sure if we went around the room everyone would have that and so Lord we do pray that you know everything about us and you know what our needs are and what our hearts desires so we we ask for those things and pray for this woman Joanne good friend of mrs. Gordon's I asked that you would bring salvation to her and Lord we know that sometimes the Catholics are actually seeking truth and when they hear it they respond and so we do ask that you'd be merciful to her. Lord you've left her alive and you've given her sure I'm sure ample opportunity but I pray for another opportunity here. I pray for those in Haiti. Thank you for Brother Robinson and Brother Joel who are willing to put their lives out there to see people saved and have a burden for their people. and I ask that you would help them and continue to bless where they're at, Lord, and keep them safe and their people safe that have been saved. Lord, I pray for the rally that's happening at Brother Wyatt's family's church. I pray that as they have a desire to see people saved, that they would. Well, I pray that you'd bless that. Lord, we know that you do. Lord, you've told us to go out there and to be a witness and the fields are white to harvest. And so, Lord, help us all to be out there doing the same thing, spreading the gospel. And so just bless those efforts. I pray for baby Truman as well, that Lord, that you continue to heal him and bring him out of the sickness, Lord, that he has. And I pray for Mrs. Beard's son. I didn't mean to go by that, but Lord, I pray for her son to be saved. And I pray that you'd be with Jennifer, Lord, going through the cancer treatments. And Lord, it's been a long haul, it seems for her. And so I just pray again for her and ask for healing on her body and her Fred's back and any other things that he and Lorena are dealing with, Lord, physically. Lord, we thank you that he's willing to make the drive when he's well. And Lord, we appreciate that. I know you do, too. And I ask for him and we're glad he's able to watch and others that are able to watch through the broadcast and so we asked that it would go forth as well without any problems and Lord we asked for a brother clap Lord if you are really directing him to have that church Lord that you'd move any kind of obstacles in the way and Lord just make it smooth sailing and I pray that he'd have utmost confidence of what you'd have him to do and I pray for Salmatai Lord that she would be saved I pray that you just somehow penetrate into her mind and thinking, Lord, and and open her eyes to who you are. And Lord, again, once again, we ask that you be with this time this morning. Lord, we need you here. We're not we don't want to meet in vain. We don't want to do it our own strength. Lord, we don't want to make this just an intellectual time. Lord, we really want to know you while closer to you, Lord, and and be a pleasure to thee. I pray this now and all in Jesus name. Amen. All right, Genesis 26. I trust we were almost at the end of 25 last week, and I trust you read through the notes, and I don't want to go over any more of that material necessarily. I think it's self-explanatory, so we won't do that. We'll just go right into chapter 26. I will read verses 1 through 4. It says, And there was a famine in the land beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar. And the Lord appeared unto him and said, Go not down into Egypt, dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee. For unto thee and unto thy seed I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I swear unto Abraham thy father. And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven and will give unto thy seed all these countries. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. We'll stop right there. So right in verse one, you're going to see a famine. It's a second famine. The Bible even makes a point of telling you it's a second famine. There was one in the days of Abraham. There was one now in the days of Isaac. And the first one is in chapter 12, verse 10. I have that in your notes. Now famines, famines are never good, right? Famines are always a judgment of God. And if he brings a famine in the land, you know that it's something that God is doing. God controls everything, right? We don't just think, well, circumstance and we can overcome. And we do. We try to still eat. We try to still have, take care of things and go where we need to go. And that was the point here. Isaac was going to do what Abraham did and he was going to go down into Egypt. Egypt is always a type of the world in the Bible and God cautions him this time. For some reason, it wasn't cautioned in the days of Abraham when he went down, but it was cautioned here. And so he cautioned him not to go down basically to the world for your sustenance. And, you know, sometimes we can get ourselves in a situation where we don't think God is providing and we go a little ahead of schedule. And we try to go out into the world and we think, well, you know, where's God when I need him? So the Lord came to him, though, and he struck him to sojourn in Gerar and to avoid Egypt. And then not just doing that, he rehearses with him the promises made to his father. That's verse four. And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven. Don't worry, Isaac. I'm going to make your seeds to multiply. I'll give thy seed unto all all these countries. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. So we can take just reading. We can take solace in the promises of God, even when circumstances seem bleak. One of the things we might want to do as Isaac is getting here from the Lord is whenever we have situations where it looks bleak, it looks like, well, where's the future going to lead me? This doesn't seem like God is in this. We can go to the word of God and we look at the promises. And sometimes, sometimes I take solace in this fact. The fact is that this life I was never promised a bowl of cherries, right? And we're never promised that we're going to have a bed of roses, and we're never promised that everything's going to turn out right. We're not promised that we're going to have the earth, like this promise here. But I have the future. I have eternity. I have that to look forward to. And so you can look and look even in the Bible, and it may be morbid a little bit, but you can go and look in the Bible and see the people that suffered for Christ. You know, Paul talks about in the New Testament, he talks a lot about that were called unto suffering. And so when we suffer, sometimes we have the wrong idea that that's that God is against us or some things are working or maybe we're doing wrong. But maybe what we're just doing is suffering. And in suffering, we're laying up treasures in heaven. And that's the future for us. So we look forward to that. And we take the same promises that he was giving and giving comfort to Isaac here. Don't go down to Egypt. Just stay here. and I'll take care of you, don't worry. And then he goes on in verse 5 and he says, because that Abraham obeyed my voice. Now, he's not doing it just for Isaac's sake, he's doing it for the covenant that he made with Abraham. He said, because that Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws. Now, I got looking at that, and it's an interesting study you might want to do on your own. We won't do it now, but it says he kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws. So God's breaking