In our continuing study of the invisible war that is raging between the "seed of the serpent" and the "seed of the woman" during the course of human history that is described in Gen 3:15; we have taken up a study of the four-generation curse that is imposed on nations that reject God's word.
We saw that God gave the Egyptians 80 years or four generations to change their minds regarding Israel and when they remained vindictive, implacable and ant-Semitic he forced them to free the Israelites and destroyed their nation and their army.
God explained the curse to Israel as part of the Decalogue and it is outlined in Prov 30:11-14; we also saw that even when under the curse each successive generation has the option of stopping the curse because the curse is not triggered unless there is culpability.
This is because culpability is always based on volition, the volition of each individual in any generation of human history. You are only responsible for your own sins and not the sins of your parents.
The four-generation curse never exists except where the children of the fourth generation commit the sins their parents committed in the third generation.
Culpability is liability for divine punishment or discipline from the supreme court of heaven. God holds you personally responsible for your sins. Culpability is based on the volition of each person in each generation regarding the sins of their parents.
No one is culpable unless they repeat the sins of their parents and perpetuate the evil from their own free volition or follow the negative volition of other apostates in their own generation.
Deut 24:16; "Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers; everyone will be put to death for his own sin."
Only those children who arrogantly react to being abused by their parents or who learn from and function in their parent's evil and as a result become culpable are involved in the four-generation curse.
The sins of the parents have to be repeated by the children of the next generation for culpability and punitive action to be administered. Though each generation has to sin for it to be culpable, there is influence to sin from the previous generation.
This means that the next generation has a tendency to repeat the sins of their parents especially the mental attitude sins related to arrogance and emotion. Choosing to repeat these sins from their own volition results in passing these down to the fourth generation, where all hell breaks loose in tyranny, revolution, and violence, that results in the self- destruction of the nation.
Apart from your own culpability, no one is under the fourth generation curse. It can be broken in any generation. The simplest way to break the curse is by faith in Christ and the subsequent execution of the plan of God appropriate to the dispensation.
The sins of the fathers have to be repeated in the next generation for culpability and punitive action to be administered from God otherwise because there is no culpability the principle of grace applies.
Deut 7:9; "Know, therefore, that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God guarding the covenant and His mercy to the thousandth generation of those who love Him and keep His mandates."
Salvation by grace through faith breaks this curse for the individual. This verse specifically refers to reaching personal love for God and spiritual self-esteem.
Psa 100:5; "For the Lord is good, and His love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations." The word "good" refers to God's perfect essence. God deals personally with those who break the four-generation curse.
Jer 31:29-30; "In those days they will not say again, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children's teeth are set on edge.'
v30 "But everyone will die for his own iniquity; each man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge. Net notes 64sn and 65
God only brings discipline on those who have personally rejected or disobeyed Him.
We see from this that the only solution to the four-generation curse is Bible doctrine.
Deut 6:4-9; SHAMA ISRAEL, ADONAI ELOHENU, ADONAI ECHAD. This is translated, "Listen (or hear), O Israel, Jesus Christ is our God, Jesus Christ is unique."
This verse emphasizes the importance of the client nation providing freedom for people to make positive or negative decisions toward the Gospel and Bible doctrine. This verse defines the necessary ingredients for a client nation.
The qal imperative of SHAMA means to be motivated to listen and hear. A client nation must have a people who have humility and are willing to learn Bible doctrine. This humility and teachability overflows to every area in life.
ADONAI ELOHENU, "the Lord is our God," means that as goes the believer, so goes the nation. The size of the pivot determines the prosperity of the nation. Nothing else matters.
No client nation is ever conquered by the external force of another nation; it can only go down by internal self-destruction and then what is left after the self-destruction is picked over and carried off by external enemies.
ADONAI ECHAD, "the Lord is unique," means that believers must be motivated to advance to spiritual maturity whether in the ritual plan of God during the Old Testament or in the protocol plan of God during the Church Age.
