Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 18, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - STUCK (Not My Fault)

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February 18, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - STUCK (Not My Fault) · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: How are you today?
0:04
SPEAKER_00: In this warm but windy morning.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: We're in the book of Ezekiel if you're visiting today.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: And uh if you're not visiting, but you've been around uh and and uh you know about Ezekiel.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Are you taking the Ezekiel challenge?
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
0:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: I hope.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Um so, because this is a great way to read the Bible, four chapters a week, and also to do devotionals.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: And and by the way, this last week, as of today, should be halfway through the book, up through chapter 24.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: And so you're halfway through.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the book divides, it falls into these two parts very nicely, one through 24.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty much all about judgment, stuff like that.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: The last 24 chapters are about blessing and positive things.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: So hope you're taking the challenge.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: My title this morning is Dear Israel.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: You're killing me.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Stuck, not my fault.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Open your Bible to Ezekiel chapter 18.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: As you're doing that, let me ask you a question.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: What's the funniest excuse your children ever gave you for doing something like when they were young?
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Your children ever give you like a you know crazy excuse.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh I love some of the excuses I hear about.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh a little mom walked into the bedroom and her little boy had just covered the bedroom wall, magic marker, uh, his crew drawing of astronauts and a spaceship and stars and everything else.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: And she goes, What did you do?
1:36
SPEAKER_00: And he says, It was an accident.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: So, excuses like that.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: Or like the one where uh uh mom turned around and Jessica, two years old, had thrown all her food on the floor.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
1:48
SPEAKER_00: And Jessica's answer was, my brain made me do it.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: She knows the word brain.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: And uh this is a good one.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Angela had come in, and she had a new haircut.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, a little girl, four years old.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: What did you do with the scissors?
2:06
SPEAKER_00: And she said, My hand did it all by itself.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: It just wanted to cut my hair like that.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: So and then uh another mom reports seriously, she said, the excuse that we hear constantly from our little kids is daddy did it.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Daddy did it, daddy's always to blame.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Now, my wife's a school administrator, and so she's acquainted with the notes that children bring in excuses for missing school.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you wonder in my day, you would have sort of assumed that some of these were written by the kids rather than the parents.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: That's hard to know.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Please excuse Pam for being absent from school.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: She was sick, and I had her shot.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Dear school, please excuse Bobby being absent on June 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh Beth could not come to school today because she's been bothered by very close veins.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Very close veins.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Please excuse Ray from school.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: He has very loose vowels.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: I kept Billy home because she had to go Christmas shopping because I don't know what size she wears.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: Or I'll give you one more.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: Please excuse Jennifer for missing school yesterday.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it on Monday, we thought it was Sunday.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Really?
3:42
SPEAKER_00: So um these relate to my message this morning, which is about, if I could put one word on it, a word with a hyphen, it would be blame shifting.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Blame shifting.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: If you've never heard a sermon on blame shifting on a Sunday morning, you are to be forgiven.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: This is another of those instances when the book of Ezekiel gives us a topic that nowhere else in the Bible do we find.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: We may find it referenced a little bit, but Ezekiel is so strange and so interesting that time and again I find that Ezekiel has a chapter on an issue that's utterly, shall we say, unique.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
4:25
SPEAKER_00: So we when we open the chapter, chapter 18, we find immediately that this is a chapter about shifting blame, because verses 1 and 2 go like this.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord came to me.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel?
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Quote, the fathers eat sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: And what we would say today is the parents eat sour grapes and the children's mouths pucker.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: That was apparently a really common proverb because it's clear that it was being said back in Jerusalem by the exile, by the uh besieged there, and it was being said in the suburbs of Babylon, they're in the settlement.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Parents eat sour grapes, the children's mouths pucker.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: And what they were saying was, you know, we're puckering, we're suffering, we're having a hard time here, uh really sour time, but it's it's not our fault.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: We haven't done anything wrong.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: We're innocent, we're good people, the fault is in our parents, the fault was our grandparents, and finally, you know, you know, that's that's what's happening.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: They're the ones who ate the sour grapes, we're the ones who are puckering.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: And um, this whole idea of shifting blame to one's parents is one that I know right now you're saying, you know what, I think we do that today.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: It certainly was done back in those days.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: The book of the man, Jeremiah, who was a contemporary of Ezekiel, wrote a little book called Lamentations about this time.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: He was back in Jerusalem and was watching Jerusalem fall, and he said that the people in Jerusalem were saying, our ancestors sinned, but they've died, and we're suffering the punishment they deserved.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: Blame shifting.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's a common thing, it's been common down through the years, going, and it's not my fault.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Now the question is, where in the world would the Israelites get this idea?
6:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, one place they could have gotten the idea is this was pretty common in the ancient Near East.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: We found a tablet where a Hittite king wrote to excuse, explaining the plague that that was on his land up north of Israel.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, I'm innocent, but my father and grandfather, those kings, they were sinful, and so that's why the gods finally got around to punishing us, but it's for their sins.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: But but Israel, of course, could claim that it was God's fault.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: God had told him this.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: It's the second commandment of the Ten Commandments, where God said, You mustn't worship or serve them, other gods, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: I punish the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons for the sins of the fathers who reject me.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: But I show covenant faithfulness to the thousands who choose me and keep my commandments.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: What God's saying here is He's saying, Hey, Dad, Mom, you need to take your behavior seriously.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: You need to realize it has tremendous ramifications on your children and on your children's children.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: And God says this several times early on in the Old Testament.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's slow to anger.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about himself, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion, yet he doesn't leave the guilty unpunished.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: He punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, what God's doing there is he's saying to the grandfathers or grandmothers and the parents and the dads and the moms, listen, if you turn against me, if you become a rebel, if you become my enemy, I gotta tell you, not just gonna punish you, the punishment's gonna dribble down, trickle down to your children and to your grandchildren.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: It goes downhill.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Right?