down what he tells us to do in categories. And some of them are statutes, some of them are commandments, some of them are laws, some of them are charges. And if you follow that through the Bible, you'll find some interesting things. But something interesting to note here is that Abraham, of course, at this time, was at least 400 years prior to the Mosaic Law. So there was no law. written down that God gave explicitly on paper that everyone could follow. However, it says he followed his commandment, statutes, laws, and charges, as did Job. Now remember a couple lessons ago, if you were here, you remember we talked about the attack on Abraham is the similar attack on Job. You remember that where Job actually, according to the Bible, is somewhat of a contemporary of Abraham. And so if we look at Job as a comparison, we look right on the sheet. I have it in blue for you. Job said, Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips. I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. So there is something about this day and time that we don't read about in the Bible where God has spoken. Now, we read about what he spoke to Abraham specifically, but Job had some quite a bit of revelation. You know, when we go to when we go to refute science, for example, and we say that people say, well, the Bible is not a science book. And we say, oh, well, in fact, it is. It's very scientific. A lot of the things that we go to are in the book of Job. There are things in the book of Job that you could never you can't explain outside of knowing what we know today. They didn't know back then, necessarily, or at least we think they didn't know. But Job is telling us here just the commandment of his lips. And I have esteemed the words of his mouth. So at the very least, man had their conscience. The Bible tells you that in Romans 2 15. I gave you that reference where in in the Old Testament days, man lived according to conscience. Man still lives according to conscience today. You know, you have a conscience and that conscience tells you when you're doing right or wrong. It's good to obey that conscience. If you don't obey that conscience and you start to push that conscience off, the Bible calls that searing your conscience. And you can dull that thing to the point where it doesn't bother you anymore. And you wonder why people in jail don't think anything's wrong with what they're doing or what they're in jail for. It's because they have seared their conscience, they've defiled their conscience. You wonder why the politicians want to push abortion, late-term abortion, or even after-birth abortions, or why they want to make... Was it Oregon? I was listening on the news, maybe one of you know, but they were saying that literally any drug is legal on the streets. The cops cannot make arrests for any drugs on the streets. And what is that? That's a searing of your conscience. Any rational, normal person would know that that's wrong, that there's something wrong with that, and that should be illegal. We should make a law against that, right? And against abortion, and against certain things, a lot of things that we could list off. But that's our conscience, and so at the very least we have that. But what we're seeing here is that Abraham, and I believe Job, and I believe a lot of people of that day, had a very clear understanding of who God was. When we look backwards, and a lot of times this is what we like to do as people, We like to push off our responsibility on, well, what about so-and-so? What about back then? They didn't have a King James Bible. We didn't have the Bible until 1611, so are you telling me that all those people You see, when we come into these arguments because we like to think that it gets us off the hook. We're not responsible. Well, they had just as much. Well, we I think we have better. I think the Bible even tells us we have better. Even the Bible itself is purified seven times. Right. But they had what God said they needed. They had the words of his lips. They had the words of his mouth, the commandments, the statutes, the laws and the charges from God. And so, they are just as much without excuse as we are without excuse in this day and age, which removes any excuse. In this age of grace, we not only honor the Mosaic Law, but we follow others given in this age. Now, just because we're in the age of grace, I'm just gonna make this quick point, go over to Romans chapter 2, or Romans chapter, I want Romans 2, I want Romans 3. You know, we are not under law, we are under grace. That's Bible. But look what Paul says about the law, the written law, the Mosaic law. Romans three and verse 31. It says, Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid. Yeah, we establish the law. Let's go back a couple of chapters to chapter seven. of Romans. And let's start in verse 12. Paul says again, Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid, but sin that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual. But I am carnal, sold under sin. So just because we're in the New Testament does not mean that we don't follow the commandments of God, is what I'm saying. Yeah, we might be in the age of grace and we may be of given grace and we're supposed to walk in the Spirit. If we walk in the Spirit, Romans chapter 8 tells us that we won't fulfill the lusts of the flesh. So that's the key to us as New Testament believers is to walk in the spirit. And if you've been coming on Thursday nights, you've been getting Thursday nights, Sunday nights. John is Thursday nights. Tuesday is Bible Institute, Matthew and Hebrew. And yeah, it does run together. But if you've been coming to get to the idea of the fruits of the spirit, you see how that can. The Bible tells you in that chapter that against such there is no law. So if you fully walk in the Spirit, then you can have at it. You can have as much of that fruit as you want to have. But in doing so, you actually will be fulfilling the Mosaic Law. Because what is the fulfillment of the Mosaic Law? Does anybody know? It's the Royal Law. It's called the Royal Law. We'll talk about that in just a second. But it's love thy neighbor as thyself. So if you are having those fruits of the Spirit, you're kind of a harmless peacemaker in this world. You're not looking for war, you're not looking to kill people, you're not looking to make everybody believe what you believe, right? But the things of God, other than the specifics of keeping the Sabbath day or bringing a lamb for a sacrifice, we know that was done away with in Christ. Those kind of things we know we don't do. But all the other laws of God, those are good to follow and good to do. But the simple thing for us is just to walk in the spirit. We have more power today to fulfill the Mosaic law than they did under that law. because they had to do it of their own righteousness, of their own accord. We get the power of the Holy Ghost. The one that teaches us the Bible also helps us to walk in that spirit, the spirit, the Holy Spirit. It gives us that. And we have to be filled with that spirit, which I'd love to get off on a tangent here. How do you get filled with the spirit? And I've done a whole lesson in Bible Institute before on how to be filled with the Spirit. And some of those things include what we do, the wrong that we do brings the Spirit down, the right that we do brings the Spirit up. Just to summarize it, just because we're sealed with the Holy