Though the principles of spiritual advance are similar in both dispensations, there are major differences. One is that Israel had visible historical impact under the ritual plan of God; but in the Church Age believers are to have invisible historical impact by executing the protocol plan of God.
Deut 6:5; defines the motivation necessary to advance spiritually. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your strength" This is power from the three stages of the adult spiritual life.
Having all the doctrine you can get into your stream of consciousness is love for God. John 14:15; This is the harmonious rapport with God that comprises the spiritual life.
Deut 6:6-7; "These words (or doctrines) which I am commanding you today shall be in your hearts (your stream of consciousness);
v7 you will teach (or inculcate) them to your children and shall talk about them: when you sit in your home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up in the morning (before you go to bed and when you wake up)."
The four-generation curse is broken by salvation through faith in Christ plus the PMA of doctrine by parents teaching children the spiritual life.
This teaching involves repetition that results in inculcation that is described in Deut 6:9; "Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates."
This always removes the curse because God is always faithful to those who love him through their positive volition to his word. Deut 7:9; Psa 100:5; Jer 31:15-16;
Since it is the negative volition of the children that perpetuates the four-generation curse God taught Moses how to break the four-generation curse the hard way if necessary.
Deut 21:18-21; "If a parent has a stubborn and rebellious son (an incorrigible teenager, incapable of being corrected and unmanageable) who does not obey his father and mother, consequently, he will not listen to them when they discipline him,
v19 his father and mother shall seize him and bring him before the judges in the court of his town.
v20 They shall testify to the judges, `This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey us; he is immoral and a drunkard.'
v21 Then all the men in the town will take him out and stone him to death. You must purge evil from among you; all Israel will hear it and be restrained."
We see from this the principle that capital punishment restrains evil; capital punishment restrains crime.
In every generation, there are always a certain number of young people whose arrogance and rejection of authority results in immoral behavior including rape, drug addiction, burglary, arson, violence, and murder.
Crime is one of the greatest threats to freedom. When crime is not controlled by the judicial system there is no freedom.
If the nation is to survive, the four-generation curse must be broken either through evangelism and doctrinal teaching or through the punishment of the incorrigible juvenile delinquents.
A more proactive preventative solution is to teach the children when they are young, as taught in Deut 11:18-21; "You will inculcate these doctrines of Mine in your right lobes and minds. Tie them as notes on your hands, and as training aids tie them around your foreheads.
v19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit down at home, when you travel, before you go to bed, and when you wake up.
v20 Write these on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates,
v21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord promised to give to your ancestors, as long as the heavens remain above the earth."
We see here that the parents are responsible are to teach doctrine to the child's heart (stream of consciousness) so they have spiritual understanding and the parents are to teach doctrine to the child's mind for academic understanding with the result "that your days may be many" an idiom for prosperity.
The key to the perpetuation of the client nation is always related to whether or not the young people who form the next generation receive proper training in authority orientation, are evangelized, grow in grace, and form a pivot that preserves the nation.
But instead of teaching their children parents often use their children as justification for their own negative volition toward God's will and plan for their lives.
At least two generations of Israelites were destroyed as a result of the four-generation curse: There is good documentation on the Exodus generation, and the generation captured by the Babylonians.
In each case, the loser generation had rejected Bible doctrine and used their children as an excuse for their apostasy and failure. In both cases the children who were used as an excuse turned out far better than their parents, and broke the four-generation curse.
The failure of the Exodus generation is found in Num 13. Num 13:1-25; describes the reconnaissance team sent out by Moses to determine the best way to capture the land. The team returned with two different opinions.
This is not unlike the differing opinions that we see in the USA today where again the majority opinion is the wrong opinion but it gets implemented because it has the majority of the vote.
The joint report given in Num 13:27-29; was that the land was fantastic.
The minority report from Caleb and Joshua is given in Num 13:30; "Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and spoke, `We should by all means invade the land and take possession of it, for we will definitely overcome it.'"
Caleb had mixed the promises of God with his faith. He looked at the land of Canaan from the divine viewpoint rather than human viewpoint. From faith, hope and love rather than doubt, uncertainty and fear.
