The Amish Voice 8
Does the thought ever occur to you that, as a
parent, you are doing more than just raising
ONE generation of children and then you’re
done? The point I’m making is: what you
do
or
don't do
with your children will have a
direct impact on the outcome of your grand-
children, great grandchildren and great-great
grandchildren.
So the questions is: how do you want your
great-great grandchildren (people you will
never meet on earth) to live and believe?
Do you want them to live for
and serve God with a passion?
Then teach your own children to
live for and serve God with a
passion.
Do you want them to focus on
money, work and material
things? Then teach your own
children to focus on money,
work and material things.
The point is that you and I are not
only teaching and training our own
children, we are teaching and
training future generations, even though we
will never meet them face to face on this
earth. This truth should cause us to be even
more concerned how we teach and train our
children today.
With that said, let’s do a Bible study on how
God says our lives will affect our children up
to a
third and fourth generation. Let’s start
with three questions.
What would you feel like if you knew
that God was going to make your children
pay for a sin that you committed?
What if the punishment for your sin car-
ried through to four generations?
How would you feel if you learned that
you were being punished by God for a sin
that your great-great grandfather commit-
ted?
My guess is you would answer those three
questions the same way I would by saying,
“
That does not seem fair at all!”
In Exodus 20:5, the Bible says
…
I the
LORD thy God am a jealous God, visit-
ing (punishing) the iniquity (sins) of the
fathers upon the children unto the third
and fourth generation
Since the context of this Old Testament
Scripture is specifically talking about the sin
of bowing to graven images and following
other gods, let’s discuss it. Some would say,
“
I have never bowed to a graven image, nor
have I followed anyone other than the one
true God.”
Before you become too comfortable with
that thought, let me ask you to consider some
other facts. People very seldom think of
money and possessions as a god; however,
Jesus was very quick to point out that our
material things can replace God and become
our master.
Matthew 6:24:
No man can serve two
masters: for either he will
hate the one
,
and
love the other
;
or else he will
hold
to the one
,
and
despise the other
.
Ye
cannot serve God and mammon
[
material things].
Friend, Jesus speaks about two masters, God
and materialism. And as the Scripture points
out, when it comes to serving one or the oth-
er, there is no middle ground. It is either one
or it’s the other. You cannot serve both at the
same time.
When both masters call upon the man at the
same time, he has to make a choice. He fa-
vors, serves, helps, and loves one; and while
he is doing so, he is disfavoring, rejecting,
and showing disrespect and hate for the oth-
er. A man cannot serve two masters.
You see, there are only two treasures for us
to latch onto in this world: the earth and its
treasures or God and His treasurers. Which
one are you latched onto? You can tell by
becoming totally honest and asking yourself:
which one do I get the most excited about?
Which one do I know best?
People who follow and serve the material
god more than the Lord God make God so
jealous and angry that He promised Moses
He would punish the sin all the way through
to a fourth generation.
I would like to go a step further and say that
there are many other types of sins (or some-
times known as curses) that can be
passed on to our children and be-
yond.
Have you ever seen a family
where the father has a prob-
lem with uncontrollable an-
ger, his son seems to have
“
inherited it,” and the grand-
pa had the same problem?
Have you noticed that not
only do some suffer from
fears and/or depression, but
so did the mother and/or fa-
ther.
Do you know someone who struggles
with sexual lust, abuse and addiction?
Chances are, if you know the previous
generation well enough, you will find that
this curse was a hand-me-down.
Lamentations 5:7 says
Our fathers
have sinned, and are not; and we have
borne [been punished for] their iniqui-
ties [sins].
Exodus 34:7 says
The Lord… visiting
(
punishing) the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children, and upon the chil-
dren's children, unto the third and to
the fourth generation.
The previously mentioned patterns are not a
learned behavior but rather hand-me-downs
from generations as far back as our great
grandparents. Consider for instance: often
people who were adopted end up with the
same negative patterns as their birth parents,
not because they were around their birth par-
ents to learn how they behaved, but because
they inherited their spiritual bondage.
Some other types of symptoms that are
passed on from previous generations are:
Generational Patterns and Punishment
—
Joe Keim
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