30th Mar 26 | 13:54
Studies by Book
Luke 14 1-6 The evil of hypocrisy 08 The evil of previous generations
📖 Luke 14:1-6
19thNov19 – The evil of previous generations - _Luke 14:1-6_ - Bible reading: _Matthew 23:34-36_
_Luke 14:2-6 And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy. (3) And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" (4) But they kept silent. And He took him and healed him, and let him go. (5) Then He answered them, saying, "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?" (6) And they could not answer Him regarding these things._
We understood that the problem of the religious leaders of Jesus’ time, was the problem of hypocrisy. The Lord made it clear that hypocrites will go to hell. We therefore began to look into the problem of hypocrisy and its symptoms in our own lives. The symptoms that we have seen thus far are,
1. Our heart is seeking after its own gain.
2. Giving importance to outward rituals, traditions, rules and formats and not giving importance to love God, be loved by Him and to love people.
3. Seeking glory from men.
4a. Appearances before men.
4b. Outwardly appearing righteous before people.
5. Seeking for signs and wonders.
6. Testing God
Today and tomorrow, we will look at yet another serious symptom of hypocrisy that prevalent among us. I call it the symptom of *carrying forward the evil of previous generations*.
_Matthew 23:29-36 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, (30) and say, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' (31) "Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets._ The religious leaders were adorning the tombs of the prophets and also saying that if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have killed the prophets. By saying this, they were owning the guilt of their parents. _(32) Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers' guilt._ They played lip service to the evil of their parents but when it came to their time and generation, they were in no way different, for they practiced the very same evil that their parents had done. _(33) Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? (34) Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, (35) that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. (36) Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation._ This generation must therefore pay for the evil of the previous generations.
We say that when we come to Jesus, all the curses of previous generations are taken away. This is true if we acknowledge, (1) the particular evil committed by our previous generations. (2) Repent and ask God’s forgiveness for the evil that they had done and (3) Very importantly, repenting of the evil done by our previous generations, we live out the victorious life of Christ in that particular aspect of life. This is how the guilt and the curses of the previous generations, will not come on our generation.
I’m giving a typical example from the culture that I come from, which is the South Indian Christian culture. Each of us must look at our own cultures and the generations that have gone by and see what evil has passed on.
In the South Indian Christian culture, the taking and giving of dowry during our marriages was prevalent. In our generation we give lip service to this evil of the dowry system and we say how evil this system is, which our previous generations had done. Yet, when it comes to the way our marriages are done today, we are in no way different from our previous generations, though now we call ourselves as ‘believers’. The practice of taking and giving of dowry is being practiced by us and we even have the audacity to invoke the blessing of our spiritual leaders, in this practice.
*Thought to ponder*
Why will not the curses of the previous generations come on us? We will have to pay for the guilt of our previous generations. Unless we are willing to repent and with God’s help stop taking and receiving dowry and also teach the next generation, not to practice taking and giving of dowry, at our marriages.