This is the 15th article in a series entitled Wonderful Counseling. You can read the rest of the associated articles by clicking on the link above.
God’s righteous judgment upon sin, which is called the curse of the Law, is part of the reaping attached to the sowing of sin. As Paul put it, “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23)
Sin has consequences, and all of them are bad.
Paul also wrote:
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Galatians 6:7 (ESV)
Sowing and reaping works for good and for bad, which is reflected in God’s proclamation to Moses in Exodus.
The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” Exodus 34:6-7 (ESV)
This passage brings into focus the generational or corporate nature of judgment.
Personal Sin Carries Corporate Consequences
The old saying that the evil I do in private only hurts me is simply not true.
For example, in the time of Joshua, when Israel was in the process of conquering Canaan, God place a ban of destruction on the city of Jericho. He warned the Israelites that no one was to take any of the loot for themselves. It all belonged to God. Achan decided to secretly disobey God by stealing some silver, gold, and a Babylonian garment. In so doing he brought judgment upon the entire nation. (Joshua 7:1) When his sin was eventually exposed by God, he and his immediate family were sentenced to death by stoning. Achan’s private sin brought terrible consequences upon others in his family. Furthermore, his disobedience resulted in many Israelites outside of his family being killed in battle. The entire nation suffered because of one man’s secret sin.
There are no lack of historical examples of corporate “reaping” for the “sins of the fathers.” The USA endured a horrible Civil War, which many believe was a form of judgment against the injustices connected to slavery. Many of those who suffered and died in the conflict never owned slaves or approved of the practice; nevertheless, they were caught up in the conflagration that engulfed the nation. Many citizens of Germany, most of them old men, women, and children, including those who likely opposed the Nazis’ crimes, died in the horrific fire bombings inflicted by Allied bombers, as the horrible suffering inflicted on the rest of Europe returned upon Germany with a vengeance. The common people suffered greatly for the decisions and deeds of their leaders. The Israelites who lived in Babylon during the captivity never may have participated in idolatry, but they suffered the consequences of their forefathers’ disloyalty to God.
As Jeremiah wrote:
Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities. Lamentations 5:7 (ESV)
Need I go on? Can we agree that innocent people often reap judgment and experience the consequences of other people’s sins? Can we agree that innocent children sometimes suffer for a lifetime because of the sins of their parents or other adults? Alcoholism and sexual, emotional, verbal, and physical abuse inflict pain upon the immediate family that often reverberates for many generations. Abuse engenders abuse. Hurt people hurt people.
Sins usually produce negative consequences that extend generationally, unless their destructive effects are somehow neutralized.
Forgiveness and Prayer Do Not Necessarily Stop the Reaping Process
Imagine that a suicidal person climbs to the top of a bridge and, full of hopelessness, jumps. On the way down, in a flash of insight, he realizes that he made a big mistake and asks God to forgive him. In Christ, his forgiveness is instant, but it will not stop the law of gravity from bringing about his sudden demise. Forgiveness doesn’t necessarily undo the sowing and reaping process. Another way to say this is that God can remove the eternal consequences of our sin without removing the temporal ones.
Another example might be a murderer who asks for and receives forgiveness for his crime, but this does not bring back the dead person or remove the loss from the grieving family. It also will not stop the wheels of justice from imposing a proper judgment against him in the court system. We can be forgiven in heaven but reap judgment on earth.
I have witnessed praying mothers wringing their hands because their children repeated their same mistakes, despite their prayers. The beat goes on. By itself, prayer does not have the power to undo the sowing and reaping principle. The same is true when it comes to weight loss or any number of health related issues. We cannot break all the rules for maintaining healthy bodies and expect God to overrule the law of sowing and reaping just because we pray. What is true in the natural realm is also true spiritually.
Praying for a Crop Failure or a Crop Transformation?
I have a friend who once prayed that God would bring about a “crop failure” with regard to what he had earlier sown in his life. We all laughed, but it was a good thing to do. We have a very encouraging verse to lean upon.
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. 13 As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. Psalm 103:10-13 (ESV)
If God returned “tit for tat” to us according to our sins, we would all be dead by now. I think it is altogether proper to pray for mercy when it comes to sowing and reaping; nevertheless, we must realistically face the fact that God has put this law into effect.
