Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. There's a way that God has willed it to be that blessings in families somehow get protected as if the DNA and virtue that was long before you got encapsulated, waiting for the time, the truth and power and living water could come upon it and make it just sprout and flower in your life. And it means that there's something in you that you have that God loves so much that He wants to protect it, and He wants to fill the earth with it.
So generational sin ends, and generational blessing keeps going. 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 the teaching today in this series, Increase, as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now available to you for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.
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That's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching.
Here is Alan Wright. Church people of God, are you ready for some good news? Generational sin has an expiration date, but God's love does not.
Curse by God's design comes to an end, but His blessing goes on and on and on. Little signs of spring already happened last year again here in North Carolina. In the middle of February, my daffodils have already popped up, and isn't it something that shows you this incredible force of life? That's what I always think of. It's like despite the drear and the cold of a winter, there's a life force that finds its way.
God is life. As you stumble onto one of these marvels of nature, and I learned of a plant in the Chihuahuan desert of North America that looks like a dead tumbleweed. It is called a resurrection plant. It can roll in the dry sand for years, even decades. We have one such dry looking plant that tumbled along for 50 years.
It was chronicled. Scientists suspect that it could go on for even 100 years across the desert floor, rolling, rolling, rolling, but never blooming, never flowering, no greenery, unless it happens upon a little puddle of water. And even after 50 years, the dead thing earns its name like a resurrection. And with a little water, it can emerge back to life, especially if it gets one of the two small rains that happen each year in the Chihuahuan desert. And the resurrection plant will sprout, and it will begin to flower, and it will emerge to bear seeds that it then will spread, causing one day, maybe 50 more years down the line, life to emerge again, unnoticed, thought completely dead. The dormant plant is alive. And what scientists marvel at is the plant's instinct to protect its delicate tissues from the blazing sun and the arid wind, but they're most impressed that the plant has an ability to protect its own DNA from being damaged by the ultraviolet radiation. When the plant dries out, its cells produce proteins that coat and protect the DNA so that as the plant slows its metabolism, the essential characteristics of that plant, its virtue, so to speak, is preserved.
So outwardly, the brown looking weed isn't much to look at, but inwardly, its innate qualities, its dormant beauty survives waiting until the day that it can sprout and spread its seed. We're talking about legacy. We're talking about generational blessing that lives beyond us. And so Exodus 20 becomes a very important text for us here at verse two. When God gives the law at Sinai, he lingers for a moment on the second command to explain something very important about himself, about sin, about curse, about love, about blessing. He says he's a jealous God. We'll talk about what that means and that the sins of the parents affect the whole family, even the third and fourth generation.
We'll talk about what that means. But what I want you to see is that in the heart of God, even here in the Ten Commandments, the heart of God is revealed that he always has willed, planned, designed that generational sin come to an end. But it's his heart, the generational blessing, that the chesed, the love of God goes on and on and on.
And this is for us extraordinary news at every level. What it means is that there has been some resurrection plant in your life. There's been something that's tumbled along maybe for centuries that until you came along and the living water of the Holy Spirit came upon it, it didn't really sprout.
But now it has. It means that there's a way that God has willed it to be that blessings in families somehow get protected as if the DNA and virtue that was long before you got encapsulated, waiting for the time, the truth and power and living water could come upon it and make it just sprout and flower in your life. And it means that there's something in you that you have that God loves so much that he wants to protect it and he wants to fill the earth with it. So generational sin ends and generational blessing keeps going. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series.
You're made for more than your span of years on this earth. What might happen if you start taking the long view of your impact? We need to know what matters most to us so we can pass down our values on purpose. In Pastor Alan Wright's brand new six-week video series called Made for More, you'll discover the power of your lasting legacy as he leads you through a simple process to clarify your family core values and God-given purpose in the world. Pastor Alan will also help you dream to imagine your 100-year impact.
The video series is accompanied by a practical study guide with templates and worksheets. You'll also receive the full length preaching series Increase that exposes the biblical principle of generational blessing. Make your gift to the ministry today and get your Made for More audio video bundle as our thank you for your partnership. Contact us today and discover the power of your lasting legacy. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. 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. He starts with this. He says, I'm a jealous God and this makes some people stumble. I remember years ago having an opportunity to hear an interview with Oprah Winfrey. I don't really know exactly what Oprah's spiritual beliefs are now, but there was a time in her life she would have been what you'd think of a more orthodox evangelical Christian. And I think she's changed and broadened her views.
