You have heard it said that you are saved by grace. You have heard phrases like “gift of salvation”, “the gift of God is eternal life” and the “gift of righteousness”. What does it mean that you are saved by grace and why is salvation a gift? Romans 6 v 23 says, “For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” From this verse we see that eternal life is a free gift. By definition a gift is free. No one has ever paid to receive a gift so calling eternal life a “free” gift is to emphasize how free it is. Isaiah 55 v 1-2 says, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for [that which is] not bread? and your labour for [that which] satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye [that which is] good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Again these scriptures emphasize that eternal life is free and God goes on to ask why we labour for things that are not real and that do not satisfy our souls instead of just coming to Him to get the real life which is free and we do not have to work for it. These two passages of scripture teach the same thing. First, they show us that that which comes from God is free and second that which we get for ourselves we work for it. How? In Romans we learn that the wages of sin is death. For one to receive wages they have to have earned them and for one to earn them they have to have worked for them. In Isaiah God asks us why we work for things that are not good for us. So when we sin, we ourselves put in the time and effort and therefore we deserve the consequences thereof. Romans 3 v 23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Since all of us have sinned, we all deserve to die and to die is to be in the fiery flames of hell for eternity away from God’s presence. In short, we all deserve to go to hell because we earned it through our sinfulness.
On the other hand, because of God’s mercy, salvation comes as a gift. It is free which means we did not work for it. Ephesians 2 v 8-9 says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Clearly we receive salvation as a gift without us doing anything special to get it if only we believe in the complete works of Christ. One of the most famous Bible verses, John 3 v 16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” So all we have to do is to believe in Christ and through our faith in Him we are saved by grace. What am I saying? Christ did the work and you got the credit. It wasn’t you on the cross. It wasn’t you that went into the heart of the earth (Read Matthew 12 v 40). It is impossible for you to save yourself even if you tried. Psalm 49 v 7-8 says, “None [of them] can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: (For the redemption of their soul [is] precious, and it ceaseth for ever :)” The Psalmist later tells us where he places his confidence for his salvation when he states in v15 of the same Psalm, “But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me.” So understand this, no amount of “good works” can get you into heaven.
Many people are under the deception that they have to do “good works” for God to save them from their sin i.e. they have to work for their salvation. That amounts to not trusting that Jesus did enough to save you and so you think you have to add on to what He did to make it complete. No, that is wrong!! After all Isaiah 64 v 6 says, “But we are all as an unclean [thing,] and all our righteousnesses [are] as filthy rags.” So your so called good works are not good works at all. You have to admit your shortcomings and acknowledge that they are unacceptable before God and then place your confidence in the complete work Jesus did on the cross for your salvation. You will no longer wonder whether you have done enough to get saved because you will know that Jesus did enough for you to be saved. So you might then wonder if this means you can go on sinning just as long as you believe that Jesus died for you. By no means because the Bible in 1 John 3 v 8 says, “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” The very reason Christ came was to destroy sin and redeem His people. So when you believe in Him you become a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5 v 17 says, “Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” You are born of the Holy Spirit and are now a child of God and so sinning is a no-no for you. When the Holy Spirit dwells in you He begins to sanctify you i.e. to make you holy and pure. This does not happen instantaneously. While salvation is immediate, sanctification is a process. While you do not partake in salvation, save for being in need of it, you take part in the sanctification work by working out your salvation. Here is a saying; you do not work for your salvation but you work out your salvation.
To work out your salvation is to partake in the sanctification work the Spirit works in you. Philippians 2 v 12-13 says, “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure.” From this verse we are told to work out our own salvation. Note, you are not working for it. You are working it out. The next verse says God works in us to will and to work, for His good pleasure. This means God is making us willing and able to obey Him and all we have to do is follow that through by actually doing it. Salvation is already in you and God is working in you to desire and to act according to His good purpose. So while He is working in you, you are working on the outside. For example, because you have submitted to God, He will work in you to desire to be generous and give you the ability to be generous and all you do is be generous to those that are needy.
So in conclusion what am I saying? We have sinned against God and so we deserve to go to hell but because God loves us so much and seeing our precarious state and our inability to save ourselves, He gave us the gift of salvation. Christ satisfied the righteous requirements of God, that if a man sins he must die, by taking the ultimate penalty on our behalf. So all we do is trust in Christ for our salvation rather than our own “good works” and allow Him to work in us to obey God. God bless you.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Generational curses
This one is a long one so please bear with me.
There is a common belief that the Bible advocates for a certain spiritual principle known as the generational curse. Loosely defined, a generational curse is the punishment and/or continual misfortune, experience of harm or bad luck endured by one generation of people as a result of the sins of generations before them. There are verses in the Bible used to support this idea. However, before we get deeper into whether there is such a thing as a generational curse or not, I would like to define 4 words: sin, iniquity, generational and curse.
Sin – From Strong’s Hebrew dictionary
H2403
חטּאת חטּאה
chaṭṭâ'âh chaṭṭâ'th
khat-taw-aw', khat-tawth'
From H2398; an offence (sometimes habitual sinfulness), and its penalty, occasion, sacrifice, or expiation; also (concretely) an offender: - punishment (of sin), purifying (-fication for sin), sin (-ner, offering).
Sin - From Word Web
1) Estrangement from God
2) An act that is regarded by theologians as a transgression of God's will
Iniquity – From Strong’s Hebrew dictionary
H5771
עוון עון
‛âvôn ‛âvôn
aw-vone', aw-vone'
From H5753; perversity, that is, (moral) evil: - fault, iniquity, mischief, punishment (of iniquity), sin.
Iniquity – From Word Web
1) Absence of moral or spiritual values
2) Morally objectionable behaviour
3) An unjust act
From these definitions we can see that sin is primarily an act while iniquity is primarily a state or condition. What do I mean? Sin is a verb i.e. to sin, which to do something that is against the moral standard of God. Iniquity is a noun which means a condition of bad behaviour or continual commission of sin as a result of lacking proper spiritual guidance. For you to sin you need to have iniquity. Another word for iniquity is wickedness. For you to sin you have to be wicked. Therefore the platform on which sins are committed is iniquity. To be iniquitous is to be characterized by being morally deficient or ungodly therefore as a result you sin.
Generational – from Word Web
1) Of or relating to a generation
Curse – from Word Web
1) Profane or obscene expression usually of surprise or anger
2) An appeal to some supernatural power to inflict evil on someone or some group
3) An evil spell
4) Something causing misery or death
5) A severe affliction
From this it appears that a textbook definition of generational curse should be “a severe affliction, evil spell or the infliction of evil by some supernatural power onto a generation of people as a result of the sins committed by a generation/s of people before them.”
After Adam fell the Bible records in Genesis 5 v 1-3 “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth.” (Boldness added). The children Adam had after he fell where in his image. God created him in His image which was sinless but after he fell he had a sinful image. This is the likeness all his descendants (mankind) have as the Bible put it that “he begat a son in his own likeness.” So all men, being descendants of Adam, have a sinful nature i.e. they will inevitably sin against God. Is this a case of a generational curse? By no means. Should God have created a new people and destroyed Adam and Eve? No way, because that would not show His mercy and loving kindness and out of His nature as a merciful God He sought to restore man into relationship with Him. Therefore all man, descendants of Adam, were to be in the likeness of Adam i.e. have a sinful nature. In that state the glory of God is magnified in that His mercy would be extended to all through His Son Jesus Christ.
So what are the verses people use to support generational curses? Here are some of them:-
Exodus 20 v 5, “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.”
Exodus 34 v 7, “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.” See also Number 14 v 18 and Deuteronomy 5 v 9. In these verses people say God is punishing the children for the sins of their fathers hence there is a generational curse.
John 9 v1-2, “And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” (Boldness added). In this verse, people say it shows the cultural belief amongst the Jewish people in those days that one could suffer for the sins of his fathers and therefore deduct that this is proof for the existence of generational curses.
1 Kings 21:29, "Seest how Ahab humbled himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house." In this verse, people say it shows that God was going to punish Ahab’s son for Ahab’s sin therefore he was under a generational curse.
Genesis 9 v 22-25, “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” In this verse Ham sins against his father yet Noah curses his son Canaan. Why? Could this be an example of a generational curse?
So these are some of the major verses used to prove the theory of generational curses. The general explanation is that due to the sins of the fathers, the children also come under a curse. So in order to break the curse one has to confess the sins of his fathers as well as his own sins so that he is completely free. To support this here are some of the verses they use:-
Nehemiah 1 v 6, “Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee: both I and my father's house have sinned.”
Leviticus 26:40, “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.” (Boldness added).
So here is a simplified look at the principle of the generational curse and the breaking thereof based on the verses above. One generation sins against God and as a result its posterity suffers. This means all descendants of those sinners suffer for the sins of their ancestors. In order to break the cycle of suffering or the “curse”, the descendants have to confess personal and ancestral sin.