Spirit doesn't mean we're walking with the Holy Spirit and it doesn't mean we're filled with it. It just means we're sealed by it. You can have a sealed jar and that jar could be empty. But you could have a sealed jar and it could be full. It's up to you how you want to be walking in the spirit. But anyway, we have other laws in this age. Go to chapter 8 if you're still in Romans. Look at chapter 8 and then look at verses 2 through 4. It's called the law of the spirit of life. We've been talking about it. It says, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. That's an amazing passage of scripture. I love Romans chapter 8. I go back and forth over that chapter a lot. And there's just a lot in there. But the law of the spirit of life is what we have been given in Jesus Christ. So as we walk in the spirit, Jesus, He is the righteousness of God. And it says that in verse 4, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. I mean, think about that. The law that no one could keep. is fulfilled in each one of you if you are walking in the Spirit because of Christ. Then we have another law that's given and we'll just hurry through this. Go to Galatians chapter 6. You have at least these two laws as a New Testament Christian. The law of the Spirit of life and Galatians 6.2. And we did this already this morning, to some degree, we prayed for one another. And the Bible says, brethren, in verse one, brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, there's that word again, you need to be spiritual, walking in the spirit, restore such in one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Now verse two, bear ye one another's burdens, that's how you do it from verse one, bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. So we have a higher law and that law today is the law of Christ. You know, we don't go backwards to the Old Testament law. I've had a good conversation this week with someone who did and wants to take you back to that Old Testament all the time. Of course, anybody, even the Catholic that Mrs. Gordon has prayed for that she's going to talk to is going to want to follow that law. But we have a higher law, and that's the law of Christ, the law of the spirit of life. And part of fulfilling the law of Christ is fulfillment of the law is love thy neighbor as thyself. and to love thy neighbor as thyself, then it includes bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. You see, so if we're not praying for one another, we're not walking in the Spirit. If we're not praying for one another, we're not fulfilling what we've been called to do, follow the law of Christ. If we're not helping one another when we can, if we can, we're not fulfilling the law of Christ. So we've got basically a higher command at this point as in the age of grace. But you know what? It should be a joy to us to follow that. It should not be a burden to us to think that, you know, this is this is heavy. This is heavy duty. I mean, I got to help other people. I mean, I got to love the brethren. Yeah, we could go into all of that this morning. We won't. But just understand that they could do it back then without even having the word of God. We've got the benefit of the word of God, of being in the age of grace. And we've got two very simple commands. Just walk in the spirit and don't fulfill the lust of the flesh in the process. because that's a natural consequence. Get the fruits of the Spirit, I'll help you with that, and then help one another, so fulfill the law of Christ. All right, moving on. Verse 6-11, let's go there, verses 6-11. And Isaac dwelt in Gerar. He did what the Lord told him to do. Verse 7, And the men of the place asked him of his wife. This is a familiar situation, right? Asked him of his wife and said, She is my sister. For he feared. Just the same reason for the lie of Abraham was fear. And we said before when Abraham did it, now we've all done it, so we're not looking down our noses, but fear sometimes will cause you to lie. And so you might wanna be careful about that. But anyway, for he feared to say, she is my wife, lest, said he, the men of the place should kill me for Rebecca. Who cares about Rebecca? I don't wanna die, right? Because she was fair to look upon. And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech, king of the Philistines... Now this Abimelech, by the way, is... I looked at it before and I forget how many years approximately this is later, but it's probably the idea of like the word Pharaoh. or Herod in the Bible. You know you read about more than one Pharaoh, you read about more than one Herod, and in this situation I think we're reading about more than one Abimelech. It's like a title for that office that they assume this name. So I don't think it's the same guy that was dealing with Abraham about it. In fact, if you read through the whole chapter, you're going to see that this guy was not like the other Abimelech. He was a step away from that other Abimelech. So when it came to pass, in verse eight, it came to pass when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out a window and saw, and behold, Isaac sporting with Rebekah, his wife. Now, sporting, in my Bible, it just says is archaic English for caressing. And the idea of sporting with your wife is, you know, holding hands, having fun, you know, getting intimate close, where someone would tell, oh, they're married, they're together, you know, at least that. In verse 9, And Abimelech called Isaac and said, Behold, of a surety she is thy wife. And how saidest thou, She is my sister. And Isaac said unto him, Because I said, lest I die for her. And the Bible said, What is this that thou hast done? One of the people might lightly have lying with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us. What? Oh, we might have just lightly just, you know. Taking your wife and done what we please with her, and then you would have been guilty, you would have made us guilty. You see the hypocrisy there. I mean, you know, you're guilty for wanting his wife, right? So it's anyway and Abimelech charged all his people saying he that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death So at least he did that. We'll give him credit for that. So here we find Isaac repeating a sin of his father, all right? It isn't likely. Now, I'll jump ahead in my notes a little bit if you're reading them. We're gonna have the discussion of generational sins here, because this is where people will preach from and say, well, see, Abraham did it, and so Isaac did it, and so there's this trend in our family that everyone's gonna do it. You know, everyone that's born of our line is an alcoholic. Everyone that's born in our line, you know, uses drugs. And I could just say, well, everyone born in your line lies. And everyone born in your line, you know, cheats. And, you know, we could go on and on, and we could list off all the sins. We're guilty of all the sins. And I'm not a big fan of this idea of generational sins, but we'll look at it here in a minute. And so it isn't likely that Abraham shared his past experience with Isaac. And that was why he did it. I don't think Abraham did that. I don't think he brought that forward. And it's recommended that you do not, you do not feel obligated to have to share your past life with your children. Okay, that's your past. And just because you did something wrong doesn't mean that your kids are excusable for doing the same