Pastor, author and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. The goodness of God that is shown to thousand generations and almost everywhere in the Bible, the word, the language for a thousand is a way of saying on and on and on and on.
There is an end to the reign of sin, but there is no end to the reign of blessedness. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear today's message in the series titled Exponential Grace as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.
As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching in the series Praying with Power. Here is Alan Wright. There's a favorite illustration amongst preachers that compares the notorious Jukes family, Max Jukes and all his descendants, and a contemporary of his, Jonathan Edwards and his family. Because Jonathan Edwards is the great preacher and theologian and writer, the catalyst of the great awakening. And somebody years and years ago compared these two families.
And like most good sermon illustrations, unfortunately, when I go back and I really dig into the facts, you'll find out that sometimes, like one of my friends wants to call it, that preachers are a little bit evangelistic. And so it is with the story of comparing the Jukes family to the Edwards family. The Jukes family, so the illustration says, Max Jukes family, 1200 of them were studied. And of those, 280 were professional vagrants, 130 were sent to a penitentiary for an average of 13 years each. Seven of them were murderers, 100 were alcoholics, 128 were prostitutes. Of the 20 who learned to trade, 10 learned it in a state prison. None of them made a significant contribution to society.
On the contrary, they cost the state of New York $1,308,000. Well, some Ph.D. researcher actually went back and investigated again the thorough story of the Jukes family. And indeed, the Jukes family did have much sin and crime and problems, but they found it to be only about half accurate. But when that same researcher investigated what the sermon illustration said about the Jonathan Edwards family, what was found out is that indeed, the illustration was pretty much accurate. In fact, here are the true numbers. In Jonathan Edwards' family, there were practically no lawbreakers. There were more than 100 lawyers.
I don't know why that's on the plus side, but it's in there. And 30 judges, 13 college presidents, 100 or more professors, 60 physicians, 100 clergymen, missionaries, and theological professors, 80 in the Edwards family elected to public office, including three mayors, three governors, several members of Congress, three senators, and one vice president, 60 who attained prominence in authorship or editorial life with 135 books of merit, 75 Army or Navy officers, and a comptroller in the U.S. Treasury. It is an illustration of what the impact of the generations can be between a family where there is so much sin that seems to be passed on and negative patterns that get repeated, and a family like Jonathan Edwards where there was this impartation of all these good things and how much it can grow and how powerful the impact can be. And this all makes me think back to a day a few years ago when one of our staff, Gladys Keating, came and approached me and said that she felt like she had a word from the Lord. And I was eager to hear it.
It was very simple. She said, you know, your ability to communicate, that came from your dad. Now the reason that on the one hand that might seem like kind of a simple and obvious statement is that my dad was a TV newsman, and so that's what he did.
He was in front of people and in front of cameras communicating. And so here I am in a different venue, in a different way, but being a communicator. But what was powerful about it is that, as I've shared pretty transparently over the years, that I've had to get healed of a lot of the wounds that come because my family broke up and I didn't get the time with my dad and didn't receive a lot of the blessing that I so wanted to be able to receive, to hear from his own lips and to be touched by his own hands and to have the kinds of quality father-son things that we just missed out on so much. And so I've had to spend a lot of my life, as many of you have, really paying attention to how the patterns of sin in my family, that I've had to take steps of appropriating the blood of Jesus to really say, okay, here's where this pattern, here's where this iniquity, here's where this curse comes to an end. And it comes because the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ has been placed between my life and any freight train of generational sin that has come down the track towards me. And therefore, it is a good thing, and it's a thing we could help you with.
If you've never done this, our prayer ministers could help you with this. And we think it is important that we identify those generational sin patterns, say no to them, and apply in faith the finished work of Jesus. We apply and we appropriate what Jesus has done for us, where he has taken the curse on the cross, Galatians says, and therefore we are blessed. And so I've done a lot of healing work and taken many healing steps so that I could be liberated from the effects of wounds that came from the brokenness of my family. And all of us in different ways, we have wounds that we've experienced.
Some are deeper and they run deep. Some of you have been through the most severe of trauma in your family. Some have been raised in good families, healthy families, but they weren't perfect. And we all have this opportunity to say that there were some things that weren't right in my parents or their parents or their parents, but in my generation it changes and it begins to be imparted to the next generation in a whole new way. So I've spent so much time focusing on essentially how to eradicate generational curse that I had missed something of vital importance. And it was that day it triggered in my mind when Gladys said that to me, your gift for communication, it came from your dad. Because what was loaded in that statement was something so powerful for me.
What I was saying is maybe now that you've taken steps for your own liberty, maybe there's something else that you've missed and that is look and see the treasures that were there in the generations, that maybe you've not seen and therefore not appreciated and more appropriately and more powerfully not really appropriated to your life. Not too long after Gladys shared that, my father died and I spoke at his funeral. And during that week of my grief I began to look at other things that I saw in my father. My father, he, one of the things that was so impactful to my life that I've told a story a number of times, but I was in third grade I believe, second or third grade, I'd finished my peewee football game. Yes, I played football. I was the running back and I was the safety.