Let us look more intently into the verses above and other verses in order to test this theory and come up with a conclusion.
Exodus 20 v 5, “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.”
Exodus 34 v 7, “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.”
These two verses are alike but Exodus 20 v 5 is slightly different in that God finishes of his law by saying “of them that hate me.” What does this mean? God is saying if the descendants hate Him, He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. So what does it mean to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children? Here is the definition of visit:-
H6485
פּקד
pâqad
paw-kad'
A primitive root; to visit (with friendly or hostile intent); by analogy to oversee, muster, charge, care for, miss, deposit, etc.: - appoint, X at all, avenge, bestow, (appoint to have the, give a) charge, commit, count, deliver to keep, be empty, enjoin, go see, hurt, do judgment, lack, lay up look, make X by any means, miss, number, officer, (make) overseer have (the) oversight, punish, reckon, (call to) remember (-brance), set (over), sum, X surely, visit, want.
I have highlighted the words it could possibly mean in the verse.
From Word Web the fifth definition of visit is to impose something unpleasant.
From these definitions, the verse could be saying one of two things. One, it could be saying God will punish the children for the sins of the fathers of them that hate Him or two, it could be saying God will bestow, set over or impose the iniquity of the fathers on the children of them that hate Him i.e. He will let the children be as wicked as their fathers should they choose not to follow Him. In order to settle the argument let us look at Deuteronomy 24 v 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.” And Ezekiel 18 v 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.”
From those two verses, God is clearly stating that a soul will suffer for its own sins and no else’s and neither will any one suffer for someone else’s sins. With that settled Exodus 20 v 5 and 34 v 7 must mean that God will let the iniquity of the fathers, their wickedness that is, be inherited by the children should those children hate God. This means the children will commit the same sins their fathers committed or be as wicked as their fathers in the event they choose not to follow God. In the event the children decide to follow God, God will show them mercy. Exodus 20 v 6, “And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” Let us look at some Biblical examples.
We are going to look at 3 Kings in a lineage and their actions. The 3 Kings are Jotham who beget Ahaz who beget Hezekiah.
2 Kings 15 v 32-34, “In the second year of Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel began Jotham the son of Uzziah king of Judah to reign. Five and twenty years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok. And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD: he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done.”
2 Kings 16 v 1-3, “In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah Ahaz the son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign. Twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign, and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, and did not that which was right in the sight of the LORD his God, like David his father. But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel.”
2 Kings 18 v 1-7, “Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah. And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did. He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. For he clave to the LORD, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses. And the LORD was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not.” (Boldness added).
Clearly Hezekiah did not suffer for his father’s sin. Though his father had turned away from God and even worshipped gods worshipped by surrounding nations, Hezekiah chose to follow God and as a result he prospered and the Lord was with him. God did not set over him his father’s iniquity neither did He punish him for his father’s sin. So now we can see that a man will be punished for his own sin and no one else’s and neither will any one suffer for any one else’s sin.
What about John 9 v 1-2, 1 Kings 21 v 29 and when Noah cursed Canaan after Ham, his father, had sinned against him. What is happening there? John 9 v1-2, “And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” (Boldness added). Jesus explains the man’s blindness in verse 3. Jesus answered, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” Jesus does not confirm popular belief that a child could suffer for his parents’ sin but explains that this man’s blindness was so that the glory of God could be seen. In order to set aside that popular belief this is what God says.
Ezekiel 18 v 1-4, “The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying, “What 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? As I live, saith the Lord GOD, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.”
That proverb meant that if the fathers sinned, the children would also suffer for those sins. The thing about this proverb is that God is questioning it. Therefore that proverb did not originate with God. If you search the entire book of Proverbs, you will not find that proverb so it must have originated with man. In these verses, God is setting aside the word of man to bring to light His word. Basically He is saying, children will not be punished for their fathers’ sins but that each man will be punished for his own sins. If you read Ezekiel 18 v 5-22, God keeps stressing this point using an analogy of 3 generations where a man does not live a life of sin yet his son does and that son’s son does not and God says the sinner will be punished for his own sin but his son would not be punished for his father’s sin.
Ezekiel 18 v 29-32, “Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal? Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.”
Here God is simply stating that once He had set aside that proverb, the people in their misunderstanding considered God’s ways unfair in that He had said a soul would die for its own sin. But God warns telling them that their ways are the ones that are not fair. Let me explain. It may be plausible that in order for one to cover up his own sin he would quote this proverb so that he can lay the blame on his fathers instead. This is clearly unfair in light of God’s word that no one would die for any one else’s sin besides their own. So God brings justice by judging a person on the basis of his own sin while the people bring injustice by blaming someone else for their own sin.
1 Kings 21:29, "Seest how Ahab humbled himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house." We all know the story here. Jezebel had Naboth killed so that Ahab could take over Naboth’s vineyard. When Elijah delivered God’s word to Ahab about his punishment, Ahab repented and God relented but went own to say the words in verse 29. In verse 21 God had said, “Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel.” In short God was going to leave Ahab with no heir to his throne but then relented because of his repentance as we see in 1 Kings 22 v 51, Ahab’s son succeeds him.
Let us look at the story when God’s word in verse 29 comes to pass.
1 Kings 22 v 51-53, “Ahaziah the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned two years over Israel. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin: For he served Baal, and worshipped him, and provoked to anger the LORD God of Israel, according to all that his father had done.”
To set the scene, we can clearly see that Ahaziah chose not to follow God and as a result he was just as wicked as his father therefore he was going to pay for his own sins and not his father’s. So this is what happened next.
2 Kings 1 v 2-4, “And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease. But the angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say unto them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron? Now therefore thus saith the LORD, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. And Elijah departed.”
2 Kings 1 v 16-17, “And he said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Forasmuch as thou hast sent messengers to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron, is it not because there is no God in Israel to enquire of his word? therefore thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. So he died according to the word of the LORD which Elijah had spoken. And Jehoram reigned in his stead in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah; because he had no son.” (Boldness added). Ahaziah died with no posterity in keeping with God’s word in 1 Kings 21 v 29 not because of Ahab’s sin but because of his own sin. Ahab repented of his sin and was not punished for it while Ahaziah did not repent and so was punished for it in keeping with God’s word that the soul would die for its own sin. God knowing the future simply prophesied to Elijah that the next King of Israel would die with no posterity. God did not declare that he would punish Ahaziah for Ahab’s sin but that Ahaziah due to his own sin would die with no heir.
Genesis 9 v 22-25, “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.”
The land of Canaan was not known for obedience to God. There were in fact pagans as we read in Joshua that they worshipped idols. Noah knowing that his son had done him wrong appears to have pronounced a curse on his grandson. Now Canaan could simply have blamed his misfortune on his father’s error. But that would be unjust as we have seen in the preceding teaching. So what is the explanation?
2 Peter 2 v 5, “And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.” (Boldness added). Noah was a preacher of righteousness as the word has declared. Though not explicitly said it is implied that he may have been a prophet as well. So in the case of Ham, Noah prophesied to Ham that his son is cursed. We all know the story of Canaan. It is the land God swore on oath to give Abraham and his seed. However, the people of Canaan were not worshippers of the Lord therefore the curse that befell them was as a result of their own sin and not their progenitor Ham.
Proverbs 26 v 2, “As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.”
This proverb is teaching that a curse cannot fall on someone without reason therefore Canaan could not have been cursed for no reason. It would be unjust for him to be cursed on account if his father’s error, as the word has taught, therefore the curse pronounced on him by Noah was not causeless and was as a result of his own sin as history recorded in the Bible has proven.
What about Nehemiah 1 v 6, “Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee: both I and my father's house have sinned.” (Boldness added).
What was Nehemiah doing? Nehemiah was simply following the instruction in Leviticus 26 v 40-42, “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. 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: 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.” (Boldness added).
One of the curses for disobedience in Leviticus 26 was captivity. In that setting, God says if the people confess their iniquity and that of their fathers, have walked contrary to Him i.e. have worked against Him, humble their hearts and accept the punishment for their iniquity, he will remember them. Note he says “accept the punishment of their iniquity” not accept the punishment of their iniquity as well as that of their fathers. The curses were a punishment for their iniquity and theirs alone and not their fathers as well. Confessing the iniquity of the fathers was just an acknowledgement of sin inherited and not a prerequisite for salvation. Nowhere in the gospel preached by the Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles is there an instruction to confess the sin of our fathers. If we were to specifically confess the sins of our fathers, it would be cumbersome and we would always have guilt before us because we do not know all that our fathers did.