wrong. Well, you know, it runs in the family. Not an excuse. It doesn't run in the family. You know, we've done studies. I've brought them here. I've showed you top geneticists in the world that have disproven the idea that being gay is in your DNA. It's not. They've proven that. Hundreds of thousands of people test it, and people that claim to be gay, and even identical twins. One's gay and one's not. They look at the genetic. It does not run in your family. You know, the Bible doesn't call you an alcoholic. The Bible calls you a drunk. You know why it calls you a drunk? Because it's your choice. You don't have a disease that was passed down from your mama that causes you to be this way. Now, you may have tendencies and you may have traits. You know, you might look like your mama. or your daddy, and you might be left-handed like they were, or you might have some other trait that they passed on to you, the same color hair, the same color eyes, etc., etc. You may even have the same sense of humor, and you may actually have the same setbacks that they have. You may find the things funny that they find funny, and so on. But that doesn't mean that sin, that God is causing the next generation to commit sin. That's the idea. He even though that I don't believe that Abraham passed on the story and suggested anything to his son and that his son followed that, by the way, that's the idea of not telling your children everything. You don't necessarily want to have them clued in on everything, because as soon as you put the thought in their mind that you did it. It's just like, well, I only drink it for medicine. You know, I only drink the alcohol for medicine, or I just do it in my private time. You know, I think a wine with my spaghetti dinner is good. I just do that because I'm Italian, you know, and that's what we do. And then your kids see that, and that's full green light permission for them to go out at the party where they're invited to drink to take the drink. because you do it moderately, they do it in excess. I have a note here. I'll read it to you. This is from Adam Clark. He's from the 1800s and he was a Methodist. He was born in 1762, but he was a Methodist. A Methodist back then was, you know, John Wesley was a Methodist and he was a contemporary and all that. But he said, it's very strange that in the same place and in similar circumstances, Isaac should have denied his wife precisely as his father had done before him. Is it natural to ask, did Abraham never mention this circumstance to his son? Probably he did not. He agrees with me. And he was justly ashamed of his weakness on the occasion, or as he was justly ashamed. The only blot in his character, the son, therefore, not being forewarned, was not armed against the temptation. Now he takes a slightly different view. He's saying, because you didn't warn your son of what I did, that he made the same mistake. Now, there's truth in that. When you see your child doing something that you know is going to end in a dead end, you might want to let them know, hey, I've been down that road before, but you don't have to get specific. Right now, let me read on what he says. It may not be well in general for parents to tell their children of their former failings or vices, as this might lessen their authority or respect, and the child might make a bad use of it in extenuation of their own sins. But there are certain cases which, from the nature of their circumstances, may often occur where a candid acknowledgement with suitable advice may prevent those children from repeating the evil. But this should be done with great delicacy and caution, lest even the advice itself should serve as an incentive to the evil. I had not known lust, Paul said, if the law had not said, Thou shalt not covet. See, the Bible even bears witness with this idea. When you expose something as sin, guess what your flesh wants to do? I want to do it. I want to see if my dad's right about that. I want to see if I'm stronger than him. I want to see if I can face the same thing and not have the same problem. So sometimes you say, well, then I'm just a sham, I'm a hypocrite. Well, good, be a hypocrite. You don't have to bring all your skeletons out of your closet so everybody sees you bare. Right? You can play the role. It's okay. You've been forgiven of your past. Christ forgot about it. He put it away. And so you can just equally put it away and just promote living for Christ, walking in the spirit. Right? That's really all we really need to do. All right, but that's enough on that. But let's talk about generational sins. There's no denying that we pass down good and bad traits to one another. But the idea of generational sins, I believe, is vastly exaggerated. First, the consequences of sin can pass on to the third and fourth generation. Look at Exodus 20. Notice, I didn't finish reading what I had on the sheet. The consequences of sin can pass on to the third and fourth generation. But not the sin itself. You don't read that in the Bible. Exodus 20 and verse 5 says, 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 under the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. Now there's other verses in the Bible worded exactly the same way that say that it will pass on to the third and fourth generation. But it's the iniquity of the fathers being passed down. So the one thing you do have to worry about, fathers and mothers, is that what you do, the consequences of what you do, pass down. You can't help it. I mean, one of the clear, easy examples for me to tell you is if if a woman is pregnant, if she's with child and she's an alcoholic, that baby may suffer the consequences of you being an alcoholic. And it's going to pass down. The Lord doesn't guarantee that that baby is going to be an alcoholic, but that child is going to have some problems. And so that's just a real easy one to pick. But the Bible never tells you that the sin passes down. Look at Jeremiah, Chapter 32. Jeremiah 32, 18. Thou showed it, thou show us loving kindness unto thousands and recompenses 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. So we're recompensing. It's a recompense of the iniquity of the fathers. It's not saying that you're destined to be a mass murderer if your father was. Otherwise, it'd be easy to just get rid of your line of people, right? There has to be a way to break that cycle, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But the second thing is, we all have sin dwelling in our members. We don't have to turn to Romans 7-5 for sake of time, but the Bible talks in that verse about how sin dwells in our members. So you could be an orphan, and not even know your mother or your father, and never have seen them a day in your life, you are not destined to turn out like they did. It's all about your choices in life. We're not Calvinistic in that way either, where everything is predetermined by our DNA. We're just a ball of chemicals. That's what psychology thinks. Psychiatrists just think that you are not in control of yourself because you're just a mass of chemicals. And you're just going to get triggered on this or that. And so that's what they say is, you know, well, you're the kind of person if you take a drink of alcohol, it affects you differently than it affects him because you're an alcoholic, because it's in your DNA. and they sell us a bill of goods, it's not true. So Romans 7, 5 says that, and Hebrews 12, 1, we