And then I quit about fifth grade when everybody else got big. And we were walking off the field, dad and I, and there was an old man, he was an African American guy sitting at a picnic table and he was reading a book and he recognized my dad because of TV and he said, he spoke to him. And this is one thing my dad always did, he always respected people and he stopped and he spoke to the man.
I really think that was one of the greatest qualities about my dad was he really was no respecter of persons. It didn't matter if you'd been the mayor or if you were this man sitting at this table, he stopped and he looked on you the same. And my dad said, what are you doing? And the man said, I'm learning to read.
He was a full grown man. He said, I'm learning to read. He said, I'm going to go back to school. And then he said, I want to be better than Martin Luther King. And as we were walking away from the table, I did something to my knowledge that I'd never done before that time and I certainly never did. I turned to my dad and I laughed at the man and I mocked him and I said, he can't even read.
He wants to be better than Martin Luther King. And my dad turned to me and he said, well, son, I think that's a very admirable goal for him to have. You know what went into me that day? There was a blessing that was in my father where he was, he was no racist and he was no respecter of persons. And I look at my life now and I just, I sense sometimes how the work of Christ has worked in me to love people and I love, I love all people and I'm not a respecter of persons.
And, and, and I realize that, that, that, that's a blessing. It came down through my dad. I began to think on things like this through preparing for his funeral and something in it was just so nourishing to me. I shared with a dear friend some of these thoughts I was having and he did something in secret that blessed my life.
My dad, I had shared with him, he won a prestigious journalism award, the Edward R. Murrow award for investigative reporting. And there were just some of the things, sometimes what happens in a broken family or a dysfunctional family is that the things that ought to be celebrated, they don't get celebrated because you're so busy dealing with the problems. You miss out on the celebrations. And so trophies like that, awards like that, who knows where they are.
It wasn't really celebrated. And I found myself having this sense of wouldn't it have been wonderful if I'd, if I'd had that award, if I could have found it in his, his belongings and, and, and display it somewhere just to remember a word that came from the Lord. Your gift to communicate, it didn't start with you, it started in your dad. And so a good friend, he surprised me, he went out in secret and he researched that award and he had a replica made up because there is a power that may be missing from our lives.
If we spend all of our attention trying to get healed of the hurts and never give any of our energy to celebrating, appropriating, and living out the blessing that's been handed to us through the generations, you're more blessed than you know. What would happen if you went on a treasure hunt? What would happen if you unearthed hidden blessings that have actually been deposited in you through the generations? If you saw it, you'd appreciate it more and you might water it. You might water that seed and see it grow in an unbelievable way.
That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Can you imagine what it would be like to be accepted perfectly? Envision it, being free to be yourself with no fear of rejection. If you mess up, people don't roll their eyes, make fun of you or love you less.
Imagine no more of that anxious feeling that you get deep down in your gut that makes you feel like the pressure is always on so you can never really relax. What you're imagining and longing for is a life with no shame. In Paradise, before sin came into the world, the Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship.
They were naked and felt no shame. Ever since the fall, the human heart has been riddled with shame. It's a lie that says, until you measure up, you can't be truly acceptable. Shame causes some to say, I'll try to be perfect in order to be accepted and others to decide, since I'll never measure up, I might as well rebel.
Either way, the heart is poisoned by shame and there is only one antidote, the grace of God in Jesus Christ. In his highly acclaimed book, Free Yourself, Be Yourself, Pastor Alan Wright not only exposes the lies of shame, he leads you into a revolution of God's love that heals your soul. Discover freedom, joy, and destiny as you shed performance-based living and let God take the shame off you for good. It's a life-changing, full-length book from Alan Wright.
Free yourself, be yourself. We're in the final days of this special offer being made available to you. Call us at 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.
Here once again is Alan Wright. Turn us to Exodus chapter 20, the first place where the Ten Commandments are given, because here you see the principle laid out right here in the initial words that are forming the Old Covenant, the commands of God. You can just see how the principle is woven so early on and then we'll discover how it grows so much with the power of the Gospel.
In Exodus 20, verse 4, the Commandment says, You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. Right here, the Lord is demonstrating in the prohibition against idolatry, in the prohibition that says, Don't look for your blessedness from any other source than me, for the Lord God is the giver of all good gifts, and there is no other well from which you can draw living water. And so in the midst of this revelation, this is where he says that there is something that is at work that because of the principle of justice, iniquity falls on through the generations, even to the third and the fourth.