So in a nutshell what am I saying? There is no such thing as a generational curse. Though there may be cases in families were people seem to be falling into the same misfortune generation after generation, it is because those people keep doing exactly what the generation before it did. In other cases, in order to give credit to his own infamous doctrine, the devil could impose these curses upon people using footholds people give him through their own sin. Ephesians 4 v 27, “Neither give place to the devil”. This is a ploy to get you into religious ritual where you sit and confess your ancestors sin though you are already saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. Witches may cast spells on you but those spells only work if give them a cause i.e. your own sin. You inherit your fathers’ wickedness through them influencing you and by making a choice not to follow Jesus Christ but you will in no wise ever suffer for the sins of your fathers. Instead of sitting down and writing lists of what your fathers did in the past rather invest time in building your relationship with God. 2 Timothy 2 v 16, “But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.” Titus 3 v 9, “But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.” (Boldness added).
The Bible is very clear. Each man will be judged according to his own sin. Matthew 16 v 27, “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.” (Boldness added). What may look like a curse in the family is not really a curse that runs in the family but a consequence of each generations own sin. The same misfortune may be falling on each generation but if you look intently into each generation, you will see that the same window of opportunity has been afforded that curse by each generation. After you have repented and turned to the Lord, you need not fret about any curse in that you have been set free. In order to change your habit, you need to have a renewal of your mind through digging deeper into God’s word, practicing it and giving time to building a relationship with God. Do not fall into the yoke of having to remember yours and your father’s sins as well as burdening the Holy Spirit with requests for Him to tell you which of your ancestors sins remain unconfessed. Repentance from your own sin and faith in Christ is sufficient for salvation and breaking the curse of the law which every man is under as long as they reject Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. God bless you.
There is a common belief that the Bible advocates for a certain spiritual principle known as the generational curse. Loosely defined, a generational curse is the punishment and/or continual misfortune, experience of harm or bad luck endured by one generation of people as a result of the sins of generations before them. There are verses in the Bible used to support this idea. However, before we get deeper into whether there is such a thing as a generational curse or not, I would like to define 4 words: sin, iniquity, generational and curse.
Sin – From Strong’s Hebrew dictionary
H2403
חטּאת חטּאה
chaṭṭâ'âh chaṭṭâ'th
khat-taw-aw', khat-tawth'
From H2398; an offence (sometimes habitual sinfulness), and its penalty, occasion, sacrifice, or expiation; also (concretely) an offender: - punishment (of sin), purifying (-fication for sin), sin (-ner, offering).
Sin - From Word Web
1) Estrangement from God
2) An act that is regarded by theologians as a transgression of God's will
Iniquity – From Strong’s Hebrew dictionary
H5771
עוון עון
‛âvôn ‛âvôn
aw-vone', aw-vone'
From H5753; perversity, that is, (moral) evil: - fault, iniquity, mischief, punishment (of iniquity), sin.
Iniquity – From Word Web
1) Absence of moral or spiritual values
2) Morally objectionable behaviour
3) An unjust act
From these definitions we can see that sin is primarily an act while iniquity is primarily a state or condition. What do I mean? Sin is a verb i.e. to sin, which to do something that is against the moral standard of God. Iniquity is a noun which means a condition of bad behaviour or continual commission of sin as a result of lacking proper spiritual guidance. For you to sin you need to have iniquity. Another word for iniquity is wickedness. For you to sin you have to be wicked. Therefore the platform on which sins are committed is iniquity. To be iniquitous is to be characterized by being morally deficient or ungodly therefore as a result you sin.
Generational – from Word Web
1) Of or relating to a generation
Curse – from Word Web
1) Profane or obscene expression usually of surprise or anger
2) An appeal to some supernatural power to inflict evil on someone or some group
3) An evil spell
4) Something causing misery or death
5) A severe affliction
From this it appears that a textbook definition of generational curse should be “a severe affliction, evil spell or the infliction of evil by some supernatural power onto a generation of people as a result of the sins committed by a generation/s of people before them.”
After Adam fell the Bible records in Genesis 5 v 1-3 “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth.” (Boldness added). The children Adam had after he fell where in his image. God created him in His image which was sinless but after he fell he had a sinful image. This is the likeness all his descendants (mankind) have as the Bible put it that “he begat a son in his own likeness.” So all men, being descendants of Adam, have a sinful nature i.e. they will inevitably sin against God. Is this a case of a generational curse? By no means. Should God have created a new people and destroyed Adam and Eve? No way, because that would not show His mercy and loving kindness and out of His nature as a merciful God He sought to restore man into relationship with Him. Therefore all man, descendants of Adam, were to be in the likeness of Adam i.e. have a sinful nature. In that state the glory of God is magnified in that His mercy would be extended to all through His Son Jesus Christ.
So what are the verses people use to support generational curses? Here are some of them:-
Exodus 20 v 5, “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.”
Exodus 34 v 7, “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.” See also Number 14 v 18 and Deuteronomy 5 v 9. In these verses people say God is punishing the children for the sins of their fathers hence there is a generational curse.
John 9 v1-2, “And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” (Boldness added). In this verse, people say it shows the cultural belief amongst the Jewish people in those days that one could suffer for the sins of his fathers and therefore deduct that this is proof for the existence of generational curses.
1 Kings 21:29, "Seest how Ahab humbled himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house." In this verse, people say it shows that God was going to punish Ahab’s son for Ahab’s sin therefore he was under a generational curse.
Genesis 9 v 22-25, “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” In this verse Ham sins against his father yet Noah curses his son Canaan. Why? Could this be an example of a generational curse?
So these are some of the major verses used to prove the theory of generational curses. The general explanation is that due to the sins of the fathers, the children also come under a curse. So in order to break the curse one has to confess the sins of his fathers as well as his own sins so that he is completely free. To support this here are some of the verses they use:-
Nehemiah 1 v 6, “Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee: both I and my father's house have sinned.”
Leviticus 26:40, “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.” (Boldness added).
So here is a simplified look at the principle of the generational curse and the breaking thereof based on the verses above. One generation sins against God and as a result its posterity suffers. This means all descendants of those sinners suffer for the sins of their ancestors. In order to break the cycle of suffering or the “curse”, the descendants have to confess personal and ancestral sin.
Let us look more intently into the verses above and other verses in order to test this theory and come up with a conclusion.
Exodus 20 v 5, “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.”
Exodus 34 v 7, “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.”
These two verses are alike but Exodus 20 v 5 is slightly different in that God finishes of his law by saying “of them that hate me.” What does this mean? God is saying if the descendants hate Him, He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. So what does it mean to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children? Here is the definition of visit:-
H6485
פּקד
pâqad
paw-kad'
A primitive root; to visit (with friendly or hostile intent); by analogy to oversee, muster, charge, care for, miss, deposit, etc.: - appoint, X at all, avenge, bestow, (appoint to have the, give a) charge, commit, count, deliver to keep, be empty, enjoin, go see, hurt, do judgment, lack, lay up look, make X by any means, miss, number, officer, (make) overseer have (the) oversight, punish, reckon, (call to) remember (-brance), set (over), sum, X surely, visit, want.
I have highlighted the words it could possibly mean in the verse.
From Word Web the fifth definition of visit is to impose something unpleasant.
From these definitions, the verse could be saying one of two things. One, it could be saying God will punish the children for the sins of the fathers of them that hate Him or two, it could be saying God will bestow, set over or impose the iniquity of the fathers on the children of them that hate Him i.e. He will let the children be as wicked as their fathers should they choose not to follow Him. In order to settle the argument let us look at Deuteronomy 24 v 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.” And Ezekiel 18 v 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.”
From those two verses, God is clearly stating that a soul will suffer for its own sins and no else’s and neither will any one suffer for someone else’s sins. With that settled Exodus 20 v 5 and 34 v 7 must mean that God will let the iniquity of the fathers, their wickedness that is, be inherited by the children should those children hate God. This means the children will commit the same sins their fathers committed or be as wicked as their fathers in the event they choose not to follow God. In the event the children decide to follow God, God will show them mercy. Exodus 20 v 6, “And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” Let us look at some Biblical examples.
We are going to look at 3 Kings in a lineage and their actions. The 3 Kings are Jotham who beget Ahaz who beget Hezekiah.
2 Kings 15 v 32-34, “In the second year of Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel began Jotham the son of Uzziah king of Judah to reign. Five and twenty years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok. And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD: he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done.”
2 Kings 16 v 1-3, “In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah Ahaz the son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign. Twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign, and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, and did not that which was right in the sight of the LORD his God, like David his father. But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel.”
2 Kings 18 v 1-7, “Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah. And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did. He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. For he clave to the LORD, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses. And the LORD was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not.” (Boldness added).
Clearly Hezekiah did not suffer for his father’s sin. Though his father had turned away from God and even worshipped gods worshipped by surrounding nations, Hezekiah chose to follow God and as a result he prospered and the Lord was with him. God did not set over him his father’s iniquity neither did He punish him for his father’s sin. So now we can see that a man will be punished for his own sin and no one else’s and neither will any one suffer for any one else’s sin.