don't have to turn to that because I think you understand that one too. We have weights that beset us, or sins that easily beset us, and then we have weights that are in this world. And the Bible tells us, 1 Corinthians 10, 13, that this is common to man. It's common to man. You know what we all have? We all have a DNA problem. I'll accept that in that the fact that we're in Adam all die. But even so in Christ, shall we all be made alive, right? And so we have a problem of death, and the wages of sin is death, right? And that's why it works in our members, and that's why it easily besets us, and that's why it's common to man. You have a common ancestor, it's Adam, and you have that, we all have a sin tendency. But don't ever say, well, I do that because I'm prone to do that because of, and blame my father for it. or blame my mother for it, because they are not to blame. Now, they may have influenced you. They may have taught you wrong. But that's different than saying, I can't help myself. All right. The third thing is that we don't take responsibility of our own lives and that of our family. Iniquity is sure to visit. Now, I just mentioned that in terms of how you were raised. Go to Proverbs and look at Proverbs, Chapter five. We do have some responsibility in how we shape the next generation. We have great responsibility. As a matter of fact, that's why you're a parent. If you're a parent, that's your job. Your job is not to give birth to your best friend. Now you may get a best friend out of that someday, and chances are if you raise them according to what we're going to read here, you will have a best friend. But that's not the purpose of when they're in your house, right? The purpose of you sending your kids to school is not to make the teacher to be their best friend. The teacher is supposed to be the teacher. And there was a day when the teacher was the disciplinarian as well. And they made sure your little Johnny was behaving, right? And doing what he was supposed to do. But not anymore. That's not the way it is today. But look at Proverbs chapter 5, look at verse 22. This is what happens to somebody if he's not corrected. It says, his own iniquity shall take the wicked himself and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. So what happens is people get down the road or they get no discipline in life. They don't come to church, you know, because we don't bring our kids to church anymore unless there's, you know, some kind of fun day coming up, you know, some kind of activity or entertainment that they can have. Well, they get plenty of entertainment out in the world. They're getting plenty of entertainment out there at school. Trust me, school is nothing but entertainment anymore. And bad entertainment at that. And then on top of that, we want to take our kids and bring them to church so they can get more entertained. Or where there's friends for my kids. Well, there's no friends for my kids. Well, yeah, but are they getting good preaching there? You know, God can bring friends along. And He will. And you can be patient. And remember we started off the class about suffering for Christ? You know, we don't always have to make a smooth road for ourselves. And so anyway, what happens is, at some point, eventually, we get to this cop-out. Well, it's your parents, you know? It's just in your bloodline. It's who you are. And maybe it is in terms of how they raised you, but not because of genetics. But the Bible says, the iniquities will take you. And you'll behold them with those cords. And it's your fault. Alright, and so let's look at another verse here in Proverbs. Look at chapter 23. We'll take it a little bit out of order. We're going to go to 22 also, but look at 23. And look at verse 14. This is why this becomes so important. This is a spiritual thing. This is not a cultural thing to spank your kids. This is not a dominant society who wants to rule over their children and we don't understand that we want them to be our buddies. This is a spiritual thing. You do not want your kids to grow up and be holding with the cords of their sins. The last thing I know everyone in this room wants is to have their child go to hell. Right? I don't want anyone to go to hell, frankly. But let alone my child. And so I don't want to raise them in such a way that they're going to be holding with the cords of their sins. And guess whose responsibility it will be? Whose blood will whose blood will be on whose hands? My own. Look at Chapter 23. Look at verse 14 or look at look at verse 13 and start there. Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. People say, well, how many times should I spank my child? Well, the Bible says you should spank him B times. That's many, many times. But it also says, give him a good beating. You know, you don't you know, the idea is pain. That's really the idea of it. Inflict some pain from someone that they love. And you know what that does? That brings disappointment. I don't want to disappoint my child. I don't want to ruin their self-esteem. Yes, you do. Now, you don't necessarily want to ruin their self-esteem. I understand where that goes. But you want to disappoint. You want them to be disappointed that the person that they look up to and love is disappointed with them. And you beat them to the point where they get enough pain out of it to where they're crying. And so that they can come back to you and guess what? They'll say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And that's what you want. Because one of these days you want them to run to their heavenly father and say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be such a sinner. I'm wrong. And my parents taught me through the spankings that that is what I am to you. I'm a disappointment to you, God. I am nothing. I abhor myself, as Job said. And so read on. It says, if thou beatest with him with the rod, he shall not die. So you beat him often and you beat him hard. You can laugh a little bit with me. Verse 14, thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell. Now wait a minute, God. I mean, I believe the King James Bible and all, but that just must be poetic language. Beat him and save his soul from hell. My old pastor used to say, beat the hell out of him. Now I'm sorry if that offends you, but that's what he used to say. And we got the point. Now, we understand, don't we? We understand, do I have to go through this? Do we understand that we don't punch them in the face? We don't kick them with the end of our boot. We're not throwing them down the stairs. All right? We're not twisting their arms. And I've seen some parents pinch their children to the point where it's unbearable. They just pinch, you know, don't be cruel. That's cruel. You ought to go to jail if you do that kind of thing. And I'll be the first one to call and say, they need to go to jail. But beating him, a spanking has never killed anybody. Hey, listen, I'm living proof I didn't die. And so and you probably got spankings, too. And you know what? You're better off for it. I don't care what you say. You're better off for it. And the Lord says, if you do it, you'll save a soul from hell. Why? Because of what I just told you a minute ago. All right. Now, look, look further. Look at Chapter 22. Go back the page and look at 22 and look at verse eight. He that soweth iniquity, now this is a problem right here. This is another spiritual