But the contrast of this is the steadfast love, which is the Hebrew word chesed, the covenantal love of God, which includes his mercy, his kindness, his goodness, his blessedness, and all of his shalom. All of this is wrapped up into this the goodness of God that is shown to thousand generations. And almost everywhere in the Bible, the word, the language for a thousand is a way of saying on and on and on and on. It's not really saying that once you get to the end of a thousand generations, suddenly the blessing is gone. What is saying instead is something that is absolutely remarkable, that there is a way in which sin has its day and its consequences, but in the Lord's sovereign plan, what he's saying is that there is an end to the reign of sin, but there is no end to the reign of blessedness. That there is a way in which there is a curse that can be passed along through the patterns of sin, but it has its day and ceases to be. But when it comes to the steadfast love of God, the love of God goes on and on and on and on. It is an extraordinary thought, but it is clearly what the Bible teaches, that in Jesus Christ, the curse is revoked, but there is no way that the devil can revoke the blessing of Jesus Christ. What I'm saying is that there is a temporary nature. There is a limited duration and a limited power to the power of iniquity and its consequences, but there is an unlimited, unquenchable power of the love of God that goes on forever and ever and ever, and we in Christ are the recipients of such blessing that it grows exponentially throughout the generations, and I for one want to stand in a place like one who's under a shower from heaven and appreciate and appropriate and receive the blessedness that has come down the line.
We are so prone to look upon what we've missed that we miss what we've actually received. Now all of this is best understood if you turn to the first page of your Bible and see how it is that God designed his universe. It is the design of God that things are as they are, and science is the glad unveiling of the design of God, and so we can see by our natural observation the pattern that was spoken of as integral on the third day of creation, for after there was light and after there is water, then, verse 11 of Genesis 1, God said, let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth, and it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, and God saw that it was good. God's plan for the design of the whole world is the principle of the seed, and everything depends on this. Arguably there is no other natural process more important than this. The rhythm of life itself depends upon it, and as is repeated in Genesis, everything reproduces according to its own kind.
It's so obvious we don't even think of it, and yet it is so powerful that it must consume all of our ideology. Everything reproduces according to its own kind. Orange seeds produce orange trees. They never produce apple trees. Apple seeds never produce orange trees. They always produce apple trees, and if this is true in the natural, then what the scripture affirms to us is you can envision how this could also be true in the spirit.
So Paul says, do not repay evil with evil, but overcome evil with good. He's appealing to the principle of the seed. In other words, if you had an orange grove and you're like, man, I really wanted to have apple trees, you'll never get apple trees by going into that grove and planting more orange seeds. You have to plant apple seeds. So Paul's saying if you're in a relationship and what's always coming towards you and the fruit of that relationship is unkindness and hate, it is a foolish and illogical thing to think that you could somehow elicit love and respect from the other by showing them unkindness and hate.
It would be just as ridiculous as thinking that you were going to be able to get apple trees from orange seeds or vice versa. You cannot sow hate and reap love. It works in the spirit because he also says that he who sows generously reaps generously, and therefore Paul ties us into the whole notion of what it means to give your life away, of what it means to sow your time and your treasure and your life and what you have to impart, that there is the mystery of the seed that is at work. And what he's saying is that the same way you can envision how the seed reproduces after itself in the natural, you and your life and whatever is good in you is designed by God to reproduce after its own kind. What you're imagining and longing for is a life with no shame. In Paradise, before sin came into the world, the Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship.
They were naked and felt no shame. Ever since the fall, the human heart has been riddled with shame. It's a lie that says, until you measure up, you can't be truly acceptable. Shame causes some to say, I'll try to be perfect in order to be accepted, and others to decide, since I'll never measure up, I might as well rebel.
Either way, the heart is poisoned by shame, and there is only one antidote, the grace of God in Jesus Christ. In his highly acclaimed book, Free Yourself, Be Yourself, Pastor Alan Wright not only exposes the lies of shame, he leads you into a revolution of God's love that heals your soul. Discover freedom, joy, and destiny as you shed performance-based living and let God take the shame off you for good. It's a life-changing, full-length book from Alan Wright.
Free yourself, be yourself. The Gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. We're in the final days of this special offer being made available to you. Call us at 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Alan, God's love goes on and on. In this series, that phrase, on and on and on, is used a lot, and it was given to you in a scripture with the way in which thousand generations is interpreted, right?
It is. This really is a series, Daniel, that turns our attention away from something that I think is important, and that is we need to get healed from the traumas of the past. We need to break the curses and the problems that we've had in our ancestry and those sins that have been handed down. But if the sins and the consequences and pain of what has gone wrong in our past comes down to a third and fourth generation, the highlight of scripture is that the blessing of God goes on and on to a thousand generations, which is like saying forever and forever. How do you go back and look at what is good that God put in your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and lay claim to that? And I realize in a lot in my own life, I've spent so much time getting healed from different things that come from being in a broken family, and I've missed out maybe on claiming the blessings that are there generationally. And so we're going to start out in the first couple of messages looking at that. It's very powerful stuff. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
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