What about John 9 v 1-2, 1 Kings 21 v 29 and when Noah cursed Canaan after Ham, his father, had sinned against him. What is happening there? John 9 v1-2, “And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” (Boldness added). Jesus explains the man’s blindness in verse 3. Jesus answered, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” Jesus does not confirm popular belief that a child could suffer for his parents’ sin but explains that this man’s blindness was so that the glory of God could be seen. In order to set aside that popular belief this is what God says.
Ezekiel 18 v 1-4, “The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying, “What 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? As I live, saith the Lord GOD, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.”
That proverb meant that if the fathers sinned, the children would also suffer for those sins. The thing about this proverb is that God is questioning it. Therefore that proverb did not originate with God. If you search the entire book of Proverbs, you will not find that proverb so it must have originated with man. In these verses, God is setting aside the word of man to bring to light His word. Basically He is saying, children will not be punished for their fathers’ sins but that each man will be punished for his own sins. If you read Ezekiel 18 v 5-22, God keeps stressing this point using an analogy of 3 generations where a man does not live a life of sin yet his son does and that son’s son does not and God says the sinner will be punished for his own sin but his son would not be punished for his father’s sin.
Ezekiel 18 v 29-32, “Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal? Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.”
Here God is simply stating that once He had set aside that proverb, the people in their misunderstanding considered God’s ways unfair in that He had said a soul would die for its own sin. But God warns telling them that their ways are the ones that are not fair. Let me explain. It may be plausible that in order for one to cover up his own sin he would quote this proverb so that he can lay the blame on his fathers instead. This is clearly unfair in light of God’s word that no one would die for any one else’s sin besides their own. So God brings justice by judging a person on the basis of his own sin while the people bring injustice by blaming someone else for their own sin.
1 Kings 21:29, "Seest how Ahab humbled himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house." We all know the story here. Jezebel had Naboth killed so that Ahab could take over Naboth’s vineyard. When Elijah delivered God’s word to Ahab about his punishment, Ahab repented and God relented but went own to say the words in verse 29. In verse 21 God had said, “Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel.” In short God was going to leave Ahab with no heir to his throne but then relented because of his repentance as we see in 1 Kings 22 v 51, Ahab’s son succeeds him.
Let us look at the story when God’s word in verse 29 comes to pass.
1 Kings 22 v 51-53, “Ahaziah the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned two years over Israel. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin: For he served Baal, and worshipped him, and provoked to anger the LORD God of Israel, according to all that his father had done.”
To set the scene, we can clearly see that Ahaziah chose not to follow God and as a result he was just as wicked as his father therefore he was going to pay for his own sins and not his father’s. So this is what happened next.
2 Kings 1 v 2-4, “And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease. But the angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say unto them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron? Now therefore thus saith the LORD, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. And Elijah departed.”
2 Kings 1 v 16-17, “And he said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Forasmuch as thou hast sent messengers to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron, is it not because there is no God in Israel to enquire of his word? therefore thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. So he died according to the word of the LORD which Elijah had spoken. And Jehoram reigned in his stead in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah; because he had no son.” (Boldness added). Ahaziah died with no posterity in keeping with God’s word in 1 Kings 21 v 29 not because of Ahab’s sin but because of his own sin. Ahab repented of his sin and was not punished for it while Ahaziah did not repent and so was punished for it in keeping with God’s word that the soul would die for its own sin. God knowing the future simply prophesied to Elijah that the next King of Israel would die with no posterity. God did not declare that he would punish Ahaziah for Ahab’s sin but that Ahaziah due to his own sin would die with no heir.
Genesis 9 v 22-25, “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.”
The land of Canaan was not known for obedience to God. There were in fact pagans as we read in Joshua that they worshipped idols. Noah knowing that his son had done him wrong appears to have pronounced a curse on his grandson. Now Canaan could simply have blamed his misfortune on his father’s error. But that would be unjust as we have seen in the preceding teaching. So what is the explanation?
2 Peter 2 v 5, “And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.” (Boldness added). Noah was a preacher of righteousness as the word has declared. Though not explicitly said it is implied that he may have been a prophet as well. So in the case of Ham, Noah prophesied to Ham that his son is cursed. We all know the story of Canaan. It is the land God swore on oath to give Abraham and his seed. However, the people of Canaan were not worshippers of the Lord therefore the curse that befell them was as a result of their own sin and not their progenitor Ham.
Proverbs 26 v 2, “As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.”
This proverb is teaching that a curse cannot fall on someone without reason therefore Canaan could not have been cursed for no reason. It would be unjust for him to be cursed on account if his father’s error, as the word has taught, therefore the curse pronounced on him by Noah was not causeless and was as a result of his own sin as history recorded in the Bible has proven.
What about Nehemiah 1 v 6, “Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee: both I and my father's house have sinned.” (Boldness added).
What was Nehemiah doing? Nehemiah was simply following the instruction in Leviticus 26 v 40-42, “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. 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: 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.” (Boldness added).
One of the curses for disobedience in Leviticus 26 was captivity. In that setting, God says if the people confess their iniquity and that of their fathers, have walked contrary to Him i.e. have worked against Him, humble their hearts and accept the punishment for their iniquity, he will remember them. Note he says “accept the punishment of their iniquity” not accept the punishment of their iniquity as well as that of their fathers. The curses were a punishment for their iniquity and theirs alone and not their fathers as well. Confessing the iniquity of the fathers was just an acknowledgement of sin inherited and not a prerequisite for salvation. Nowhere in the gospel preached by the Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles is there an instruction to confess the sin of our fathers. If we were to specifically confess the sins of our fathers, it would be cumbersome and we would always have guilt before us because we do not know all that our fathers did.
So in a nutshell what am I saying? There is no such thing as a generational curse. Though there may be cases in families were people seem to be falling into the same misfortune generation after generation, it is because those people keep doing exactly what the generation before it did. In other cases, in order to give credit to his own infamous doctrine, the devil could impose these curses upon people using footholds people give him through their own sin. Ephesians 4 v 27, “Neither give place to the devil”. This is a ploy to get you into religious ritual where you sit and confess your ancestors sin though you are already saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. Witches may cast spells on you but those spells only work if give them a cause i.e. your own sin. You inherit your fathers’ wickedness through them influencing you and by making a choice not to follow Jesus Christ but you will in no wise ever suffer for the sins of your fathers. Instead of sitting down and writing lists of what your fathers did in the past rather invest time in building your relationship with God. 2 Timothy 2 v 16, “But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.” Titus 3 v 9, “But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.” (Boldness added).
The Bible is very clear. Each man will be judged according to his own sin. Matthew 16 v 27, “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.” (Boldness added). What may look like a curse in the family is not really a curse that runs in the family but a consequence of each generations own sin. The same misfortune may be falling on each generation but if you look intently into each generation, you will see that the same window of opportunity has been afforded that curse by each generation. After you have repented and turned to the Lord, you need not fret about any curse in that you have been set free. In order to change your habit, you need to have a renewal of your mind through digging deeper into God’s word, practicing it and giving time to building a relationship with God. Do not fall into the yoke of having to remember yours and your father’s sins as well as burdening the Holy Spirit with requests for Him to tell you which of your ancestors sins remain unconfessed. Repentance from your own sin and faith in Christ is sufficient for salvation and breaking the curse of the law which every man is under as long as they reject Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. God bless you.
Monday, October 15, 2007
What is faith?
What is faith? What does it mean to have faith in God? Here is an analogy. You are in desperate need of some money to pay off a debt. If you do not pay back that debt your house will be repossessed and you will have nowhere to live. Would you run into the street and ask any odd stranger for the money or would you approach someone whom you know would help you? Most of us would probably approach someone whom we know would help us. Why we would we do this? First, we know that the person has the ability to help us. Second, we know that person personally. It may be a friend, a brother or someone very close to us. Third, we know the person will certainly help us.
Faith in God is exactly like that. To have faith in God, you need to 1) know that He has the ability to do the things you ask for in prayer i.e. to acknowledge Him as God, 2) know Him personally i.e. His character and His nature and 3) know that He will certainly do the things you ask for in prayer i.e. His will. It goes without saying that when you ask for things in prayer, you are not issuing instructions to God expecting Him to satisfy your demands but rather you are making requests expecting God to graciously grant them. Also, it is common knowledge that God will not do anything He does no want to do. Therefore you may ask for something in prayer and God will not grant it if He does not want to. Why? Simply because it is not His will to do whatsoever you have asked for. In that case, no amount of prayer and fasting and the giving of tithes and offerings will move God’s hand. That truth in itself offers some insight into what faith in God really entails. Here is another analogy.