Notwithstanding, we do have an ultimate weapon against this relentless law. We can have complete confidence that Romans 8:28 has the power to turn everything in our favor, even when we are reaping the consequences of our own foolishness and sin.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. Romans 8:28-30 (ESV)
God is able to take what we reap because of sinful sowing and work it out for our ultimate good and his glory. This trumps everything!
When we praise God in the midst of whatever suffering or confusion we may be enduring, even if it is our own doing, it honors God and opens our hearts to see things from his perspective. It helps us grasp what he is doing in the midst of it all – how he is working it out for our benefit and his glory.
Praise in the midst of suffering is one of our greatest spiritual weapons.
We may not be able to obtain a crop failure, but we can see God transform something painful into something beautiful and God honoring.
Nevertheless, we must be realistic, God’s working out our difficulties for good is not always easy or pretty. King David spent many years reaping the consequences of his adultery and murder. He was forgiven, but the ongoing consequences were real, painful, and extremely costly for him, his family, and the nation of Israel. We do indeed reap what we sow.
The Awful Prospect of Looming Judgment
One of the great deceptions people fall for is the false sense of security gained from delayed judgment.
Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Ecclesiastes 8:11 (ESV)
Things have continued to go well in this country, to a great extent, since Roe v. Wade was passed and the killing of unborn babies was legalized. That does not mean we have escaped God’s judgment.
God’s judgment against unforgiven sins committed by our ancestors and our nation’s leaders and people may still be looming on the horizon, waiting for God’s timing to release it.
Jesus, the Author of the New Covenant, proclaimed the following just before offering himself for our sins.
Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Luke 11:47-51 (ESV)
He knew that his coming sacrifice of himself as God’s Lamb would provide forgiveness for sins, even the sin of putting him, the Messiah, to death, for those who would choose to repent and believe the Good News. Nevertheless, God’s justice would roll on and result in the smashing of the rebellious Jewish nation under the wheel of Roman might. Jesus warned his followers to flee the city of Jerusalem when they saw God’s judgment at the door. If they failed to extricate themselves from the city, they would reap the consequences of covenant betrayal along with the unrepentant perpetrators. (Matthew 24:15-23) History tells us that the Christians followed our Lord’s advice and escaped when the Roman army approached. They understood the nature of sowing and reaping.
The blood of over sixty million innocent babies slaughtered in government sanctioned abortion clinics cries out to God for justice. Will the prayers of those who oppose this practice undo the terrible law of sowing and reaping? Will the USA escape the judgment of God that looms? Discerning eyes can see storm clouds on the horizon. Our nation’s leaders have been leading us down a road to destruction for many years. Those who have participated in the crime of abortion may be personally forgiven by Christ, but judgment still looms over the nation, just as it did over Israel. God will not be mocked. What we have sown, that shall we also reap as a nation.
Until that judgment arrives, we still have hope for mercy, however. As followers of Christ, we can still cry out to God for mercy and ask him for crop failure. We can repent on behalf of the nation, asking God to turn the tide of injustice and immorality. We can plead with him to turn the nation to Jesus.
Just as we have an individual and a national identity, we also have an individual and a family identity.
The unconfessed sins of our forefathers may be looming over the family line.
I believe it is our responsibility to confess and forsake these sins, as living representatives of the family, and thank God for releasing the family from any inherited judgments and claim God’s blessings that are ours in Christ. (Galatians 3:13-14)
Abraham stood in the gap for Sodom and Gomorrah and for his nephew’s family who lived there. In the end, only Lot and his daughters survived, but that was better than everyone perishing. I wonder who will escape generational devastation because we stand in the gap?
In conclusion, generational sins and their attached judgments can affect not only the sinner but also his family, community, and nation. The law of sowing and reaping has a big part to play in this process. As believers, we recognize that we are personally forgiven for our own sins in an eternal sense, but we may still reap negative consequences for what we have done. We can trust God to turn even the worst situations into something that will bring him glory and work for our good. (Romans 8:28)
We can also pray (proclaim, declare) for ourselves and our family to be freed from any passed down family and corporate judgments (curses). (Galatians 3:13-14)
In the next article I will lay out in more detail the foundation of how we can experience freedom from generational judgments based on Christ’s finished work. I hope you will continue with me.
