A blessed generation or a cursed generation
Godly men and women leave a legacy of blessing for generations to come.
the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments. His descendants will be mighty on earth; the generation of the upright will be blessed” - Psalm 112:1-2.
Never has this been more graphically illustrated than in the life of Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards (born 1703) was a man wholly devoted to Jesus Christ. At age 17 he married 13 year-old Sarah Pierpont. On their wedding night they committed their marriage to the Lord. By 1900, their descendants included 300 clergymen (pastors, missionaries and theologians), 100 attorneys, 60 judges (one dean of a law school), 60 doctors (one dean of a medical school), 60 authors of fine classics, 100 professors and 14 presidents of universities, 3 mayors of large cities, 3 state governors, a controller of the US Treasury and a Vice-President of America who became President Theodore Rooseveldt.
Just as we can bring blessing upon our descendants, so too we can bring curses upon them.
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me”
- Exodus 20:4-5.
Max Dukes (born 1700) was an unbeliever who married an unsaved woman. They neither honoured God nor lived principled lives. Amongst their 1200 known descendants in 1900: 310 were professional vagrants, 440 wrecked their lives by wild living, 130 went to jail (7 for murder, average age 13 years), over 100 became alcoholics, 60 were habitual thieves, 190 prostitutes. Twenty became tradesmen, (10 of whom learned their trade in jail). The researcher who compiled these statistics estimated that Max Dukes’ descendants cost the state of New York $1.5 million.
Now are you willing to change?
Down through the ages, every true servant of God has preached a message of change. This is simply because people have always tended to go the way of human nature—the way of vanity, selfishness, lust, hate and war.
Some of you will have a desire to repent and change your ways but what is true repentance? Repenting is a process, not an isolated event. . For to repent means not only to be sorry, but to be so sorry you are willing to quit doing what is wrong, and to turn around and go the other way. True repentance involves a real change.As you mature and become more like your Father (God), you will continue to discover attitudes you need to change.
Have you ever apologized for something you did and said you were sorry, but you had no desire to change? This is not repentance.You are just being a parrot ,doing exactly what your parents told you to do when you were younger.
Do you, resist having to change? Does it seem too difficult for you to change from your way of life to God's way of life?
You need to realize that your human nature itself must be repented of! God says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9).
With those words, God is describing the kind of nature we have!
My dear sisters, I know how difficult it is to change overnight.God is not expecting you to do that either,he understands.Your very life depends upon your willingness to change.
You don’t have to clean up your act before you can worship God. Worship him and he’ll clean up your act. You don’t repent and confess in order to earn forgiveness. You change your ways because you’ve been forgiven.
Never has this been more graphically illustrated than in the life of Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards (born 1703) was a man wholly devoted to Jesus Christ. At age 17 he married 13 year-old Sarah Pierpont. On their wedding night they committed their marriage to the Lord. By 1900, their descendants included 300 clergymen (pastors, missionaries and theologians), 100 attorneys, 60 judges (one dean of a law school), 60 doctors (one dean of a medical school), 60 authors of fine classics, 100 professors and 14 presidents of universities, 3 mayors of large cities, 3 state governors, a controller of the US Treasury and a Vice-President of America who became President Theodore Rooseveldt.
Just as we can bring blessing upon our descendants, so too we can bring curses upon them.
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me”
- Exodus 20:4-5.
Max Dukes (born 1700) was an unbeliever who married an unsaved woman. They neither honoured God nor lived principled lives. Amongst their 1200 known descendants in 1900: 310 were professional vagrants, 440 wrecked their lives by wild living, 130 went to jail (7 for murder, average age 13 years), over 100 became alcoholics, 60 were habitual thieves, 190 prostitutes. Twenty became tradesmen, (10 of whom learned their trade in jail). The researcher who compiled these statistics estimated that Max Dukes’ descendants cost the state of New York $1.5 million.
Now are you willing to change?
Down through the ages, every true servant of God has preached a message of change. This is simply because people have always tended to go the way of human nature—the way of vanity, selfishness, lust, hate and war.
Some of you will have a desire to repent and change your ways but what is true repentance? Repenting is a process, not an isolated event. . For to repent means not only to be sorry, but to be so sorry you are willing to quit doing what is wrong, and to turn around and go the other way. True repentance involves a real change.As you mature and become more like your Father (God), you will continue to discover attitudes you need to change.
Have you ever apologized for something you did and said you were sorry, but you had no desire to change? This is not repentance.You are just being a parrot ,doing exactly what your parents told you to do when you were younger.
Do you, resist having to change? Does it seem too difficult for you to change from your way of life to God's way of life?
You need to realize that your human nature itself must be repented of! God says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9).
With those words, God is describing the kind of nature we have!
My dear sisters, I know how difficult it is to change overnight.God is not expecting you to do that either,he understands.Your very life depends upon your willingness to change.
You don’t have to clean up your act before you can worship God. Worship him and he’ll clean up your act. You don’t repent and confess in order to earn forgiveness. You change your ways because you’ve been forgiven.
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