By
Al Gormley
Exodus 20:3-6
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven
image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the
earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down
thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing mercy unto thousands of
them that love me, and keep my commandments.”
Exodus 34:6-7
“And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed,
The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in
goodness and truth, 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.”
Jeremiah 32:18
“Thou showest lovingkindness unto thousands, and recompensest
the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them: the
Great, the Mighty God, the LORD of hosts, is his name,”
These verses teach us that
the Lord visits iniquity. The effects of
our sins not only fall upon us but upon our children, our grandchildren, and
our great grandchildren. Our children
have to suffer because of our sins our families ourselves suffer.
You may be saying I don’t
believe the Lord would do that. He said
He did. The Lord does deal with our
sins. We better listen and take heed to
Gods word. Whether we like it or not our
sins affect our children. My sin causes my family to suffer. And your sin causes your children to suffer.
I want to use some
illustrations from God’s Word to show that this is true. That’s the only way I know how to prove this.
ADAM:
Genesis 4
Adam sinned and it affected
the whole human race and that included his children. Adam’s sin had an effect upon his children. His children were sinners because of
NOAH:
Genesis 6:8
Noah had 3 sons Shem, Ham,
and Japheth. In Genesis 9:20-27, let’s
notice what happened to him when he got off the
ABRAHAM: Genesis 16
Then we have Abraham’s sin
with Hagar. I don’t want my family to be
the enemy of the Lord. I want to live my
life in such a way that my children will be friends of the Lord—that they will
fight the battle with me, not against me.
ACHAN:
Joshua 7:1
Did Achan’s sin affect his
own children? In Joshua 7:20-26, Achan
said “I HAVE SINNED.” His wife and his
children suffered because of his sin. We
may not want to accept that, but I say again our families suffer because of our
sins. May we that are heads of our homes
take a stand for the things of God. May we fill our place. If we don’t, our wives and our children are
going to suffer. Let me say this, Christ
is head of the church, and if we don’t submit to Him we are going to suffer
too. Husbands, if we don’t take our
place with our children we are going to suffer and they are going to suffer
also. Men it’s your responsibility to
spank your children. Wives you better
let him do it. A child left to himself will bring his mother to shame. Children honor your father and mother that
your days may be long upon earth.
ELI:
I Sam. 2:12
In verses 22–26, let’s notice
how Eli dealt with his children. Read Verses
29-34. Eli why are you honoring your
sons above me? Your sons will die if you
do. God is a jealous God. He doesn’t want us to put anybody or anything
above Him. See I
Sam. 3:13. Yes, his sins affected his
children.. He had the responsibility of restraining
them. It’s not enough just to speak to
them. Ladies, you better allow you
husband to discipline your children. I am
going to try and keep the Judgment of God off my children and my house. If we don’t restrain them, God has a way of
restraining them. God killed both of his
sons. One sister I know told her
children as she spanked them, “If I don’t punish you the Lord will. I am just trying to keep you out of jail.”
DAVID:
II Samuel 11
David was supposed to be at
war. Adultery and
murder. He saw, He sent, and he
sinned. II Sam. 12: 8-14. Never depart from thine house. Why? Because you’ve sinned against God. It was because of David’s sin that that child
died. God judgment fell upon David’s
children. What we sow, we are going to
reap. I heard this preacher tell of his friend that he did not want to plant
all the seeds his Dad told him to plant. So he dug a hole and planted the seed
and put the bucket over them. It wasn’t long until the plants started popping
up all around it. You may sin, you may
try to cover it up, and you may try to hide it. But your sins are going to find
you out. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper,
but he that confesseth and forsaketh
shall have mercy.” Proverbs 28:13. Your
sins are going to come out. It’ll come out in your children and in you. Don’t
think you are going to get away with it. When you sins against the Lord, it is
going to come out. Our sins are going to
affect our children.
What about our churches? What
about our Baptist churches that have gone away from
the truth? Somebody has let down
somewhere down the line.
What is going to happen if we
let down, if we don’t stand for the truth?
Our children are going to suffer. The church won’t save your soul, but
it will save your life.
Our actions cause our
children to suffer. If we don’t take a stand against sin in our church, and if
we don’t conduct ourselves in a Godly manner, and if we live like the world, do
you know who is going to suffer? Not
only are we going to suffer, but our children are going to suffer. May God help us to take our stand for the truth.
What we allow in our homes
affects our children, TV shows and hard rock music. Hard rock music is straight from the devil. The Lord uses His kind of music to move upon
the hearts of His children, AND the devil uses his kind of music to move upon
the heart of his people.
What emphasis do you put on
serving the Lord? What goes in your eyes comes out your heart, lust, TV,
adultery, and murder. You let that child
lay in bed and watch that TV and listen to that hard
rock music when he gets older that’s what he is going to do.
Children, don’t have the
attitude that if my parents’ sin causes me to sin, I am going to go on and
blame it all on them. Don’t forget your
sins are going to affect your children.
I am glad there is another
side. Your godliness also affects your children. Usually, if you have godly homes they will
have godly homes. I realize there are exceptions to this. Let’s spend our lives living for Jesus
Christ.
Brothers and sisters, our
sins do affect our children.
Have you been all that you
should be in your home? Young couples,
you have the whole life of that child. What are you going to do with it? You have only one shot at raising them. When
the cake is baked, it is done. You say, Preacher,
I’ve got to get my own life right first.
Why not right now? Do you want
your children to be doing just like you are doing? You may be saying I can’t do
anything about it now. Yes, you can. You
can repent!
Pastor Al Gormley