Class Notes: 12/9/2012

The four generation curse results from successive generations perpetuating negative volition to God's word

In our 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, last time we saw that God gave the Egyptians 80 years or four generations to change their minds regarding Israel and when they remained vindictive and implacable he destroyed their nation and their army.

This took us to a discussion regarding the four-generation curse that applies to all nations. The first statement on this subject is part of the 10 commandments or the freedom code. Exod 20:4-5, "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the waters below.

v5 You shall not bow down to them or be caused to serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of their fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who reject Me."

This passage is a warning against the idolatry that was practiced by the Canaanite people who occupied the land they were being given. Part of their power came from demonism related to their practice of idolatry.

The 10 commandments were the de facto Constitution for Israel and was designed to help these former slaves establish the concept of freedom in their new nation. The mandates found in the 10 commandments are designed to protect freedom, privacy and property. Any free nation will be founded on similar principles.

This curse does not apply to any believer in Jesus Christ who is positive to his word or to any establishment-oriented unbeliever. Hating God refers to rejection of Jesus Christ. So this curse never applies to the believer unless he spends his life in the cosmic system. Negative volition is the basis of culpability to the curse and becoming a believer breaks the curse.

Exod 20:6; provides some additional comfort, "But showing mercy to thousands who love Me and guard My mandates."

Even during the fifth cycle of discipline, God always shows mercy to those who live their spiritual life in accordance with His plan for their life. No disaster is greater than the power of Bible doctrine resident in the thinking.

Deut 5:8-10; is a restatement of this curse as part of the 10 commandments, and is identical to Exod 20:4-6. In the Greek "Deuteronomy" "Deuter" + "Nomos" means "second law"

It is presented as a speech from Moses to the second generation of the Israelites as they prepared to cross the Jordan river to take the promised land. Repetition is for inculcation, so that the rate of learning will exceed the rate of forgetting.

The third statement of this curse is Exod 34:6-7; "Then the Lord passed in front of him (Moses) and proclaimed, `The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in mercy and truth,

v7 guarding His mercy for thousands (believers), and forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the grand children to the third and fourth generation.'"

Because of the severity of the divine discipline that is executed, after three or four generations the curse runs it's course and there is a new start for who have been under this curse for four generations. The curse is never applied where people respond to God's grace.

The curse comes into play when the parent's failures create a culture that passes environmental handicaps on to their children. The children, therefore, do not handle their own flaws and problems properly because of the cultural environmental handicaps.

Their own flaws are never understood or addressed because they are too involved reacting to their environment rather than dealing with reality. They are too busy functioning in the arrogance skills of self-justification, self-deception, and self-absorption.

The fourth statement is given in Num 14:18; "The Lord is slow to anger, and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin, but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation."

Each generation is only responsible for its own sins, but subsequent generations become culpable when the sin is engrained in the culture and that culture is passed from generation to generation.

There are large differences between the first and forth generations: The culture changes, and the people's motivation and values change. Just look at the way the culture in the USA has changed since 1960.

Juvenile crime increases in each subsequent generation. Life becomes cheap in the forth generation. Idolatry becomes rampant in the third and forth generations.

Prov 30:11-14; describe the mechanics of the Four-Generation Curse using Israel as an example.

The first generation rejected human authority. The four-generation curse always begins when people reject legitimate authority, and it always begins in the home.

The Israelites were given Moses, the greatest human authority ever given to a people by God, but since they had just been freed from the tyranny of slavery could only think of freedom as having no authority as a result they rejected Moses' authority, because they falsely associated legitimate authority of Moses with illegitimate authority of the slave master in Egypt.

When people are first emancipated from slavery, they're prone to thinking that freedom means license to do anything, even to break laws and they become amoral.

God's system for a nation calls for the balance of freedom and authority, which is the basis for the laws of divine establishment. Freedom without authority is anarchy; authority without freedom is tyranny. Both are wrong.

Protection from enemies without is the authority of the military. Our protection from enemies within is the police force and the court system. Because of man's OSN legitimate authority systems are required to protect everyone's freedom.

Complete freedom as a human being does not begin until after the child grows up and leaves home. Parents are the first lesson of legitimate authority, as authorized by the family in divine institution number three. This is why all national suffering is related to the family, and why the sins of the father are visited on the children.

We're born under the authority of parents but until we learn to submit to the legitimate authorities in life we will suffer under the law of volitional responsibility. Any of the potential advantages in life are lost if one rejects legitimate authority and that starts in the home.

Without the advantage (Bible Doctrine) any advantages are not advantageous.

This means that rejection of authority is the most prominent cause for suffering in life. Divine institution number one is your free volition, and you choose to accept or reject authority from very early in life.

Authority is necessary for the function of life. We can never enjoy freedom or have capacity for freedom until we understand and accept legitimate authority.

The first generation of a four generation curse will reject authority beginning in the home, Prov 30:11, "A generation who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers."

In the USA this began during the 1960's and 1970's and continues unabated to this day. People reject the first basic authority of parents because they want to do what others in their peer group are doing. The greatest suffering in life comes from rejection of parental authority that is the basis of the stability of the nation.

Capacity for freedom requires obedience to legitimate authority and all capacities in life start with capacity for authority. No one learns how to live until they can identify and respect authority, regardless of who actually possesses the authority. Arrogance begins with rejection of authority.

In eternity past Satan's arrogance originated with his rejection of God's authority. Isa 14:13-14;

Prov 30:12; describes parents who teach their children who comprise the second-generation that has self-righteous arrogance and resultant hypocrisy. "A generation who are pure in their own eyes, and yet they are not cleansed from their filth."

During this second generation, there is the intensification of self-righteous arrogance and hypocrisy. This is even found in so called "Christian" homes where there is legalism and blind arrogance.

So what we have in our nation today is self-righteous amoral arrogance fighting with self-righteous moral arrogance and at the moment self-righteous amoral arrogance is winning the votes of the uninformed public.

Verse 13 describes the third generation as having locked-in arrogance. "A generation whose eyes are so arrogant that their eyelids are raised in arrogance."

Verse 14 describes the fourth generation, "A generation whose teeth are swords, and whose jaws are set like knives to devour the afflicted from the earth and the needy from among men."

This is the generation of inordinate ambition and lust for power. We see this today in an administration that is bypassing the constitution that is the only basis of it's legitimate authority and usurping the legitimate authority of the Congress and the States because of the opposition it faces in the implementation of it's evil policies.

This is a sign that we are getting very close to the execution of the Divine discipline that accrues to the fourth generation under the fourth-generation curse.

In the first generation legitimate authority is rejected, in the second generation there is self-righteous justification for the arrogance. This result in, the third generation having locked-in arrogance, and the fourth generation has inordinate ambition and lust for power.

The fourth generation is the most corrupt of all, having accumulated all the sins of the previous three generations in addition to their own. The fourth generation gets what it wants by lying and deceit, by appearing to be "caring" and "nice" but behind their rhetorical veil they will do anything to ruthlessly attain their objectives without regard for the consequences to the weak and needy.

In their hypocrisy they claim they will help the poor but their policies actually destroy them.

In spite of the influence of the previous generation's evil, every generation has a chance to stop the curse because for the curse to apply each generation must be culpable. The discipline that is related to the four-generation curse is not triggered unless there is culpability.

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.

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