If you have tickets to go and watch Manchester United play and you have two friends to choose from and you knew that one of them is a Manchester United fan while the other hates Manchester United, which one of them would you invite to watch the football match with you? Chances are you would ask the one who supports Manchester United. Why? Based on your knowledge of your two friends, you know that if you ask the Manchester United fan he will say yes but if you ask the other he will say no. Likewise with God, for we need to know God’s will and have that intimate knowledge of Him so that we know what to ask for in prayer. You would not ask for certain things if you knew they were not part of God’s will and so you would ask for things you knew for a fact that they are a part of God’s will. That is what it means to have faith in God – knowing God intimately. 1 John 5 v 14-15 says, “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” Clearly our confidence in God comes from us knowing that if we ask for anything in accordance with His will He will hear our prayer and if we know that He hears our prayer, we have whatever we have asked of Him. That is faith.
It’s no surprise then that we start in Hebrews 11 v 1, to further explain what faith is, which says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” That is the definition of faith. Substance means the very material of those things you are hoping for. What that means is faith represents the things you hope for. To understand what that means we move on to the word evidence. Evidence is the proof, confirmation or verification of those things you are hoping for. Though you cannot see them, you already have the proof that you have them. What embodies that proof? It is the word of God. Romans 10 v 17 says, “So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” You cannot have the substance of the things you hope for unless the word of God provides evidence for it. That means unless you know the word of God, you cannot have faith. If you tell me you believe that you have been saved by grace through faith and that being the gift of God not based on what you have done, and I ask you to show me the evidence for your confidence, you will turn to the word of God as your evidence for the hope of salvation that you have. Now God has chosen to reveal Himself to us through His word therefore we can only beginning to know who God is by studying the word of God and through our Bible study, we begin to know God, His nature, His character and His will. As our knowledge of God increases, our faith in Him increases.
Obviously what I have written may be a little too abstract for some of you and you may be asking how this can be applied in day to day living. That’s a good question. If I kneel down and ask God to send more evangelists to preach to gospel, what evidence can I show you that God will grant my request? Matthew 9 v 37, “Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly [is] plenteous, but the labourers [are] few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” There is my evidence. I know for a fact, based on this verse, that if I ask God to send more evangelists into the world to preach the gospel, He will do it because His word confirms it to be His will. But that’s all too easy you say. What about when I ask for a car, a job, a house, a wife, a husband, healing or financial assistance, what evidence should I have that God has granted me what I have asked for? The Bible has much to say about that. There is no specific verse in the Bible that says “God shall give you that X” X representing whatever you are asking for. However, the Bible says in Matthew 6 v 8, “Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.” What we need to pick up from this verse is that God knows what we need and therefore we need to ask Him to give us what we need not what we don’t need. There may be things in life that we desire but do not need. God will not grant us those things because we do not need them. So if, according to God, X falls out of the category “need”, it is therefore out of His will. I have learnt from personal experience that God will not grant me that which I desire but do not need. I have looked back and seen that there were many things I asked for that were not granted and after making an assessment, I realized that I did not need them. For example, when I was a child I would ask God to appear to me in a dream so that I could, so I thought, solidify my faith in Him. I thought if I had a vision of God, I would never doubt His existence ever again. Obviously that request was not granted but through His word and other personal experiences, God has more than confirmed to me that He is real so I did not need to see a vision of Him. Therefore in light of material possessions, we should ask God to give us the ones we need and to know which ones to ask for, we should ask God to show us what our need truly is.
After Jesus had said the words in Matthew 6 v 8, from Matthew 6 v 9-13, He recites the Lord’s Prayer as a model for all our prayers. A short study of the prayer shows that God wants us to desire His kingdom to come and His will to be done. He wants us to request Him to give us our daily bread; remember Jesus Christ is the bread of life. He wants us to ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness has to do with seeking His righteousness. When God forgives you, He washes you clean by the blood of the Lamb and counts you as righteous. He wants us to request that He helps us not to fall into temptation and deliver us from evil which has to do with sanctification. Clearly every prayer we pray should be seeking God’s will for our lives not our own will for our lives. When you say a prayer that is in accordance with God’s will, you have all the assurance in the world that God will grant you that request. For the purposes of practical application, faith is knowing the will of God. From day to day, our prayer life should be about seeking God’s will. If I ask God for a house, He may say to me, “Don’t tell me what you think you need but rather seek to know what I know you need”. The lost do not know they need a Saviour until the word is preached to them, likewise you will not know what you need until God shows you. There are many different ways in which God deals with us and He deals with us according to His will. There are many lessons God teaches us but He will not teach them the same way to all of us. Understanding that God will deal with us individually according to His will and intimate knowledge of us, after all “your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him”, we should then understand that He will only grant us what He wants us to have. In light of that truth should we then not unceasingly seek His will? Is it then not obvious that the more you know God’s will, the more you have faith in Him?
But what does Jesus mean when He says in Mark 11 v 22-24, “And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive [them,] and ye shall have [them.]” Not only is faith knowing God’s will, it is also trusting God’s will by acting upon it. What do I mean? To trust God’s will is to believe that whatever He says He will do, He will do it. If God says He is going to heal you, to have faith means you trust that He is actually going to do it. This is what Jesus is dealing with in this verse. You can see from the passage He says, “…shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass…” This portion of the passage is dealing with trust. Many people think you can “blindly” ask for anything and just “believe” and so you will get it. That is mental faith. Faith is not a state of mind. Faith is knowing and trusting God. You trust that if you repent and place you faith in Jesus Christ you will be forgiven. God said so, you believed and when you acted upon it, He granted your request for salvation. Jesus is showing us that God will only grant us our requests in accordance with His will if we trust that what He says His will is, is true. When God made His promise to Abraham, Genesis 15 v 6, says “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.” Only when Abraham believed God’s will to be true, did God make His promise stand. When the gospel is preached, some people believe it to be true and act upon it trusting that what God has said is true. Because they trust that what God has said is true and act upon that trust, they have their petitions granted. What about when He says, “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive [them,] and ye shall have [them.]”, doesn’t that mean that as long as I desire it and believe that it will come to pass, then I will have it. Not exactly so, for if I believe that God wants something for me when it’s not part of His will, He will not grant it. So how do we marry God’s will and our desires so that we can believe that whatsoever we desire if we believe God will grant them? Philippians 2 v 13 says, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure.” From this verse we learn that it is God Himself who gives us these Godly desires. God works in us to desire His will and by His Spirit we pray in accordance to it and He grants it to us. Sometimes we do not know what to pray for and God helps us as confirmed by Romans 8 v 26-27, “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what [is] the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to [the will of] God.”
Conclusion
For you to have faith in God you need to believe that He exists. Hebrews 11 v 6 says, “…for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” How do we know that He exists? Genesis 1 v 1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” This verse already tells us that God exists. If you believe that God exists, that is the first step to having faith in God. Believing that God exists, is not enough because James 2 v 11 says, “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.” After believing that God exists, you need to believe what the Bible says about God is true and follow through with action. James 2 v 26 says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” This means you need to know who God is, believe it to be true and obey. The Bible says God is the creator of the heavens and the earth, has no beginning and no end, is accountable to no one but all are accountable to Him, will punish all sinners but forgive those that repent and if you believe it to be true and act upon it in accordance with His will, that my dear brothers and sisters is faith. In essence faith is threefold; to know God, to believe God and to obey God. You have to know God (know He exists, His nature and His character), believe God (accept His word as true and hold as truth every word that He speaks) and obey God (act upon what His word tells you to do) for you to have faith in God. This is a call to a relationship with God. You can only trust God if you believe what He says is true. You can only know His will if you invest a lot of time into building a relationship with Him and that is through prayer and studying His word. Psalm 25 v 14 says, “The secret of the LORD [is] with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.” You can only begin to know the secret of the Lord, which is very intimate knowledge of Him, when you have the fear of the Lord i.e. a pure and holy reverence of God in the highest form. This includes holding His word to be true without question, submitting to His Lordship, trembling at His word and avoiding sinning against Him because you know of His justice and judgment. Proverbs 1 v 7 says, “The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge.” Your knowledge of whom God is, your submission to His Lordship, and your obedience to His word is faith and because God guarantees our faith, in a way you could say to know God is the substance of things hoped for and His Word is the evidence of things unseen. God bless you.
Faith in God is exactly like that. To have faith in God, you need to 1) know that He has the ability to do the things you ask for in prayer i.e. to acknowledge Him as God, 2) know Him personally i.e. His character and His nature and 3) know that He will certainly do the things you ask for in prayer i.e. His will. It goes without saying that when you ask for things in prayer, you are not issuing instructions to God expecting Him to satisfy your demands but rather you are making requests expecting God to graciously grant them. Also, it is common knowledge that God will not do anything He does no want to do. Therefore you may ask for something in prayer and God will not grant it if He does not want to. Why? Simply because it is not His will to do whatsoever you have asked for. In that case, no amount of prayer and fasting and the giving of tithes and offerings will move God’s hand. That truth in itself offers some insight into what faith in God really entails. Here is another analogy.
