The Door Grandpa Opened Exodus 34:6 6 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 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. Proverbs 26:2 As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come. This morning I want to give my message the title, The Door Grandpa opened. o I will explain our scripture texts in a moment, but I want to tell you in the beginning this message is going to end up in a good place. So hang in there with me. I want to begin by noting that a door is something that takes us from one atmosphere to another. o For example a hallway to a bedroom. o Very different atmospheres. o A garage into a house, a living room into a bathroom. o Doors change the circumstances of our lives. We close doors because we need to keep the children out. We close doors because we don t want the guests to see certain rooms. Here is a very important point that I want to make early and often in this message: o What you open the door to affects everyone in the house. When we open the door to someone or something, it is not always readily apparent the full extent of what we have allowed into our homes/lives o And when someone opens the door it will not only affect the door opener, but also everyone connected with them. o A quick and easy example to illustrate this is if we open the door on a cold winter day, it will usher in cold air that everyone inside might feel. If a dad looks at pornography Don t open the door to fighting Don t open the door to dishonesty Open the door to prayer Open the door to relationships Put down the remote and have family time Play games together Discuss the Word of God together Our first text in Exodus Moses wanted to see God.
o He wanted a deeper relationship with God. o The Scripture is what God said to Moses when he hid him in the cleft of the rock and allowed him to see His hinder parts. o Exodus 34:6 6 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 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. Often times we get wrapped up in a personal visitation of God, which is what happened in the text. o But the real value of what happened to Moses is not what He saw and felt, but the theological truth that was hidden to him, but clear to us: o 1 st ) You cannot have a visitation of God, apart from being hidden in the rock which is Christ. God is not going to barge His way into your life. Example: The Prophet hear the still, small voice. o 2 nd ), is what God plainly told him during that visitation. God forgives sins, but He also punishes sins to the third and fourth generations. Our text in Proverbs says in the way that certain birds fly about, and change homes often, they don t alight or rest in one place o This teaches us the lesson that we don t have to worry about a curse resting and remaining on us. o But it adds this one unuttered exception, the curse, "causeless," shall not come. o What if there was a cause? In scripture, particularly the OT, man is the head, the responsible party. o Men, what we do in life, affects our families. I want to talk about what God said he would do. o He would visit the sins of the fathers on the third and fourth generation. Let me show you just two examples from scripture: Story of Namaan being healed. o 2 Kings 5:27 Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your descendants forever. And he went out from his presence leprous, as white as snow. o (Explain story) Gehazi opened a door that brought leprosy throughout all his generations. Next look at the life of David. o (Tell the background to the text)
o 2 Samuel 12:7 7 And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; 8 And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. 9 Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. 10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. 11 Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. 12 For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun. o 2 Samuel 12:13-14 13 And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. 14 Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. o David opened a door that affected everyone in His house and in his lineage. o (Illustrate it from David s life) Amnon rapes Tamar. David does nothing. Absalom brother to Tamar kills Amnon. Absalom leads a rebellion, rapes David s wives. Absalom is murdered by Joab, David cries: "Absalom, Absalom my son, would to God I had died in your place." o David grieved at what his sin had opened the door to in his own family. o Probably, like Esau, he sought to take it back with tears, but to no avail. The deed was done, the consequences would follow. What you open the door to affects everyone in the house. I don t think David or Gehazi had any idea what was lurking behind the door they opened. o I don t think they fully understood what the consequences of their actions could be. God said of David: "... Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house..." o David was the sweet Psalmist of Israel
o David was the apple of God s eye o David was the king whose throne was forever established o And yet he brought down a curse, that was not just for three or four generations, but that would never depart from his house. Having said all this, some of you are probably wondering who did what in your past? o Are they the cause of your diabetes? o Cancer? o Financial problems? o Some in the Christian world throw about a term they call generational curses o By that they mean sins of the fathers have negative results in future generations. o Even the world somewhat recognizes this principle. They will say if your father was an alcoholic the chances are good you will be one also. Hang in there a little bit longer this message is about to get very encouraging. There is a book called The 7 Laws of the Harvest written by John Lawrence. o Some of the chapters talked about how we reap more than we sow. (Certainly Gehazi s family did) o We reap in a different season than we sow - patience. o In the course of the book there was a thread of thought that impacted me the most, and it was simply this: we reap much that others sowed. Now to this point this message has been somewhat negative and scary, but we are about to turn that on its head. o But I do want one last shot at negative reaping before I talk about positive. Right now in our country, conservatives are most concerned with what the door of debt is going to do to our children and our grandchildren. o We are concerned about the consequences that our spending practices are going to bring. May I say to you that is nothing in comparison, to what is going to come of the anti-christian direction And the anti-israeli direction our country is moving in. Our nation is systematically opening the door to immorality, and systematically closing the door to righteousness And the coming harvest will be catastrophic, unless our nation has a third great awakening. o Debt is not the biggest problem our nation is facing.
