The Door Your Grandpa Opened
Ex 34:6 Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;
Ex 34:7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave [the guilty] unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations."
Pr 26:2 Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.
This morning we are starting a series on doors and I thought we would start this series by talking about a door your Great Grandpa opened.
I will explain our scripture texts in a moment, but I want to tell you in the beginning this message is going to end up in a good place. So hang in there with me.
I want to begin by noting that a door is something that takes us from one atmosphere to another. For example a hallway to a bedroom. Very different atmospheres. A garage into a house, a living room into a bathroom. Doors change the circumstances of our lives.
Here is a very important point that I want to make early and often in this message:
What you open the door to affects everyone in the house.
When we open the door to someone or something, it is not always readily apparent the full extent of what we have allowed into our homes/life, and how it will not only affect the door opener, but everyone connected with them.
A quick and easy example to illustrate this is if we open the door on a cold winter day, it will usher in cold air that everyone inside might feel. If a dad looks at pornography, he may be opening his home to things he never realized would come in the door with his activity.
Our fist text in Exodus is what God said to Moses when he hid him in the cleft of the rock and allowed him to see His hinder parts.
Often times we get wrapped up in a personal visitation of God, which is what happened in the text. But the real value of what happened to Moses is not what He saw and felt, but the theological truth that was hidden to him, but clear to us:
You cannot have a visitation of God, apart from being hidden in the rock which is Christ.
Secondly, is what God plainly told him during that visitation.
God forgives sins, but He also punishes sins to the third and fourth generations.
Yesterday I received a message from a friend in NY. He received great benefit from the Lord through our preaching in NY, and has on ocassion written to ask for counsel and advice. In his message yesterday he wanted to know if this punishment of sin for generations could also come through the mother. I am not sure why he asked it, but I suspect someone is very concerned about the way a mother, or grandmother, or great-grand mother lived. I do know that they have a son who has a serious case of autism and in the back of my mind I wondered if they are trying to find out the reason their son has this disorder.
Our text in Proverbs says in the way that certain birds flit about, and change homes often, they don’t alight or rest in one place, teaches us the lesson that we don’t have to worry about a curse resting and remaining on us. But it adds this one unuttered exception, the curse, "causeless," shall not come. What if there was a cause?
I wrote him back, and said I wasn’t 100% sure of my answer, but that my understaning of the bible indicates to me, that it only refers to men. In scripture, particularly the OT, man is the head, the responsible party. Then I shared something else with him, that I will also share with you in a little bit.
First I want to talk about what God said he would do. He would visit the sins of the fathers on the third and fourth generation.
Let me show you just two examples from scripture:
2Ki 5:27 "Therefore, the leprosy of Naaman shall cleave to you and to your descendants forever." So he went out from his presence a leper [as white] as snow.
Explain story, Gehazi opened a door that brought leprosy throughout all his generations.
Our next illustration comes from the life of David. Tell the background to the text:
2Sa 12:7 Nathan then said to David, "You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ’It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul.
2Sa 12:8 ’I also gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if [that had been] too little, I would have added to you many more things like these!
2Sa 12:9 ’Why have you despised the word of the LORD by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon.
2Sa 12:10 ’Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’
2Sa 12:11 "Thus says the LORD, ’Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes, and give [them] to your companion, and he shall lie with your wives in broad daylight.
2Sa 12:12 ’Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.’"
2Sa 12:13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
2Sa 12:14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die."
David opened a door that affected everyone in His house and in his lineage.
Illustrate it from David’s life:
Amnon rapes Tamar. David does nothing.
Absalom brother to Tamar kills Amnon.
Absalom leads a rebellion, rapes David’s wives.
Absalom is murdered by Joab, David cries:
"Absalom, Absalom my son, would to God I had died in your place."
David grieved at what his sin had opened the door to in his own family. Probably, like Essau, he sought to take it back with tears, but to no avail. The deed was done, the consequences would follow.
What you open the door to affects everyone in the house.
I don’t think David or Gehazi had any idea what was lurking behind the door they opened.
I don’t think they fully understood what the consequences of their actions could be.
God said of David: "... Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house..."
David was the sweet Psalmist of Israel, David was the apple of God’s eye, David was the king whose throne was forever established, and yet he brought down a curse, that was not just for 3 or four generations, but that would never depart from his house.
Having said all this, some of you are probably wondering who did what in your past? Are they the cause of your diabetes? Cancer? Financial problems? Some in the Christian world throw about a term they call generational curses, by that they mean sins of the fathers have negative results in future generations.