The majority report is recorded in. Num 13:31-33; "But the men who had gone on the mission with him said, `We cannot attack these people, for they are stronger than we are.' So they disseminated a bad report to the Israelites about the land they had explored, saying, "...There also we saw the giants.'"
The carnal believers look at the problem and ignored God. The giants frightened them; they were in a state of irrational emotional sin and emotional revolt of the soul.
Num 14:1-4; records the failure of the first generation, that was the beginning of a four generation curse, but it was cut off by the positive volition of their children. "That night all the people stayed up all night and screamed; consequently, they cried all night (an expression of their negative volition and emotional frustration).
v2 And all Israel grumbled (complained) against Moses and Aaron, and the entire congregation said to them, `If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if we had only died in this desert!
v3 And now, why is the Lord bringing us into this land to be killed by the sword? And our wives and children will be taken as plunder? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt (into slavery)?'
v4 So they said to each other (in their irrational emotional state of fear), `We will elect a new leader and go back to Egypt."
The doctrinal viewpoint of the minority is given by Joshua and Caleb in Num 14:6-10;
Part of the message in verse 9, "Do not rebel against the Lord; do not fear the people of the land. We will eat them up (their protection is gone). The Lord is with us; do not be afraid of them."
Num 14:10; is the reaction of the people in their irrational emotion, "But the congregation said, `Let's stone them.'"
The pardon of the Exodus generation through the intersession of Moses is found in Num 14:20-23; "Therefore the Lord answered, `I have pardoned them on the basis of your word (the intersession of Moses);
v21 nevertheless, as surely as I live, and as surely as the glory of the Lord shall fill all the earth
v22 none of the men who have seen My glory and My miraculous signs which I have performed in Egypt and in the desert, where they tested Me ten times and have not listened to My voice,
v23 shall by no means see the land which I promised to them with an oath to their fathers, nor shall any of those who despised Me see it.'"
God had given them the most gracious pardon in all of human history. But no sooner were they pardoned and forgiven and they were back into emotional sinning that they continued in until they all died the sin unto death.
Despising the Lord means failure to fulfill the spiritual life given by the Lord. The pardon of the Exodus generation had no impact on their scar tissue of the soul and their negative volition remained until they died the sin unto death after wandering in circles in the desert for 40 years.
Num 14:29-34; is the statement of God's discipline to the first generation. "In this desert, your bodies will fall, every one of you, twenty years old or more, who was counted in the census and who has grumbled )complained) against Me.
v30 Not one of you will enter the land, except Caleb and Joshua.
v31 As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land that you have rejected.
v32 But you, your bodies (corpses) will fall in this desert.
Num 14:33; Your children during this time will be shepherds, here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness until your corpses lie in the desert.
v34; For forty years, one year for each of the forty days you explored the land, you will suffer for your sins, and you will know what it is to have Me against you."
The second generation would not only go into the land and conquer it, but they would enjoy it. The difference between the first and second generation was their attitude toward Bible doctrine and the four-generation curse was broken by the second generation.
The first generation suffered under both the law of volitional responsibility and divine discipline that ultimately resulted in their dying the sin unto death.
At the same time God used the undeserved suffering experienced by the second generation as they grew up to provide them with providential preventative suffering for blessing.
This suffering for blessing strengthened their spiritual self-esteem so that they would form a strong pivot of mature believers when they marched into the land under Joshua's leadership.
Always remember God always turns the curse into a blessing for those with positive volition to Him.
When this happens in this country the results will be the same. Those who come under the curse because of their negative volition will suffer under the law of volitional responsibility and divine discipline and possibly die the sin unto death.
At the same time those who remain loyal to God through persistent enduring positive volition will endure undesrserved suffering for blessing and be the basis of the pivot of mature believers who will be the basis of the restoration of the nation.
2Chron 7:14; if my people, who belong to me, humble themselves, pray, seek to please me, and repudiate their sinful practices, then I will respond from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.