That is the least door that has been opened by our nation that we should be concerned about. Now for the good news. What you open the door to affects everyone in the house. o That applies to both bad and good. o We have focused on the bad so far but, lets shift our focus on the good, and we will leave today very encouraged. We reap much that we did not sow, that our forefathers sowed. o That is true negatively, but more importantly it is true positively. o Our nations forefathers sowed a country that was founded on and dedicated to God, and the benefits have been heaped up for us a nation for the last 300 plus years. o When the pilgrims landed on this soil they thanked God they finally had a place to follow God after the dictates of their conscience. o That this land was originally dedicated to God, is a blessing that was sown by them in tears, and we continue to reap it in joy. o Eternity will only tell the rewards this nation has and will receive for the brave men and women who fought and died to end slavery, (civil war), and Nazi tyranny (WWII). We are the beneficiaries of the good sowing of many. What you open the door to affects everyone in the house. Lets go back a little further, and look at another example: o Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: o That is talking about Adam and what his sin brought to all of us - the curse of physical and spiritual death o And that s to say nothing of weeds, and hard labor in the field and in the infant delivery room. But here is a wonderful truth just a few verses later: o Romans 5:15 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: 16 And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. 17 For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) o Did you see the words much more?
o Whatever curse grandpa may have brought, Jesus brings blessings that completely swallows them up, and removes them. o I may not be able to prove it but I think the curse on David s family ended at Calvary. He lived under the old covenant, we live under the new. o When a man or woman opens their heart, home, and life to Christ, the blessing that brings is far greater than any curse that comes through the fall of man, or the sins of your ancestors. Romans 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. o The law of sin and death is two fold: 1. This wages of sin is death. 2. The wages of sin is that they are often passed down to following generations. o What Christ did, swallows up what Adam did. The life in Christ is greater than the death in Adam. If you are fretting about what you grandpa did it means that mentally you are putting yourself under the old covenant. o The grandpa that matters is JESUS! o The point is that a grandpa who did evil passes on curses, but Jesus passes on blessing that far surpass and eradicate any curse that may have through your family line. o The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus swallows up the law of sin and death that grandpa may have released into your family. o Even as there is a spiritual law that sends death and trouble down family lines, there is a far greater law, that trumps all other laws - that the spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death. o When a light is turned on in a dark room it completely overpowers the darkness, even so the spirit of life in Christ Jesus overpowers any curses that would be passed down. Here is Romans 5:17 in the message version: If death got the upper hand through one man s wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides? o Even as darkness is obliterated by light, sin is obliterated by grace. o Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, o Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!
o Yonder on Calvary s mount outpoured, o There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt. o Refrain: o Grace, grace, God s grace, o Grace that will pardon and cleanse within; o Grace, grace, God s grace, o Grace that is greater than all our sin! o Dark is the stain that we cannot hide. o What can avail to wash it away? o Look! There is flowing a crimson tide, o Brighter than snow you may be today. CLOSING: If you are in Christ you are the recipient not of generational curses, but spiritual blessings. If you are not in Christ, you need to get there as fast as you can, because the law of sin and death is nipping at your heel.