FAMILY UNDER CURSE

BIBLE PASSAGE: EZEKIEL 18:2-20

• Picture taken from Google
• Lesson Prepared by: Krisha of Solomon’s Wisdom FB page
• Lesson ideas taken from: https://www.desiringgod.org/ tonyEvans sermon

NOVEMBER 13, 2022

 

MEMORY VERSE

Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

PSALMS 127:1

 

INTRODUCTION:

All of us bear the DNA of our mothers and fathers. The physical DNA is not the only thing that gets transferred; there is a spiritual DNA that transfers as well. This is unseen reality that passes between parents and children, grandparents’ parents and children that leads to cycle of consequences; it’s spiritual DNA. Parents don’t only pass to their children your good looks (Ehemm) but also transfers or have transferred to us the patterns of sinful behavior. These patterns transferred from one generation to another create spiritual scars in our lives. It’s usually not planned but it is very real to your children. It’s sinful patterns that we’ve picked up across generations. We’ve seen people whose father was an alcoholic and they become an alcoholic. In America, you can see parents got divorce and so are their children.  Let’s talk about a cycle of poverty where people have the mindset that being on poor situation, even you have the capacity to work, is okay; they adopt the fact that’s really okay. If these cycle behavior is unaddressed produces built-in consequences to our wellbeing. Some parents live in debt and so are the children.

Today our lesson is titled, “FAMILY UNDER CURSE” and most of us here our families are not in this category anymore but stay with me in this lesson and be reminded and thankful.

LESSON OUTLINE:

1.  CURSES AND BLESSINGS ARE TRANSFERRED (LEVITICUS 26:39-42)

Let’s read Deuteronomy 30:15-16,19. These verses give a great warning for every one of us. There are choices needed to do. Let’s remember that that the life you choose affects you and your descendants. When Adam sinned in the garden the Bible says that it affected the whole human race.  His decisions affected the generations.

 

The things we see in our society today for example the ruthless murder of people. I remember the killing of Percy Lapid. If you follow the case, you’ll see how he was killed. Hiring of gunman, middlemen and look-out men just to kill him and that was shocking.

The random murder of innocent blood – abortion. Let me ask this question, do you want to pass this on? Do you want to pass your alcoholism? Do you want to pass on your drug addiction? Do I want to pass on my lifestyle? Do you want your kids to pick these up?

 

Let’s read Leviticus 26:39-42.

³⁹ And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. ⁴⁰ If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; ⁴¹ And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: ⁴² Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.

 

How to break the curse? Come to God and claim your own rebellion. You must come to God and repent your own participation in the iniquity – “Confess their iniquity (your own participation) and the iniquity of the forefathers.”

 

 

2.   THE SINS OF THE FATHERS ARE PUNISHED TO THE CHILDREN THROUGH BECOMING THE CHILDREN’S OWN SIN

Honestly before I have fear of being punished because of what my father or parents did. If my father is “babaero” I thought, I would be the punishment for his sinful acts. Who thought the same way, could you raise your hand? (insert conversation with a Christian who telling God being unfair for giving punishment)

Let’s read some verses:

EXODUS 20: 5-6 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

EXODUS 34:6-7 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

LEVITICUS 26:39 And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.

However, there are other texts that are absolutely differentt what the Bible means in those first texts.

Deuteronomy 24:16: “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.”

2 Kings 14:6: “But the children of the murderers he slew not: according unto that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the Lord commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to death for the fathers; but every man shall be put to death for his own sin.’”

Ezekiel 18:20: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.”

 

We can see based from the verses that the sins of the fathers are punished in the children through becoming the children’s own sin. That is really crucial. So here is the key text: Exodus 20:5: “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.” In other words, the hatred of God is the embodiment of what the father’s problem was. Those who experience the penalty of the father’s sins are those who hate God, according to that verse.

We are not told how the father’s sins become the children’s sins. That is a mysterious thing left in God’s mind. But they do. What we are told is that when father’s sins are visited on the children it is because the children have become sinners like the fathers. The father’s sins are the children’s sins.

So no innocent child has ever been punished for a father’s sins; only guilty children are punished and are guilty of the very sins that their fathers sinned.

