Sins of the Fathers
by Pastor Jim May
2 Kings 2:19-24, "And the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is naught, and the ground barren. And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the LORD, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake. And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them."
The city of Jericho had been leveled by the power of God when Joshua and the Children of Israel first entered into the Promised Land. Even though the walls were leveled, pushed outward by the hand of God, much of the city still stood after the battle was over. Israel had burned a lot of it and had left much of it in ruin but there was enough left for the Israelites to begin to rebuild.
When the Promised Land was divided among the tribes of Israel, the Tribe of Benjamin was assigned the land where Jericho now lay in ruins. The Benjamites began to rebuild the city and to inhabit it, but there was a problem.
God had told Joshua to destroy every inhabitant and all the worldly spoils of Jericho. He was only to save the gold, silver and brass for use in the Temple treasury. But like every other battle, God’s directions were not carried out to the letter.
God gave them the victory, they killed most of the people of the city, but not all, and they kept the vessels as God directed, but they left a seed of rebellion in the city. It would be a seed that continually grow and cause grief to the Benjamites.
One of the greatest tragedies of any war is that there are always non-combat casualties. I suppose that even today, in the war in Iraq, the biggest problem that our soldiers face is not the terrorist enemy. Any small group that attacks an American force right now is easily defeated by our overwhelming firepower and technology.
It has been said that we will drop a laser guided smart bob right on top of the head of whoever we want to kill and in return, the terrorists throw make a home-made Molotov cocktail (gasoline filled bottle with a rag that is lit to burn when it breaks). There isn’t much chance that the terrorists can win but they still put up a good fight.
I can remember the days of the Vietnam War. It is supposedly the only war that the U.S. has ever lost. Do you know why we lost? It wasn’t because of our inability to defeat the enemy. It wasn’t because the soldiers weren’t willing and able to win. It was because of the politics of war.
Just as it is Iraq, it was in Vietnam as well. The problem is; how do you tell which of the people standing before you is a terrorist or an innocent civilian caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sadly, there is no way to know. For there are times when even those who you think are your friends will really be your enemy.
I don’t condone the killing of innocent civilians, who would? But I do understand, from first hand experience, how the death of many civilians is an inescapable result of any war.
After so many times of trusting so called “friendlies” among the civilian population and then being betrayed and losing your own soldiers to their treachery, anyone would become overly cautious against trusting the civilian population. Anyone, from a grand-mother who would pull out an AK-47 rifle from under her bed and ambush the first GI she met, to a small child, barely old enough to walk who would walk in among a group of soldiers and then die with them in a booby trapped mine that was strapped to its body, could be your enemy.
It became so bad in Vietnam that our troops in the field came to the conclusion that, “The only friendly Vietnamese was a dead Vietnamese. Kill them all and let God sort them out.” That was, and still is a terrible thing to do, but in that day it was your only way to hope to survive the war and make it home alive.
Of course none of us approve of such actions. We consider them war crimes. I think this is what was happening in Israel and Jericho, and with every other people that Israel had to conquer. God gave instructions to kill every living thing – not to leave even babies alive. It sounds so harsh to us now, and it did to the Israelites then too.
It isn’t a surprise that Israel allowed some of the civilians to live, especially the children, the elderly and the women of the cities that they conquered. It sounded so inhumane to just slaughter them wholesale. Allow them to surrender, to live and then indoctrinate and convert them to our way of life and our way of worship. That would be a far better thing to do. That’s the way they thought and we still think that way today.
The problem with this is that when you allow some of the enemy to live, you also create for yourself a lot of problems with overcoming their old way of life, and you can never completely destroy their desire to be free from their captors.
The few that were allowed to live in Jericho became a festering sore in the land of the Benjamites. Those who were left resented and hated Israel because of the death of their mother, dad, brother, sister, aunt, uncle and other family members. They refused to become “naturalized Israelis” and to surrender their way of life completely. These same “innocent civilians” became the insurgents, if you will, against their captors, and it is likely that they were in a constant state of rebellion.
These rebellious captives grew up and had children of their own and they taught their kids to never give up trying to throw off the rule of the Benjamites. Along with their own children, some of these rebellious citizens of the former people of Jericho, were very likely able to convince some Benjamites to join them in their fight for freedom, just as much as we have some Americans who are easily duped into siding with our enemies against our own nation.
