Father's Day 2021: A Legacy That Impacts Eternity

A Legacy That Impacts Eternity (Exodus 20:4-6)

Exodus 20:4-6, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”

As fathers, we pass on a legacy to our family—one that is godly or one of sin and idolatry. Fathers pass on God’s blessing or sin’s curse to their posterity in ways that will last for over a century!

A father who refuses to live a godly life passes on to his children a life of sin, idolatry, and captivity. Often a father’s sin is reproduced generationally – the sins of the father are visited to third and fourth generations!

A father will pass to his descendants the blessing of God or the curse of sin and control of Satan!  There is a direct tie between generational bondage and generational sin, which is why you find certain sins wreaking havoc on a family line generation after generation.

A biblical example of the principle of Exodus 20:5:

First generation: King Uzziah obeyed partially. (2 Chronicles 26:4, 16)

Second generation: King Jotham compromised spiritually. (2 Chronicles 27:2)

Third generation: King Ahaz embraced idolatry! (2 Chronicles 28:1-4) What began in the first generation of failing to take God seriously and obeying God completely was reproduced in the second generation with spiritual apathy and compromise with idolatry. It has now been reproduced in thethird generation with a rejection of God completely and full-blown idolatry. It ends with the fourth generation being sacrificed in the fires of Molech.

Fourth generation: Destroyed completely! (2 Chronicles 28:3). Long before his children were offered to idols, those idols were accessible to the young and impressionable mind of Ahaz. But it began when Uzziah left them, and Jotham refused to tear them down. Consequently, the atrocity that Jotham chose to ignore was exactly the atrocity that would snare his own son and destroy his own grandsons.

The penalty of a father’s sin on an entire family is great, BUT…

God’s promise of blessing on a godly father’s family is even greater! (See Exodus 20:6) While the curse of a father’s sin can impact hundreds in his lineage, the blessing of God on fathers who love Him is multiplied to thousands!

Proverbs 20:7 “The righteous man walks in his integrity; his children are blessed after him.”

Regardless of your family history, as a godly father, you can begin a “legacy of blessing”!

You can tear down the family idolatry, end the cycle of captivity, and pass on generational blessing!

You can leave your children a “legacy of blessing” that will stretch clear into eternity!