If you have tickets to go and watch Manchester United play and you have two friends to choose from and you knew that one of them is a Manchester United fan while the other hates Manchester United, which one of them would you invite to watch the football match with you? Chances are you would ask the one who supports Manchester United. Why? Based on your knowledge of your two friends, you know that if you ask the Manchester United fan he will say yes but if you ask the other he will say no. Likewise with God, for we need to know God’s will and have that intimate knowledge of Him so that we know what to ask for in prayer. You would not ask for certain things if you knew they were not part of God’s will and so you would ask for things you knew for a fact that they are a part of God’s will. That is what it means to have faith in God – knowing God intimately. 1 John 5 v 14-15 says, “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” Clearly our confidence in God comes from us knowing that if we ask for anything in accordance with His will He will hear our prayer and if we know that He hears our prayer, we have whatever we have asked of Him. That is faith.
It’s no surprise then that we start in Hebrews 11 v 1, to further explain what faith is, which says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” That is the definition of faith. Substance means the very material of those things you are hoping for. What that means is faith represents the things you hope for. To understand what that means we move on to the word evidence. Evidence is the proof, confirmation or verification of those things you are hoping for. Though you cannot see them, you already have the proof that you have them. What embodies that proof? It is the word of God. Romans 10 v 17 says, “So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” You cannot have the substance of the things you hope for unless the word of God provides evidence for it. That means unless you know the word of God, you cannot have faith. If you tell me you believe that you have been saved by grace through faith and that being the gift of God not based on what you have done, and I ask you to show me the evidence for your confidence, you will turn to the word of God as your evidence for the hope of salvation that you have. Now God has chosen to reveal Himself to us through His word therefore we can only beginning to know who God is by studying the word of God and through our Bible study, we begin to know God, His nature, His character and His will. As our knowledge of God increases, our faith in Him increases.
Obviously what I have written may be a little too abstract for some of you and you may be asking how this can be applied in day to day living. That’s a good question. If I kneel down and ask God to send more evangelists to preach to gospel, what evidence can I show you that God will grant my request? Matthew 9 v 37, “Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly [is] plenteous, but the labourers [are] few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” There is my evidence. I know for a fact, based on this verse, that if I ask God to send more evangelists into the world to preach the gospel, He will do it because His word confirms it to be His will. But that’s all too easy you say. What about when I ask for a car, a job, a house, a wife, a husband, healing or financial assistance, what evidence should I have that God has granted me what I have asked for? The Bible has much to say about that. There is no specific verse in the Bible that says “God shall give you that X” X representing whatever you are asking for. However, the Bible says in Matthew 6 v 8, “Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.” What we need to pick up from this verse is that God knows what we need and therefore we need to ask Him to give us what we need not what we don’t need. There may be things in life that we desire but do not need. God will not grant us those things because we do not need them. So if, according to God, X falls out of the category “need”, it is therefore out of His will. I have learnt from personal experience that God will not grant me that which I desire but do not need. I have looked back and seen that there were many things I asked for that were not granted and after making an assessment, I realized that I did not need them. For example, when I was a child I would ask God to appear to me in a dream so that I could, so I thought, solidify my faith in Him. I thought if I had a vision of God, I would never doubt His existence ever again. Obviously that request was not granted but through His word and other personal experiences, God has more than confirmed to me that He is real so I did not need to see a vision of Him. Therefore in light of material possessions, we should ask God to give us the ones we need and to know which ones to ask for, we should ask God to show us what our need truly is.
After Jesus had said the words in Matthew 6 v 8, from Matthew 6 v 9-13, He recites the Lord’s Prayer as a model for all our prayers. A short study of the prayer shows that God wants us to desire His kingdom to come and His will to be done. He wants us to request Him to give us our daily bread; remember Jesus Christ is the bread of life. He wants us to ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness has to do with seeking His righteousness. When God forgives you, He washes you clean by the blood of the Lamb and counts you as righteous. He wants us to request that He helps us not to fall into temptation and deliver us from evil which has to do with sanctification. Clearly every prayer we pray should be seeking God’s will for our lives not our own will for our lives. When you say a prayer that is in accordance with God’s will, you have all the assurance in the world that God will grant you that request. For the purposes of practical application, faith is knowing the will of God. From day to day, our prayer life should be about seeking God’s will. If I ask God for a house, He may say to me, “Don’t tell me what you think you need but rather seek to know what I know you need”. The lost do not know they need a Saviour until the word is preached to them, likewise you will not know what you need until God shows you. There are many different ways in which God deals with us and He deals with us according to His will. There are many lessons God teaches us but He will not teach them the same way to all of us. Understanding that God will deal with us individually according to His will and intimate knowledge of us, after all “your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him”, we should then understand that He will only grant us what He wants us to have. In light of that truth should we then not unceasingly seek His will? Is it then not obvious that the more you know God’s will, the more you have faith in Him?
But what does Jesus mean when He says in Mark 11 v 22-24, “And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive [them,] and ye shall have [them.]” Not only is faith knowing God’s will, it is also trusting God’s will by acting upon it. What do I mean? To trust God’s will is to believe that whatever He says He will do, He will do it. If God says He is going to heal you, to have faith means you trust that He is actually going to do it. This is what Jesus is dealing with in this verse. You can see from the passage He says, “…shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass…” This portion of the passage is dealing with trust. Many people think you can “blindly” ask for anything and just “believe” and so you will get it. That is mental faith. Faith is not a state of mind. Faith is knowing and trusting God. You trust that if you repent and place you faith in Jesus Christ you will be forgiven. God said so, you believed and when you acted upon it, He granted your request for salvation. Jesus is showing us that God will only grant us our requests in accordance with His will if we trust that what He says His will is, is true. When God made His promise to Abraham, Genesis 15 v 6, says “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.” Only when Abraham believed God’s will to be true, did God make His promise stand. When the gospel is preached, some people believe it to be true and act upon it trusting that what God has said is true. Because they trust that what God has said is true and act upon that trust, they have their petitions granted. What about when He says, “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive [them,] and ye shall have [them.]”, doesn’t that mean that as long as I desire it and believe that it will come to pass, then I will have it. Not exactly so, for if I believe that God wants something for me when it’s not part of His will, He will not grant it. So how do we marry God’s will and our desires so that we can believe that whatsoever we desire if we believe God will grant them? Philippians 2 v 13 says, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure.” From this verse we learn that it is God Himself who gives us these Godly desires. God works in us to desire His will and by His Spirit we pray in accordance to it and He grants it to us. Sometimes we do not know what to pray for and God helps us as confirmed by Romans 8 v 26-27, “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what [is] the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to [the will of] God.”
Conclusion
For you to have faith in God you need to believe that He exists. Hebrews 11 v 6 says, “…for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” How do we know that He exists? Genesis 1 v 1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” This verse already tells us that God exists. If you believe that God exists, that is the first step to having faith in God. Believing that God exists, is not enough because James 2 v 11 says, “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.” After believing that God exists, you need to believe what the Bible says about God is true and follow through with action. James 2 v 26 says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” This means you need to know who God is, believe it to be true and obey. The Bible says God is the creator of the heavens and the earth, has no beginning and no end, is accountable to no one but all are accountable to Him, will punish all sinners but forgive those that repent and if you believe it to be true and act upon it in accordance with His will, that my dear brothers and sisters is faith. In essence faith is threefold; to know God, to believe God and to obey God. You have to know God (know He exists, His nature and His character), believe God (accept His word as true and hold as truth every word that He speaks) and obey God (act upon what His word tells you to do) for you to have faith in God. This is a call to a relationship with God. You can only trust God if you believe what He says is true. You can only know His will if you invest a lot of time into building a relationship with Him and that is through prayer and studying His word. Psalm 25 v 14 says, “The secret of the LORD [is] with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.” You can only begin to know the secret of the Lord, which is very intimate knowledge of Him, when you have the fear of the Lord i.e. a pure and holy reverence of God in the highest form. This includes holding His word to be true without question, submitting to His Lordship, trembling at His word and avoiding sinning against Him because you know of His justice and judgment. Proverbs 1 v 7 says, “The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge.” Your knowledge of whom God is, your submission to His Lordship, and your obedience to His word is faith and because God guarantees our faith, in a way you could say to know God is the substance of things hoped for and His Word is the evidence of things unseen. God bless you.
Monday, October 8, 2007
To forgive or not to forgive
Mark 11 v 25-26, “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
Contained in these verses is a very important spiritual principle. The Lord warns us that if we do not forgive people when they sin against us, our Father in heaven will not forgive us when we sin against Him. The implications of unforgiveness are severe. These verses show us that God:-
· Does not tolerate unforgiveness
· Will not sympathize with an unforgiving heart
· Will not give grace to us when we are unforgiving
· Will leave the stain of sin on us when we do not forgive
· Expects us to forgive because He has given us the ability
· Will only forgive us when we forgive
· Will not forgive us when we do not forgive
This list is not exhaustive but the end result thereof is that condemnation is constantly hanging over our heads if we do not forgive and thus God will judge us accordingly and give us our deserved punishment because if we do not forgive, God does not forgive us and if He does not forgive us, we remain unrighteous and if we remain unrighteous before God, we cannot inherit the Kingdom of God because the 1 Corinthians 6 v 9 says, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?”