Who can forget the treason of Benedict Arnold who sold out the Continental Army to the British in the American Revolution?
Who can forget “Tokyo Rose”, the American born woman of Japanese ancestry who attempted to undermine the efforts of our soldiers in the Pacific during WWII?
I personally, will never forget the treason of Jane Fonda, who consorted with and aided the Communist North Vietnamese army, while American soldiers were dying in the field and languishing in prison camps so that she could be free to ridicule those very soldiers who died for her freedom?
In Jericho I have no doubt that the rebellious attitude of those who were conquered was increasing in every passing generation and the hatred of the conquered people only grew with each passing day against Israel’s government, Israel’s religious leaders, and Israel’s God.
But the Lord was gracious to Jericho, and to the Benjamites, even in their disobedience and rebelliousness.
Let us never be deceived into believing that people are right with God just because they seem to be doing so well. God sends his blessings upon all men. He sends rain upon everyone, both sinner and righteous. God loves all men, not just his own people. But God hates sin and there is no place for sin in God’s people. Sin has to be completely destroyed, not one vestige of our old life is to remain. If we allow even a little bit of the “old man” to stay in our heart, that “little sin” will fester into a cancer that will destroy your soul, steal your victory, and bring you before God for final judgment in the last day to be cast into the Lake of Fire.
God’s love, mercy and blessings upon the rebellious people of Jericho, and the Benjamites are very evident.
Elisha, God’s man for the hour, anointed with a double portion of Elijah’s calling when the mantle of Elijah fell upon him as his mentor was taken away in a chariot to Heaven, was coming through Jericho on his way to Bethel.
God performed a miracle for Jericho by healing the bad water in the area and making the land fertile for them to grown crops for food.
If only they had accepted the worship of the God of Israel as easily as they accepted His blessings. God’s grace could still have made Jericho and the land of the Benjamites a blessed place to live. If only they had allowed God’s love and His Spirit to possess their hearts and change their lives, God’s mercy would have been poured out on them, but it was not to be. If only they would have trained their children to love the God of Israel instead of hating him, things could have been so different.
Their wickedness and the attitude of rebellion against Israel, against the God of Israel, and against the prophet of the God of Israel was going to come back to haunt them with a vengeance. We cannot mock God, we cannot sin against God, and we cannot continue to come against the chosen people of God for long without God’s justice falling upon us.
As Elisha left Jericho, the children, most of them were probably teenagers or a little younger, were roaming the highways in a form of a Bible times gang. It is certain that they were up to some mischief.
When they saw Elisha they began to ridicule him and persecute him.
“Hi Baldy! Your head shines in the sun, Baldy! Why don’t you go up like Elijah, Baldy? Why don’t you leave us alone, Baldy? Get out of our city, Baldy!"
Can you see the sins of the fathers being visited upon these youth? Can you see the results of allowing sin to remain in the camp against God’s will?
It wasn’t just Elisha that they were ridiculing now, they were ridiculing the God of Israel who had called Elisha.
We can pick on the preacher all we want. We can cut down on the leadership of the church all we want. We can complain, grumble and gripe about what goes on at the church all we want. We can gossip, spread lies, and even try to discredit our Brothers and Sisters in the Lord all we want, but at what point does our action become an offense to God? How long will God allow our attitude and our sin to go unpunished?
Matthew 18:6, "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
Mark 9:42, "And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea."
Luke 17:1-2, "Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones."
Elisha may have been an old gray haired, balding prophet of God, but he was still one of God’s “little ones”. God will not tolerate the persecution of his own children forever. Sooner or later he will rise with vengeance and every debt of sin will have to be paid in full.
Under the anointing of the Holy Ghost, Elisha looked back at these youths who were ridiculing him, and blaspheming the God of Israel. He cursed them by God’s command and then God sent two she bears into their midst.
Perhaps these youths had taken the bear cubs of these mother bears because they came out with fury and killed 42 of the youths before they could escape. That night there were a lot of families in Jericho who mourned for the loss of their children.
Mothers and dads who had taught their children to hate Israel, to hate the God of Israel, to love the idols of Jericho, and to fight against anything that Israel stood for, now began to cry and weep for those same children.