Even the world somewhat recognizes this principle. They will say if your father was an alcoholic the chances are good you will be one also. Hang in there a little bit longer this message is about to get very encouraging.
A number of years ago I was profoundly influenced by a book, it was called the 7 Laws of the Harvest written by John Lawrence. Some of the chapters talked about how we reap more than we sow. (Certainly Gehazi’s family did) We reap in a different season than we sow - patience. In the course of the book there was a thread of thought that impacted me the most, and it was simply this: we reap much that others sowed.
Now to this point this message has been somewhat negative and scary, but we are about to turn that on its head. But I do want one last shot at negative reaping before I talk about positive.
Right now in our country, conservatives are most concerned with what the door of debt is going to do to our children and our grandchildren. We are concerned about the consequences that our spending practices are going to bring. May I say to you that is nothing in comparison, to what is going to come of the anti-Christian direction, and the soon to come anti-Israeli direction our country is moving in. Our nation is systematically opening the door to immorality, and systematically closing the door to righteousness, and the coming harvest will be catastrophic, unless our nation has a third great awakening.
Debt is not the biggest problem our nation is facing.That is the least door that has been opened by our nation that we should be concerned about.
Now for the good news.
What you open the door to affects everyone in the house.
That applies to both bad and good. We have focused on the bad so far but, lets shift our focus on the good, and we will leave today very encouraged.
We reap much that we did not sow, that our forefathers sowed. That is true negatively, but more importantly it is true positively. Our nations forefathers sowed a country that was founded on and dedicated to God, and the benefits have been heaped up for us a nation for the last 300 plus years.
When the pilgrims landed on this soil they thanked God they finally had a place to follow God after the dictates of their conscience. That this land was originally dedicated to God, is a blessing that was sown by them in tears, and we continue to reap it in joy.
Eternity will only tell the rewards this nation has and will receive for the brave men and women who fought and died to end slavery, (civil war), and Nazi tyranny (WWII). We are the beneficiaries of the good sowing of many.
What you open the door to affects everyone in the house.
Lets go back a little further, and look at another example:
Ro 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned —
That is talking about Adam and what his sin brought to all of us - the curse of physical and spiritual death, to say nothing of weeds, and hard labor in the field and in the infant delivery room.
But here is a wonderful truth just a few verses later:
Ro 5:15 But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
Ro 5:16 And the gift is not like [that which came] through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment [arose] from one [transgression] resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift [arose] from many transgressions resulting in justification.
Ro 5:17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
Did you see the words much more? Whatever curse grandpa may have brought, Jesus brings blessings that completely swallows them up, and removes them. I may not be able to prove it but I think the curse on David’s family ended at Calvary.
He lived under the old covenant, we live under the new.
When a man or woman opens their heart, home, and life to Christ, the blessing that brings is far greater than any curse that comes through the fall of man, or the sins of your ancestors.
Ro 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
The law of sin and death is two fold: 1. This wages of sin is death. 2. The wages of sin is that they are often passed down to following generations. What Christ did, swallows up what Adam did. The life in Christ is greater than the death in Adam.
If you are fretting about what you grandpa did it means that mentally you are putting yourself under the old covenant. The grandpa that matters is JESUS! (He is our brother not our grandfather, but the point is that a grandpa who did evil passes on curses, but Jesus passes on blessing that far surpass and eradicate any curse that may have through your family line.
The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus swallows up the law of sin and death that grandpa may have released into your family.
Even as there is a spiritual law that sends death and trouble down family lines, there is a far greater law, that trumps all other laws - that the spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death.
When a light is turned on in a dark room it completely overpowers the darkness, even so the spirit of life in Christ Jesus overpowers any curses that would be passed down.
Here is Romans 5:17 in the message version:
Ro 5:17 If death got the upper hand through one man’s wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?
Even as darkness is obliterated by light, sin is obliterated by grace.
Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,
grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!
Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured,
there where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.
Refrain:
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
grace, grace, God’s grace,
grace that is greater than all our sin!
Dark is the stain that we cannot hide.
What can avail to wash it away?
Look! There is flowing a crimson tide,
brighter than snow you may be today.
Close: If you are in Christ you are the recipient not of generational curses, but spiritual blessings. If you are not in Christ, you need to get there as fast as you can, because the law of sin and death is nipping at your heel.