Now fully knowing that if we do not forgive people when they sin against us God will not forgive us, why do we struggle to forgive? Why do we find it hard to say to the wrongdoer, “I forgive you.”? There are many reasons we give to “justify” our reluctance to forgive. We sometimes fuel our unforgiveness by the gravity of the wrong that has been done against us. For example, if someone steals from us, because we consider theft to be a very serious offence, the seriousness we attach to theft, we then use to justify why we should not forgive the thief. We do likewise to many other offences that people commit against us. Sometimes we are only prepared to forgive if the offender repents but God commands us to forgive regardless of the offence and the attitude of the offender. Romans 5 v 8 says, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” From this verse, we see that God did not wait for us to repent before He provided forgiveness for sins. He made the first move in order to make way for reconciliation by sending His only begotten Son to die on the cross. This is a pattern we need to follow. The offended should always seek to make way for reconciliation no matter what the offender’s attitude is. Whether the offender’s attitude is for or against repentance and reconciliation, the offended should always seek to forgive and reconcile. For example, if someone hurts you, don’t wait for them to come and apologise but at the first opportunity, you should seek the offender and forgive them and seek to reconcile with them whether the offender wants to or not. This is the attitude the Lord had when He died on the cross. Because of His love for us and seeing our precarious condition in that we were sinners in the eyes of God and worthy of condemnation, the Lord’s decision to obediently die on the cross in order to provide forgiveness for sins was independent of our decision to repent or not to repent and that decision also did not discriminate against the type of sins committed. So coming back to our question of why we find it hard to forgive, the answer is simple; pride. When someone sins against us, we feel like we have been “disrespected”. Many people take offences as attacks against their person and may have decreed that whatever offence that had been committed against them is trespass against them. You have heard people say or you may have said it yourself, comments like, “Such and such a thing should not be done against me” or “You don’t do such and such a thing to me”. We have turned ourselves into little gods with our own little commandments that we expect other people to obey and when they break them, we seek to judge and condemn them.
Now offences cannot be justified and while it is wrong for anyone to do anything wrong against you in God’s eyes, it is also wrong for you not to extend mercy. You will note I said “wrong in God’s eyes” because any offence only qualifies as one if it is wrong in God’s eyes. God is the ultimate authority and the knowledge of right and wrong comes only from Him. Sometimes we take offence to certain things done to us when they are not offences at all and harbour grudges against the “offender” in futility. If God expects us to forgive people when they have offended us according to His judgment, what more when He doesn’t consider them wrong these other “offences” they may have committed against us? As I have noted before, it is a sin to harbour unforgiveness and as long as you harbour unforgiveness, it means you are unrepentant of your wrong doing and hence God will not forgive you if you do not repent. Let me say it another way. God commands us to forgive and when we do not forgive, we are directly disobeying God’s command. If we continue to disobey His command, it shows that we have not repented and if we have not repented, God does not forgive us. So God does not forgive those who remain unmerciful to others is because unforgiveness is a sign of being unrepentant and an unrepentant hearts cannot receive mercy from God.
Now some of you may be reading this in dismay saying to me, “You have no idea what I have been through. How can I forgive someone who has done such and such to me?” First, who are you to try and justify your unforgiveness? Are you going to stand before the judgement seat of Christ and attempt to justify your unforgiveness? I tell you, Jesus Christ will judge you accordingly and cast you into the Lake for Fire for directly disobeying His command. His word expressly states that the unforgiving will not receive mercy and you happily decide not forgive!!! Your judgment is deserved. Second, who cares what wrong has been done to you? Any offence done against you is nothing compared to your offence against God. God required you to be cast away from His presence forever into the lake of fire for directly disobeying Him but because of His love for you, He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins. When you understand this, which is the gospel, you will not harbour any unforgiveness because to be unforgiving, is to deny the power of the cross. You know fully well that you do not deserve to be forgiven, and your offender also does not deserve to be forgiven but how can you expect to receive mercy from God when you do not believe in extending mercy to others? You cannot expect God to operate double standards in that situation. Imagine you are in a room with Jesus Christ along with someone who has wronged you. You labour to explain to God why you are justified in not forgiving the offender by explaining to God how serious the offence is and how often it was committed against you, and God turns to you and says, “Seeing that you do not believe in forgiving the offender, should I forgive you for the grievous sins that you have committed against Me?” What will be your answer? Some of us think we deserve mercy more than others. We think because we have done certain things then God should forgive us. This is a subtle belief in works-based salvation. We think by virtue of some good in us, which may not be found in others so we think, God should forgive us. This is an insult to the cross. God forgives us on the basis of what Jesus Christ did on the cross. Only when we place our trust in His substitutionary death on the cross are we then counted as righteous and therefore there is nothing you and I can do to deserve mercy. Matthew 18 v 23-35 recounts this parable. “Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took [him] by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.” Let’s anaylse this parable. Servant #1 owed his master ten thousand talents, which was a lot of money. He was unable to pay his master. In order to recoup the debt, his master wanted to sell him and his family into slavery. Slavery being a very harsh prospect for this servant and his family, he begs for mercy which his master extends to him with compassion. After being forgiven, he sees a fellow servant who owes a hundred pence, which was nothing really. He demands repayment but servant #2 is unable to pay him back. Full of anger, he shows no mercy and has his fellow servant cast into prison. Other servants seeing this, report him to his master who is enraged and asks a very important question, “Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?” The clear message here is simple; a soul that receives mercy is motivated to show mercy. An unforgiving heart is a heart that has not received mercy itself because if you understand the eternal work that Jesus Christ did on the cross, you would not hesitate to forgive others. Forgiveness is a sign that you understand the infinite value of what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross and therefore you are more than compelled to forgive others. You understand that offences against you are nothing compared to offences against God and realizing that when God forgives you, He has saved you from untold pain and suffering in hell, you readily extend mercy to others. Unforgiveness is a sign that you are not bearing good fruit in keeping with repentance and John the Baptist said that a person who does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire as it is written in Luke 3 v 8-9, “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to [our] father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”
Some of you may say it is hard to forgive. The only reason it is hard to forgive is because we feel justice is only served if the person who has wronged us suffers for what they did to us. Only until the offender has been punished, do we feel that justice has been served. With that kind of attitude, we make ourselves into God because we now require that those who wrong us should be punished but God says in Romans 12 v 19, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but [rather] give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” Think of it this way, if the offender does not repent, God will deal with him accordingly because He is just. This means that God will punish the offender for his sins should he remain unrepentant. We need to trust that God will bring justice. Should the offender repent, and seek forgiveness from God, God forgives him and his sin is atoned for in Christ and therefore in Christ Jesus in the offenders offence dealt with and justice is served. In both cases, it is futile to harbour unforgiveness because whichever way the offender is dealt with, justice is served and therefore when we refuse to forgive, we undermine God’s justice and seek to replace it with our own which is a direct challenge of God’s authority and when we directly challenge His authority, we can only expect Him to condemn us. After all God is willing to forgive you without you having to suffer the consequences of your sin. With that in mind let us follow the example set by Christ as explained in 1 Peter 2 v 23, “Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed [himself] to him that judgeth righteously” Jesus Christ committed Himself to the Father because He knew that He was a righteous judge. Likewise we should commit ourselves to God whom we know is a righteous judge and seek not our own end. That will enable us to forgive. This is a call to faith. When we understand that we deserve to be cast into the lake of fire because of our own sinfulness, we will not hesitate to forgive our offenders because we fully appreciate what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. This is not to belittle things that have been done against you, but this is to protect you against you against an unforgiving and bitter heart which will make you a sure candidate for hell. Sometimes the devil uses offences to hold us captive in unforgiveness because he knows that as long as we remain unforgiving, we are on our way to hell. I therefore exhort you to forgive because there is no sympathy, whatsoever, from God for an unforgiving heart only judgment and wrath. Please take this issue seriously for God cannot lie. If someone has wronged you, forgive them regardless of the offence so as to not let a bitter root grow in your heart that will make you captive to your unforgiveness. Romans 12 v 14 says, “Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not,” and v17, “Recompense to no man evil for evil…” This is what it means to live a life of love when we forgive those that offend us because Jesus Christ did the same when we sinned against Him. God bless you.