They learned the hard way that we will reap what we sow. They sowed hatred, rebellion and blasphemy into the hearts and minds of their own children and now those same children had faced God’s judgment. They parents had no one to blame but themselves.
Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
We often use this scripture as a basis of hope for the repentance and salvation of a wayward child when we know that we did our best in teaching them the Word of God and we did all we knew to do to bring them to Jesus.
But what we often fail to realize is that this scripture carries a double meaning. If we train up our child to walk in the paths of sin, to hate the church, to ridicule those who live for the Lord, to stay away from the House of God, to ignore the Word of God, and to only focus on the good times and worldly pleasure and riches of this world, we will also reap what we have sown here too. Those children will grow up to believe that the way we have taught them is the right way and they, too, will not depart from it.
Just walk into any school in our parish right now and you will see how much the training of the children has affected their children. If you really want to see the difference, just go to a middle school. I would like to take you on a tour with me just once. You would be appalled at the attitude of today’s youth. Oh, we may have some attitudes around the church to deal with, but they are nothing compared to the attitudes of those who have no knowledge of God in their lives.
With each passing generation, the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children. But the sins of each passing generation only become stronger, more evil and more destructive. Then the sins of the fathers are passed on again, and again and again.
It is no surprise that this world is growing more evil everyday. Mankind is bringing about his own judgment for sin. The only thing that can stop this cycle of sin from generation to generation is for someone to find the Lord and their Savior and be born again.
That’s the key to turning your family around. But the answer is not just in accepting Christ for yourself, you have to train the next generation to follow the Lord or nothing will change for them. That’s where your faithfulness to God, your commitment to his Word, his work and his church are so very important.
What’s the best way to train a child – by your correct example! They will see what you do more than they will hear what you say!
Who is training your children today? (This if for parents, grand-parents and even great-grand-parents for we carry this responsibility to the grave and even beyond by our legacy)
Are you training them or are you allowing the world to train them by default?
Are you training them by your example or are you allowing their friends in the world to do the work for you?
Are you really teaching them to go in the right way, or are you just hoping that somehow it will all turn out right?
Will the sin of their father and mother be visited upon them?
Will they one day face the curse of God for what you have taught them, or for what you are teaching them now?
Will they accept the ways of the world, and the way of sin and rebellion against God’s commandments as the normal and right way to live?
Or, will they really know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior and God as their refuge?
The answer lies in what we are teaching them today!
In the same manner that the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children, the blessings of God are handed down also.
1 Corinthians 7:14, "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy."
What does that mean to you, and what does it have to do with the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children?
This scripture deals with a family who has one parent who is saved and one who is not. That describes a large portion of the church world today.
What is meant by this sanctification that is passed on from one person to another?
A believing spouse will do their best to teach the ways of God and uphold the standards of righteousness to the rest of the family. They may not always succeed and they may never reach the place where they are living the way that they would want to, but how much better is the family because of their belief in God.
The unbelieving spouse will surely be affected in some manner, or they will leave the family, one or the other. God’s spirit and God’s Law, through his Word will constantly work on them and it will have an effect and accomplish something in them to either change or run away.
The believing spouse will keep the house in such a manner that honors the Lord. They will do their best to train up their children in the ways of the Lord. They will take every opportunity to lift up the name of Jesus to their family.
The net result of all this is that the family is sanctified somewhat by the believing parent. They will have a cleaner life, a more stable home environment, and a better view of what a normal home should be like.
As a result, at least some of the righteousness of God is passed along, and some day, the unbelieving spouse and the children could come to know Jesus as Lord too.
The righteousness of the fathers can sometimes be passed along to their children if those children accept God’s ways, but the sins of the fathers are always passed along to their children because the nature of that child is to follow the paths of sin to begin with.
What are our children learning from us?
Are we passing our sins to our children, or are we passing our faith to them?
One day, we will all face the judgment of God! I pray that we are found faithful in teaching our children about Jesus so that they will enter Heaven’s gates.
God forbid that any of us would have to stand before God and watch our children be cast into hell because we failed to teach them the ways of God and tell them about Jesus.
Will the next generation in your family benefit from the example you give?
