Father in Heaven, stands before us with His Book.

On the surface, it may look exactly the same as Satan’s book,

for it is the same account of our lives and living. But open up the book and look inside, and you will not find a single entry … every page is clean and clear, and it is the blood of Jesus that makes it so! Heaven has NO record of any wrongdoing of mine whatsoever, all of my past, present and even my future sin has been and is being continually cleansed by the precious blood of Jesus. Praise God! This great and graceful truth enables and empowers me to live and walk in the forgiveness and peace that is rightfully mine. And when I do walk in such fellowship and friendship with God, I become powerful not powerless in the hand of the Almighty.

Do you have this power and peace?

How many times we have looked into a pram and gazed at the newborn baby only to declare, “She’s like her Mummy” or “He’s Like His Daddy” without fully realizing just how true those words were, and the Spiritual implication we were making. There are family traits and family familiarities which are a blessing, especially evident in the lives of believers. Many a great Preacher has become a great preacher because His Earthly Father was also a great Preacher. The Anointing of God on the Father was passed on like a “mantle” to the Son – God has promised such favour and blessing.

Yet how many others we have known who have followed in their Fathers foot-steps into crime and prison, into immorality and divorce, into drugs and suicide? Even more tragic to me,

is that many have followed a Mother into prostitution,

into gambling and into ruin?

These are the tragedies that break my heart and that break

the heart of God. These are the evils we must stop,

and the family histories that we must try to change.

May God Almighty help us.

NOW THIS FINAL WORD

There’s a Spanish story of a father and son who had become estranged. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father placed an advert in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read:

Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon

on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father.

On the following Saturday more than 800 Boys called Paco showed up at that newspaper office, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers.

Our Loving Father in Heaven is ready and waiting to forgive you too, so come today and accept that pardon and peace,

its waiting for you at the Cross of Jesus Christ.

God Bless You. AMEN