thing. He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity, and the rod of his anger shall fail. Well, I spanked my kids. I spanked my kids just like you said. It doesn't work, so I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm not going to follow the Bible anymore. That's a big mistake, number one. But second of all, well, wait a minute. Why isn't it working? Well, I spanked them hard like you told me. Okay, well, why isn't it working? Maybe it's you. You read that verse. He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity and the rod of his anger shall fail. You know why? Because they're looking back at dad and saying, well, you spanking me for the same thing you do. You're spanking me for this, but you do that. And you know what? They look at you. You're a hypocrite. You're a fraud. And you know what I'm sick of? I'm sick of meeting ex Baptists. who watched their parents play the game of being a Baptist and go to church and put on the role, only to go home and be a totally different person. And then by the time they're 18, guess where they're at? They're gone. They're not in church. And they're spitting on your grave, if they could, because they're saying, I don't want any part of that stuff. and they're out there by the millions. Literally. Let's look at another verse. Let's look at verse 15 of the same chapter. Proverbs 22. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. Foolishness is bound in there. That's a spiritual thing. But the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. There's a couple things. I didn't mean to spend this long on this area of our lesson, but there's a couple things in there. Foolishness, number one is bound. And you know what the fool is, right? Fool has said there is no God. You know what else fool does? Fools make a mock at sin. And so if you if that's in your child and God says, hey, I'm letting you know your little angel, he's a fool. He's born that way. He was born with a sin nature. And the sooner you recognize that, the better off. I know they're cute and they smile and they do stuff and you oh, well, you know, and you just overlook every little transgression because they're so cute. But they're not going to be cute for very long, right? They're going to be doing things that are like the terrible twos and beyond. And so, there's foolishness bound up in their heart. Well, how do I get rid of that? Well, you don't reason with a two-year-old. You know that's impossible, right? First of all, they don't understand reasoning. The only reasoning they understand is pain. And that's why the Lord suggests it or commands it. And then he says, but the rod of correction. You see, that's how you correct. We're not reasoning. We're not saying, hey, well, this is why. No, I said so. That's why I even if I just don't like it because it's my house and I don't like that when you do that, then don't do it around me. Don't do it at all, as a matter of fact. But I give and how do I give that correction with a spanking? With the pain. It's not just, well I had a talk with him and he's okay now. I doubt it. I bet you he's going to do it again. And your little talk, and even if you spank him, you're going to have to do it times. But do it God's way and it'll be better off. Go to chapter 19. Go to chapter 19 and look at verse 18. And this is the last verse we'll look at. I'm trying to correct this generational sins idea. You may have done that yourself. And say, well, when I was a kid, I was a little terror, too. When I was a little kid, I mouthed off, too. Yeah, you probably did. And hopefully, you got spanked for it. But there's no excuse for him to do it, your child to do it, or your daughter to do it. It's no excuse. All right? You still get out the rod and say, well, I feel so bad because, you know, I'm no different. Yeah, you're no different. That's why you need to correct him. You want him to grow up to be like you? You know, one of the biggest fears I had of being a dad was I didn't want my kids to grow up to be like me. I don't want that. So I tried to follow the Bible. Chapter 19, verse 18, it says, Chasten thy son while there is hope. And let not thy soul spare for his crying, by the way. Well, they're crying, it's breaking my heart. Yeah, well, get through it. It will break your heart, I guarantee it'll break your heart. But you just gotta do it anyway. You're a parent, you're a leader, you're a boss, you're in charge, right? You wanna break the generational curse, which there is none, but you wanna break the iniquity that follows, the recompense that comes, then do this. And you can be, even if you've never been saved, if your family's never been saved in the past, you can be the generation that is. And your children will know nothing except a Christian home. Man, what a wonderful thing. You can be the beginning of that. Don't fall back on this garbage that well, you know. But it says, while there is hope. You know there is a point where there is not much hope anymore? I think it's around like 12 and 13. Maybe even 11. But there's a point where there's no hope. And it's not a bad idea, and I'm not going to give you an age, but maybe I will, but at least by the time they're almost two, and I would do it even before, you might want to start this practice that the Bible tells you to do, because there's hope then. And there's hope that by the time they're even five and six years old, they're already being able to be corrected by words. And it does go into them like stripes. Like the Bible talks about a wise man receives the instruction. And so there's a time when there's no hope. There's a time when you just can't do this anymore. When you can't pull out the rod because they'll turn on you. and you'll have a big mess on your hands. And then you'll be coming to church, and I don't mean to belittle anybody who does this, because we do it too. You'll be coming to church and you'll be saying, pray for my son. Pray for my daughter. I don't know where it went wrong, but they're out in the world. And I'm just fearful that they're going to die and go to hell someday. I mean, take an honest look, an inventory of how you're raising your children is all I'm saying. This idea of generational sins. The Bible can, the Bible helps you with that. All right? Finally, the last thing there, finally, if you do not have a Christian upbringing, you're not doomed. You can get saved. And that's the first step. Right? And if you're worried about, well, I don't want to be an alcoholic like my father. I don't want to be a drug addict like my father or my mother. I don't want to commit suicide like they did. There's people that that have that problem too. I don't want to have this. Well, the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5 21, it's written out for you on the paper for he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God and him. You know, you could be made righteous. Didn't we just read in Romans 8 that he fulfilled the righteousness in us? That sounds like he broke the chain. It sounds like he broke the curse, the generational curse that's upon you, right? Romans 8.1 is also there. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. I'm not in Romans 8, so I won't read verse 3, but I'll go back to Exodus 20, where we started, and look at verse 6. Would you go back there for me? Exodus 20. And we'll start back in verse 5, where we started. Exodus 20, verse 5. 