Contained in these verses is a very important spiritual principle. The Lord warns us that if we do not forgive people when they sin against us, our Father in heaven will not forgive us when we sin against Him. The implications of unforgiveness are severe. These verses show us that God:-
· Does not tolerate unforgiveness
· Will not sympathize with an unforgiving heart
· Will not give grace to us when we are unforgiving
· Will leave the stain of sin on us when we do not forgive
· Expects us to forgive because He has given us the ability
· Will only forgive us when we forgive
· Will not forgive us when we do not forgive
This list is not exhaustive but the end result thereof is that condemnation is constantly hanging over our heads if we do not forgive and thus God will judge us accordingly and give us our deserved punishment because if we do not forgive, God does not forgive us and if He does not forgive us, we remain unrighteous and if we remain unrighteous before God, we cannot inherit the Kingdom of God because the 1 Corinthians 6 v 9 says, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?”
Now fully knowing that if we do not forgive people when they sin against us God will not forgive us, why do we struggle to forgive? Why do we find it hard to say to the wrongdoer, “I forgive you.”? There are many reasons we give to “justify” our reluctance to forgive. We sometimes fuel our unforgiveness by the gravity of the wrong that has been done against us. For example, if someone steals from us, because we consider theft to be a very serious offence, the seriousness we attach to theft, we then use to justify why we should not forgive the thief. We do likewise to many other offences that people commit against us. Sometimes we are only prepared to forgive if the offender repents but God commands us to forgive regardless of the offence and the attitude of the offender. Romans 5 v 8 says, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” From this verse, we see that God did not wait for us to repent before He provided forgiveness for sins. He made the first move in order to make way for reconciliation by sending His only begotten Son to die on the cross. This is a pattern we need to follow. The offended should always seek to make way for reconciliation no matter what the offender’s attitude is. Whether the offender’s attitude is for or against repentance and reconciliation, the offended should always seek to forgive and reconcile. For example, if someone hurts you, don’t wait for them to come and apologise but at the first opportunity, you should seek the offender and forgive them and seek to reconcile with them whether the offender wants to or not. This is the attitude the Lord had when He died on the cross. Because of His love for us and seeing our precarious condition in that we were sinners in the eyes of God and worthy of condemnation, the Lord’s decision to obediently die on the cross in order to provide forgiveness for sins was independent of our decision to repent or not to repent and that decision also did not discriminate against the type of sins committed. So coming back to our question of why we find it hard to forgive, the answer is simple; pride. When someone sins against us, we feel like we have been “disrespected”. Many people take offences as attacks against their person and may have decreed that whatever offence that had been committed against them is trespass against them. You have heard people say or you may have said it yourself, comments like, “Such and such a thing should not be done against me” or “You don’t do such and such a thing to me”. We have turned ourselves into little gods with our own little commandments that we expect other people to obey and when they break them, we seek to judge and condemn them.
Now offences cannot be justified and while it is wrong for anyone to do anything wrong against you in God’s eyes, it is also wrong for you not to extend mercy. You will note I said “wrong in God’s eyes” because any offence only qualifies as one if it is wrong in God’s eyes. God is the ultimate authority and the knowledge of right and wrong comes only from Him. Sometimes we take offence to certain things done to us when they are not offences at all and harbour grudges against the “offender” in futility. If God expects us to forgive people when they have offended us according to His judgment, what more when He doesn’t consider them wrong these other “offences” they may have committed against us? As I have noted before, it is a sin to harbour unforgiveness and as long as you harbour unforgiveness, it means you are unrepentant of your wrong doing and hence God will not forgive you if you do not repent. Let me say it another way. God commands us to forgive and when we do not forgive, we are directly disobeying God’s command. If we continue to disobey His command, it shows that we have not repented and if we have not repented, God does not forgive us. So God does not forgive those who remain unmerciful to others is because unforgiveness is a sign of being unrepentant and an unrepentant hearts cannot receive mercy from God.
Now some of you may be reading this in dismay saying to me, “You have no idea what I have been through. How can I forgive someone who has done such and such to me?” First, who are you to try and justify your unforgiveness? Are you going to stand before the judgement seat of Christ and attempt to justify your unforgiveness? I tell you, Jesus Christ will judge you accordingly and cast you into the Lake for Fire for directly disobeying His command. His word expressly states that the unforgiving will not receive mercy and you happily decide not forgive!!! Your judgment is deserved. Second, who cares what wrong has been done to you? Any offence done against you is nothing compared to your offence against God. God required you to be cast away from His presence forever into the lake of fire for directly disobeying Him but because of His love for you, He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins. When you understand this, which is the gospel, you will not harbour any unforgiveness because to be unforgiving, is to deny the power of the cross. You know fully well that you do not deserve to be forgiven, and your offender also does not deserve to be forgiven but how can you expect to receive mercy from God when you do not believe in extending mercy to others? You cannot expect God to operate double standards in that situation. Imagine you are in a room with Jesus Christ along with someone who has wronged you. You labour to explain to God why you are justified in not forgiving the offender by explaining to God how serious the offence is and how often it was committed against you, and God turns to you and says, “Seeing that you do not believe in forgiving the offender, should I forgive you for the grievous sins that you have committed against Me?” What will be your answer? Some of us think we deserve mercy more than others. We think because we have done certain things then God should forgive us. This is a subtle belief in works-based salvation. We think by virtue of some good in us, which may not be found in others so we think, God should forgive us. This is an insult to the cross. God forgives us on the basis of what Jesus Christ did on the cross. Only when we place our trust in His substitutionary death on the cross are we then counted as righteous and therefore there is nothing you and I can do to deserve mercy. Matthew 18 v 23-35 recounts this parable. “Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took [him] by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.” Let’s anaylse this parable. Servant #1 owed his master ten thousand talents, which was a lot of money. He was unable to pay his master. In order to recoup the debt, his master wanted to sell him and his family into slavery. Slavery being a very harsh prospect for this servant and his family, he begs for mercy which his master extends to him with compassion. After being forgiven, he sees a fellow servant who owes a hundred pence, which was nothing really. He demands repayment but servant #2 is unable to pay him back. Full of anger, he shows no mercy and has his fellow servant cast into prison. Other servants seeing this, report him to his master who is enraged and asks a very important question, “Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?” The clear message here is simple; a soul that receives mercy is motivated to show mercy. An unforgiving heart is a heart that has not received mercy itself because if you understand the eternal work that Jesus Christ did on the cross, you would not hesitate to forgive others. Forgiveness is a sign that you understand the infinite value of what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross and therefore you are more than compelled to forgive others. You understand that offences against you are nothing compared to offences against God and realizing that when God forgives you, He has saved you from untold pain and suffering in hell, you readily extend mercy to others. Unforgiveness is a sign that you are not bearing good fruit in keeping with repentance and John the Baptist said that a person who does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire as it is written in Luke 3 v 8-9, “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to [our] father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”
Some of you may say it is hard to forgive. The only reason it is hard to forgive is because we feel justice is only served if the person who has wronged us suffers for what they did to us. Only until the offender has been punished, do we feel that justice has been served. With that kind of attitude, we make ourselves into God because we now require that those who wrong us should be punished but God says in Romans 12 v 19, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but [rather] give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” Think of it this way, if the offender does not repent, God will deal with him accordingly because He is just. This means that God will punish the offender for his sins should he remain unrepentant. We need to trust that God will bring justice. Should the offender repent, and seek forgiveness from God, God forgives him and his sin is atoned for in Christ and therefore in Christ Jesus in the offenders offence dealt with and justice is served. In both cases, it is futile to harbour unforgiveness because whichever way the offender is dealt with, justice is served and therefore when we refuse to forgive, we undermine God’s justice and seek to replace it with our own which is a direct challenge of God’s authority and when we directly challenge His authority, we can only expect Him to condemn us. After all God is willing to forgive you without you having to suffer the consequences of your sin. With that in mind let us follow the example set by Christ as explained in 1 Peter 2 v 23, “Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed [himself] to him that judgeth righteously” Jesus Christ committed Himself to the Father because He knew that He was a righteous judge. Likewise we should commit ourselves to God whom we know is a righteous judge and seek not our own end. That will enable us to forgive. This is a call to faith. When we understand that we deserve to be cast into the lake of fire because of our own sinfulness, we will not hesitate to forgive our offenders because we fully appreciate what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. This is not to belittle things that have been done against you, but this is to protect you against you against an unforgiving and bitter heart which will make you a sure candidate for hell. Sometimes the devil uses offences to hold us captive in unforgiveness because he knows that as long as we remain unforgiving, we are on our way to hell. I therefore exhort you to forgive because there is no sympathy, whatsoever, from God for an unforgiving heart only judgment and wrath. Please take this issue seriously for God cannot lie. If someone has wronged you, forgive them regardless of the offence so as to not let a bitter root grow in your heart that will make you captive to your unforgiveness. Romans 12 v 14 says, “Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not,” and v17, “Recompense to no man evil for evil…” This is what it means to live a life of love when we forgive those that offend us because Jesus Christ did the same when we sinned against Him. God bless you.
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