I don't know exactly what she believes, but I remember in this interview that she said when she was a young woman, she was sitting in church and she said she went to a very popular church, a popular preacher, very charismatic personality. And she was there at the early service and that he was preaching on this text and he got to this part. He said, I, thy Lord, am a jealous God visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children.
And she said, it troubled her. And she said, I wondered, why would God be a jealous God? Why would he need to be jealous? He's got everything. Why would he need to be a jealous God? And that caused her to start changing all her ways of thinking.
And she has missed the point. When God says he's a jealous God, he doesn't mean he's jealous of you. He's jealous for you. He's a God who has everything. So he's complete in and of himself.
He doesn't have any pettiness in him. When we think of the word jealousy, we think of you've got something I don't have and I'm jealous. That's impossible with God. He has everything.
He's completely happy in and of himself. So what jealousy means for God is that he is the lover of your soul. He's the heavenly bridegroom and you're the bride. And for him to say, I will not tolerate you having affection for other gods is to say that here is a mark of my love.
Here is evidence of the enduring and passionate nature of my love. I can't have you running after idols. It would be like saying if there were a husband whose wife were having multiple affairs and he didn't care at all, you would wonder if he loved his wife at all. It is an expression of the love of God that he is a jealous God. In fact, the second commandment, which is issuing this all important, don't make any idol, don't worship the idols. He is expressing something of the nature of his heart. This is why it's in this commandment. He expands it. He doesn't just give the rule. He says, here's why I'm jealous for you.
I can't share you. I love you too much. And I see that the sins of idolatry affect the whole family. And it goes on to the third and the fourth generation.
He said, I see that. But let me tell you, my heart is that this love, this wonderful, wild, passionate, furious love that I have for you that burns inside of my heart for you cannot tolerate idolatry. And so it's a love that's just going on and on and on to a thousand generations. So curse stops, blessing keeps going. That's the plan of God.
He's jealous for you. And he says that the sins affect the subsequent generations. The ESV says visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children. The NIV says punishing the children for the sins of the parents.
And I really don't think these translations are getting across the primary point. It sounds like from those translations that their children that are innocent, that three or four generations later get punished because their great-great-great grandfather sinned. As if God's still mad at my great-great-great grandfather over something he did, and now he says, well, I'm going to take it out on Allen.
What kind of God would that be? I don't think this is what this means at all. And I base that on at least these two texts, Deuteronomy 24, 16. We're explicitly told in this part of the giving of the law, fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one should be put to death for his own sin. It's his own sin.
That's what it's saying. Ezekiel 18, 20 says, likewise, the soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself. The wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. The word that is often translated punishing is a word in Hebrew that means to number, to reckon, to visit, to take inventory of. The theological word book of the Old Testament defines it this way, to attend to with care or take note. So that doesn't mean that God's mad at one of your forebears and taking it out on you. It means that God's taking note of this and I think with grief, that sin impacts the generations and it just does.
It means that some things just get passed along as if from osmosis. I knew of a mother one time who had a fear of thunderstorms and she said, when I have a child, I'm going to make sure that my child never sees me afraid of a storm. So the storm would come and she'd be like, oh, isn't that wonderful?
God's making bright lights and all of this. And yet the child was terribly terrified of storms. If you talk to my wife and she tells you that I'm afraid of dogs, do not believe the woman. I am not afraid of dogs. I had a dog growing up. I had dogs. We had a wonderful beagle, Reese. I love dogs. Not afraid of dogs. I admit there was a moment in childhood.
There was a moment that was terrifying. Our dog, Brownie, who I love with all my heart was attacked by the biggest meanest strongest dog in the neighborhood. And this is in those days, the dogs just roam free and it was the survival of the fittest, you know?
And so we were over at the Ryan's driveway shooting basketball. Brownie was over there and here comes this dog who wandered from a block and a half away. He came over and got in a fight with Brownie, a lot bigger and stronger than Brownie. And men came out of the houses and started hitting the dogs with boards and it didn't do anything. They got the hoses out and were spraying them.