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, under the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. That should be underlined in your Bible, of them that hate me. You see, if you get saved, you're not hating God at that point. And God says, I only do it to those that hate me. But then look at verse six, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. So before you have, you know, pity party and before you decide that, well, I'm just this way, you might just want to say, well, no, wait a minute. No, that's not true, according to the Bible. And I have a choice in the matter. And my choice is to serve God and to receive God. And Isaac simply did what thousands of other people would have done under the same circumstance. That's why Abraham did it. He was fearful. And, you know, when you're fearful, you lie. And Isaac found himself in this very same situation, and the Lord is just showing us, you see what he did too? He's got all the promises, he's got a future ahead of him, I'm giving him the earth, his posterity will be like the sands of the sea and the stars of the heaven, he'll have all these nations, and here comes the king, and he fears the king who I told him he would have his kingdom. And we all do it, and so we need to just be aware that we don't have to. Now verses 12 through 16. Then Isaac sowed in that land and received in the same year and hundredfold and the Lord blessed him. And the man waxed great and went forward and grew until he became very great. For he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and great store of servants and the Philistines envied him. Verse 15, for all the wells which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them and filled them with earth. And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us, for thou art much mightier than we. Now, we might and we might end up ending here in the lesson. But God's promise of blessing given in verse three that we read earlier in the chapter about having all the same blessings that he gave to Abraham. was abundant, it says there, and it says and hundred fold. So according to Mark four, 20, and you don't have to turn to it, I have it written out. And these are they which are sown on good ground, such as hear the word and receive it and bring forth some 30 fold, some 60 and some 100. So when you bring a I would want to be the guy that brought forth 100, you know, the seed is sown in your life. The word of God is sown in your life. Do you want to be the guy who only brings forth 30 percent of what God has shown you? You know, there are a lot of Christians like that. They only bring forth, you know, well, I'll give God 30% of my time. That's kind of what we do, maybe. I don't even think it's 30% when we come to church. You understand that, right? I mean, we'll be here till what? You know, 3 o'clock? Till 12.30 today? We start at 9.30. That's three hours. We'll come back tonight for an hour. We'll come back even Tuesday night for another three hours. And then, I don't know what the math comes out, but I don't think it's 30%. But that's God's low bar. When I give out the word of God, I get at least 30%, but not out of a lot of Christians. I'd say most Christians, he doesn't even get 30% of their time. And then it says, some 60, that's better than 50%, right? At least I'm giving God more than half, I'm doing pretty well. But then he says to Isaac, some and hundredfold. And he told Isaac, I'm gonna give you a hundredfold. That's a great blessing. So because of that, the Philistines, this is on your sheet, the Philistines envied him. They envied him. That's in verse 14 of Genesis 26. So that's the same motive the Pharisees had for killing Jesus. Watch out for envy. Look through the Bible on envy, and it's one of the things that God warns you against. It's in the similar family of coveting and wanting things that don't belong to you and envying what someone, you know, the Bible says comparing yourselves to yourselves. You're not wise. You shouldn't do that when we stay in your own lane. We mean that. Look, you and God, that's it. You and God, you know, you your life ought to be completely happy if it's just nothing but you and God. Well, my my spouse, no, you and God will know my children. No, you and God. All right. If you have you and God, then you don't have to envy thing. Any anyone else or anything else when you get envy in your life? And by the way, this is the first mention of the word envy in the Bible. And it's a negative mention. And you follow it through and it's always negative. Right. If you get envy in your life, you might end up like these Pharisees wanting to kill somebody. Say, well, I never want to kill anybody. What are you talking about? That's the beginning of envy. When you want something so bad and you envy someone else so bad, I'm just telling you, they envied him. I think they wanted to kill him. They wanted to get rid of him. By the way, look at first Corinthians 13, just real quick. I could make a study out of this. I have done a study out of this, but I'm not going to do it today. But first Corinthians 13, verse four. This is the charity. This is the chapter, the love chapter, as the world likes to tell you. But it's charity. That word is very specific in your Bible. The first Corinthians 13 and verse four. Look what charity. Well, let me just take one minute on it, OK? Let's start with verse one, chapter 13, verse one. Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity, I am become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." So if you speak in tongues, do you equate that with the filling of the Spirit and the double blessing or whatever they call it, right? And I walk with God, I know I'm saved because I speak in tongues. The Bible says, well, do you have charity? Because if you don't have charity, you're just a little sounding brass or a little tinkle. You know, you're nothing. And then it says, and though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries, that sounds great. And all knowledge, I would like that, too. And though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains. Nobody had faith like that in the Bible, by the way. Nobody. And have not charity, I am nothing. So you can have something that no one else had in the Bible, enough faith to move a mountain. But if you didn't have charity, Lord says, that's nothing. That's nothing. That this charity thing is connected with walking in the spirit. Those fruits of the spirit you're talking about on Sunday nights, that's talk that connects here with charity. These are things that you that are manifest in your life as you have a walk with God. And that you don't envy other people, you and God have this walk together and these things start to come out, and that's what God wants from you. He doesn't want you to speak in tongues and have all knowledge and show off and be on TV and everybody, you know, wants your autograph and all. Look what it says in verse four. Well, look at first three. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, isn't the Catholic Church doing that? That's the idea of all the given to the, you know, to the needy and all the commercials on TV, St. Jude and all that stuff. It's good. But that's what people think. And though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Oh, I thought I was laying up treasures in heaven by giving to the poor. It doesn't profit you anything if you don't have charity. I mean, this is a convicting chapter, but verse four is where I was going. Charity suffers long and is kind. Charity envieth not. I'm just going to stop right there. Charity envieth not that word envy. You follow that through the Bible and you're going to see that when you begin to look around and envy other people, it's the beginning of a downward spiral for you. You you need we really do need to focus on God and walk with God, me and God. And you know what? I don't care what you think about me. I don't care what anybody thinks about me. That's your ought to be your attitude. I walk with God and I do what God tells me to do. And I don't care if you don't like it or do like it. It's me and God. I stand before him someday. And one of these days I'll live with him for eternity. Not you. Maybe you, folks, because you're the body of Christ as well, but not this world. So anyway, back to your sheet. And rather than convert to God, they saw the prosperity in Isaac's life. And rather than convert to God, the Philistines chose to fill up all his wells. Now, wells are a type of, you know, it's a good thing in the Bible. That's where God is blessing. Verse 15 says they filled them with earth. Earth. That's a strange thing to call it. Earth. What's this earth? Well, it's this world. And we're not supposed to love this world. And so here comes the Philistines. What happens is the Philistines come along and they see the good that you're doing. You know what they want to do? They want to fill you with a bunch of earth. and they want to make sure that you just, well, we need to straighten you out. And so this world system seeks to suppress the knowledge of God by filling the wells with earth. They ask their people, that's the people of this world, to focus on these things. Education, politics, social issues, saving the planet, space exploration, human rights, helping your fellow man. Isn't that what the world is asking us to do? Isn't that what they're asking? Isn't the purpose of life? Listen to people. Do yourself a favor. Go out in this world, read some books, open up some books, go to the bookstore and just start perusing books, watch TV, whatever, and just see what people say when they say, I found my purpose in life. It's shocking what people say. You know, I started working with these dogs, and I think I found my purpose. I don't think you found your purpose. I think you found a way to make some money, but not your purpose. I mean, God didn't put you on this earth to work with dogs. I started doing this, and I just love it so much, I really think I found my cause in life. No, you didn't. Your cause in life, the purpose for life is to get to know God before you get out of here. You know, basic instructions before leaving earth, Bible. You know, that's the idea. You've got a vapor of a lifetime. It's going to be over shortly. It's going to vanish away, and you're consumed with your education? You're consumed with space exploration? I'll be there, not in a vapor. I'll be there, and I'll tell you what it's all about. All right? I don't have to explore it right now. But you don't go to church? Oh, I see. Because you followed the Philistines. They filled you with earth, you see? Here's one of the things that Pastor and I recently discovered, and it's not necessarily recent, but it just came to light again, and I'm going to share it with you. We studied Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible. I'm just going to give you some facts. I gave you some facts back at that time, but I'm going to give you some facts about Sodom and Gomorrah. Do you know that we have discovered where that is? Do you know that we've known where Sodom and Gomorrah is? At least this modern age, we've known where that is since the 1920s. Back in 19 I have it written here 1924 was the earliest date, you know here given in at least in America I'm sure that people in this day right here Abimelech knew where Sodom was He was a contemporary of that time. He saw the destruction He saw how that where the Bible says it was a garden like the Garden of God and was well watered When you go there today, there's no water There's nothing but ash And people have driven by this for centuries and just driven by it. Well, we wouldn't want to stop there. We wouldn't want to plant a garden there. We wouldn't want to build a house there. And they overlooked the idea of what the Bible says. Now, Sodom and Gomorrah was discovered in the 20s. It was also explored in the 60s, in the 70s, in the 80s and the 90s. That's, you know, the 90s, that's 30 plus years ago already. So let me ask you, some of you who are in your 30s or you're young, you just come out of school not too long ago, where was it in your textbook that they discovered Sodom and Gomorrah? Do you remember that? I mean, can anybody raise their hand and say, yeah, I was in this college and they told me all about the amazing exploration over there and we found Sodom and Gomorrah. And what's amazing about it is the facts. The facts, and I'm just going to give you a couple, that you can go there and you can actually see structures, literal structures of buildings. You can see doors, complete door openings. I mean, still square. You can see window openings. You can see high rise buildings. You can see sphinxes. You can see all these things. And then when you go up to those things and you touch them, guess what you do? It just falls apart like this because it's nothing but ash, 100% ash. That's all it is. Now how is that possible? That doesn't happen anywhere else. And not to mention it's in the exact location as what we've been reading here in Genesis of where it is. And so, you go up to that ash and you start digging in, and while I'm telling you this, turn to 2 Peter, okay? You put your finger up to that ash and you start digging in, or you take a spoon and you start digging in, and you pull that ash away, and then you find this little white ball. And in that little white ball, you pull it out and you smell it, and it smells like sulfur, because it's sulfur. It's sulfur balls by the millions, millions of them. And these sulfur balls have been taken to a lab and tested. And they've been tested to be over 98% pure sulfur. You can take these balls, a lighter and light them, and they will burn and melt right in front of your eyes, to extreme heat. Do you know that any volcano that we know of today that produces sulfur balls? You say, I can explain how they got there. No, you can't, because any sulfur balls that come out of a volcano are about 40 to 47 percent pure sulfur. They're not almost 100% pure sulfur. All right? And so that's what you find everywhere. Look at, I got to get there myself, 2 Peter chapter 2. Where's 2 Peter at? 2 Peter 2 and look at verse 6. Look what Peter said about the city of Sodom and Gomorrah. It's funny how Sodom and Gomorrah shows up throughout the Bible. But 2 and verse 6. And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes. Oh, that's just one of those figurative, wonderful, poetic statements of the King James Bible. You know, it just turned to ash. It literally turned to ash. You can go there and you can see it for you. You know, there are no barricades there. You can go right there. Do you know that there are no signs posted there back in the 20s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s and 90s? All the people have gone and they haven't even put a sign. This was Sodom and Gomorrah. You just drive right by it. And it says it says what?