So you see how important to be a good example to your children. Your influence matters. If you, as parents, don’t prioritize spiritual matters; you seldom go to church, you don’t use the bible as manual of living as a family, you don’t follow God’s commandments, it will influence your children to do these things as well. Also it’s important to have a personal relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s our own decisions to follow our parents’ path of iniquity or not. If you follow God instead and accept Him to your life, you won’t be punished by the iniquity of your forefathers.

 

Let’s read Ezekiel 18: 2-20

Ezekiel 18:2-3 “²What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? ³ As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel.”

 

Verse 3 reminded Israelites to not use that proverb anymore which is mentioned in verse 2. Don’t blame mother and father for what you do. Mother and father maybe have transferred it, illustrated it, demonstrated it and amplified it but you took it on by choice. In other words, don’t use what somebody else did in a previous generation as an excuse for you to keep it going. Verse 4 means, if you are messed up like your mama and daddy it’s because you chose to adopt their mess.

 

3.  JESUS CHRIST BROKE THE CURSE

Because of God’s grace, which is, of course, finally secured for us by Jesus on the cross, the children can confess their own sins and the sins of their fathers and be forgiven and accepted by God.

Nobody is trapped in his father’s sins — or even in his own sins. We already see it in the Old Testament. Leviticus 26:40–42: “If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers . . . if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. So nobody in the Old Testament or the New Testament is trapped or enslaved or in bondage or under an unbreakable curse because of something the fathers did, or something they did.

 

The precious words of Exodus 34:6–7 are not nullified by generational migration of sin. It says, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands” — and then, as if to get the point across, he gives three words — “forgiving iniquity and [forgiving] transgression and [forgiving] sin.”

I mean, you can’t get clearer at the center of the Mosaic Law than from generation to generation God forgives the sins of those who repent.

None of this should make anyone feel trapped and without hope because of his parents’ sins. Ezekiel 33:14–15 says, “Though I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ yet if he turns from his sin and does what is just and right, if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has taken by robbery, and walks in the statutes of life, not doing injustice, he shall surely live; he shall not die.” The blood of Jesus conquers all sin and judgment for those who believe.

 

And you get a beautiful sweeping statement in Acts 10:43: “To him [Jesus] all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” So nobody is trapped in anybody’s sin — their own or someone else’s — because of the cross.

No one who has a child who goes bad and forsakes the way of righteousness should feel that it is all his fault.

Ezekiel 18:20 says, “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son.” In other words, there are real responsibilities in our children’s hearts, and we will not be found guilty because of our children’s guilt if we deal, of course, with our own sins. This means that you can’t be paralyzed by the guilt of thinking, “I guess my children’s problems are all owing to me.”

Finally, when it comes to generational curses, Christians should lay hold on Galatians 3:10-15L Let’s read) The rules of God, the law, that’s the ten commandments, cannot fix your problem, my problem and our problem. The law is good but He says with the law comes a curse. Why? Because all the law can do is show you the problem; it cannot fix it. With the law comes the curse because every time God give a rule, he gives consequence and if your break it something will happen. The law of God is good to expose you but not to deliver you. If committing ourselves to the law can’t make it right, it only tells us what’s wrong we’re doing that we shouldn’t be doing that we got from our parents then passing to our/your children.  What will make it right? Verse 14 says,

“That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

 “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:.’”

Christ has paid every debt and broken every curse. On the cross God broke the authority (legitimate use of power) of Satan, Jesus broke the curse. The blood of Christ covers all curses.

CONCLUSION:

ROMANS 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:”

ROMANS 5:15 “… For if through the offence of one many be dead…”

 

The only reason we have to die is because what Adam did that got transferred to the human race. Death was the transfer of rebellion against God but then within time between birth and death are choices that are made – decisions. God said that the consequence of our sin we bear because we make a decision to repeat the practice that may have been transferred to us. Don’t make an excuse for disobeying because of your father and mother. Let’s paraphrase what God had told to Adam “Because you listen to your wife, you should have told her, I love you but we can’t eat that fruit but because you are so in love that you let her cause you to disobey me now the whole family is in trouble.” So no man and woman has the final authority, everybody who names the name of Jesus Christ is under God. The reasons we have all this chaos in families today is we got folk trying to trump God in the relationship. Jesus broke the curse of the law so that we can have the spirit. That’s why it’s important for the family to have the Holy Spirit and the family can only do that if they accepted Jesus Christ into their lives. JESUS CHRIST IS THE KEY!