It didn't stop it. And the dog was going to kill our Brownie until my middle brother, Mark the Brave, dove into the dog fight, dove into the dog fight, threw his arms around Brownie, got severely bitten by the other dog, and I watched him take my brother off to the hospital. That did happen, so maybe a little something got in there. And then there was a time where I lived in Kingston, Jamaica for four or five weeks as part of a cross-cultural seminary experience. And we stayed in some rustic dormitories and there was a little outdoor marketplace a couple, two or three blocks away that sometimes we would go to get some bread or something in. But to get there you had to go past a really hard area of little shanties.
And one day I was walking with my buddy Steve to go down there on this side of the street on this little shanty village over here and this dog that looked like a mix of Rottweiler and Pitbull and maybe a small part of Doberman came out and started barking viciously. And then another one came, another, another, and then there were seven or eight of them that started moving towards me and my friend. And we were just walking, my friend saying, just keep walking slowly. Don't look at them. Just keep walking. I said, is that what you're supposed to do?
Don't look at me. He said, I don't know, but let's just do that. And that was terrifying.
I thought they could eat us alive and nobody know for a pretty long time here in Jamaica. So there's been a few things that's happened and she says maybe I'm a little bit afraid. And don't even ask her about the Larchmont dog in Los Angeles.
That's a whole different story. But anyway, she claims that I'm a little afraid of dogs, but I'm not afraid of dogs. But when Abby was three, I'm in the backyard playing with her on the hammock. And she said, hold me, daddy.
I'm like, why? She said, the dog, what dog? And I listened in about five houses away in the distance, there was a sound of a dog barking. And I was like, are you talking about that dog barking?
That dog's so far away. She said, hold me, daddy, hold me, daddy. And finally she said she wanted to go inside because there was a dog barking five houses away in somebody's fenced in backyard. And I went in and said, what are y'all doing inside?
It's a beautiful day. I said, well, she heard a dog barking and she wanted to come in. She was afraid. And my wife gave me this look like, that's your generational sin.
You better fix that right now. Everybody's ever been a parent has seen some of their stuff get passed along by osmosis that they didn't realize. And there's complicated dynamics to all of this that may include our environment, things that are said, the experiences that we have, our genetic makeup, children of alcoholics are four times more likely than others to become alcoholics. Children who've been abused are both more likely to attach themselves to abusers and are more likely to be abusers.
One study of all the adolescents that were at one time in the nation condemned murderers found that 90% of them had been victims of extreme abuse. If a child grows up in a racist home, the child is more likely to adopt racist views. If a child grows up in a divorcee home, the child's more likely to be divorced one day. So probably to have the sins of the father visited to the third and fourth generations is to say that both the characteristics and consequences of that sin have a tendency to continue, but it doesn't mean that God randomly punishes the innocent of someone for a predecessor sin, but something more complicated is going on. So how is it passed along?
Well, sometimes it's just modeled and it just goes into them. Alan Wright, today's good news message, timeless blessing versus temporary curse. It's in our series Increase, and Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio in just a moment sharing his parting good news thought for the day.
You're made for more than your span of years on this earth. What might happen if you start taking the long view of your impact? We need to know what matters most to us so we can pass down our values on purpose. In Pastor Alan Wright's brand new six week video series called Made for More, you'll discover the power of your lasting legacy as he leads you through a simple process to clarify your family core values and God given purpose in the world. Pastor Alan will also help you dream to imagine your 100 year impact.
The video series is accompanied by a practical study guide with templates and worksheets. You'll also receive the full length preaching series Increase that exposes the biblical principle of generational blessing. Make your gift to the ministry today and get your Made for More audio video bundle as our thank you for your partnership. Contact us today and discover the power of your lasting legacy. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, pastoralan.org. Back here in the studio to share Pastor Alan's parting good news thought for the day as we've kicked off this teaching. It's contrasting. Maybe you would think of generational blessing, generational curse. You've heard those phrases before, but this teaching timeless blessing versus temporary curse.
I like the sound of that. It is so wonderful, Daniel, that in the design of God, in the heart of God, in the plan of God for humanity, that while he is just and that sin must be punished, that sin has effect upon the generations to come, that it's in the heart, the mind and the plan of God, that the curse can be revoked by the blood of Jesus and that there is an expiration date on it, that it doesn't go on and on and on, but that blessing, the love of God goes on to a thousand generations, which is to say on and on and on and never stops. So blessings timeless.
Curse is, in that sense, temporary because of the power of the gospel. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.org or call 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