8:22
SPEAKER_00: Now, on a human level, quite apart from God, we realize that there's a principle here that's true, right?
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Sins of parents are naturally visited on their children.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: If dad's an alcoholic and he keeps coming home late at night, drunk, and abuses his children, we realize that the sin of the father is visited on his children.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Over 90% of the AIDS cases in the world are in South Africa and East Africa.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: And the missionaries over there, when my brother was working with AIDS patients over there, would say that, you know, the number that just everywhere you look, there was a wayward father.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: He'd have a wife and he'd have a half a dozen children at home, but he'd stay away for a few nights and he'd he'd be going astray, and he'd come home and he'd bring an STD, a sexually transmitted disease.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: He'd bring AIDS home, would infect his wife, and then their new, then their new children would be infected.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Sins of the fathers are visited on the children.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, we kind of use that as a proverb.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
9:26
SPEAKER_00: We feel that way.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: We go, addicted parents lead to addicted children.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: We say it.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: We go, lazy parents produce lazy children, mean parents, mean children, messy parents, messy children.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: It's a proverb.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: It's typical.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: We say that because, to be honest, it's true.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, if parents step forward and they take responsibility and they look at their grown child and they say, I sure wish I'd have raised my child better, we give them a lot of credit.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: But here's what's tacky, here's what's bogus, here's what's uncool, right?
9:58
SPEAKER_00: Here's what's lame, is to see how this reality, this reality that my behavior trickles down to my children and grandchildren, here's what's uncool is how this whole thing can get turned upside down, and children and grandchildren excuse their behavior by pointing uphill to dad and mom and to the grandparents.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the reason I'm homeless, the reason I'm going to jail, the reason I'm$100,000 in debt's not my fault because I'm a good person.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: The fault is my dad, my mom's fault is I'm a victim of bad, bad parenting.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: And you see it everywhere.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: You see it online all the time.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: I kid you not, the article in psychology today.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: And this psychologist meant it.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: He said, Personal growth, blame your parents for your problems, and he explains.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: If you're ever going to get past your struggles, probably your trouble is that you're blaming yourself.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: So to get away from that, blame your parents for your problems.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: People are taking that advice.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: Family Education magazine recently, an article, son blames problems, parents for his problems.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Last month in California, and I put a I put a little white thing right across her face because I didn't want you thinking, is she ugly or is she not ugly?
11:16
SPEAKER_00: But a California woman last month sued her parents because she's ugly.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: She said it's their fault because they gave her this DNA.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you do about that.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Or more to the point, because we're talking about behavior, not things like ugliness.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: College student has blamed her parents, this is in uh Atlanta, Georgia.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: A college student called the radio station, I rate, she's going into her senior year of college.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Explained that when she was little, her grandparents set up a college fund and had grown to$90,000.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: Grandparents died.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: The parents gave her the fund when she entered college and said the$90,000 college you're going to will be easily sufficient to cover the whole thing.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: And she confessed that, well, they told her that she should only spend it on tuition and classes and so forth, but she liked expensive clothes.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: She bought expensive clothes.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: She liked to travel.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: She'd taken a vacation to Europe.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: And so this last uh fall, colleges sent her a bill for her senior year,$20,000, and she didn't have it.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: So she went to her parents and said, I want you to pay it.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: And they said, We gave you the$90,000.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: If you need money, take out a loan.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: She was irate.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: She says, You got a retirement fund.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Give me your retirement fund.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: They said, We're not giving you our retirement fund.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Take out a loan.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: So she calls a radio station, goes on, and she's suing them.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: She says, Well, they didn't give her enough advice on how to budget when she was young.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Well, they told you to get a loan.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, she says, I want to get a loan and they need someone to co-sign.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: My parents said they'd cosign if I'd get a part-time job, but I'm not going to do that.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: I told them if you make me do that, I'll become a stripper.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: So, uh, anyway, it's it's quite an interesting story.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: You can find it all online all over the place.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: So this is what this is what we're talking about here.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be a Christian to understand that this is something that goes on in our society, that we have people that turn the blame thing upside down.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: They take this old idea that, yeah, as parents are, oftentimes kids are, and then kids turn that around, go upside down, and they blame dad and mom.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what God's sick and tired of.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: He says, My own people are doing this, my people in Jerusalem are doing this.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: They're saying, I'm hungry and I'm under siege.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: It's not my fault, it's my parents' fault.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: And you exiles in that Babylonian settlement, that suburb, you're going, I shouldn't be in exile, I shouldn't be like this, I should be living a life of ease.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: It's not my fault.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: It's my parents', it's my grandparents' fault.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: It's not fair, it's your fault.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: All of that based on verses, you know, one and two.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: So we get to verse three, and God's got a stomachache over this and says, As I live, this is the strongest, this is the strongest vow God takes in the Bible.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: Whenever he says, as I live, let's just put it this way, he means it.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: As I live, this is the declaration of the Lord God, you will no longer use this proverb in Israel.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: You go, what?
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they would anyway.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe God says, because I'm about to kill y'all.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: You'll no longer use this proverb in Israel.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Look, every life belongs to me.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: Don't act like there's some cosmic fatalism going on.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Just because every time you break open a fortune cookie, you know how much Jews love Chinese food, so I'm assuming they ate Chinese back then.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: So every fortune cookie, and I had this proverb on it, you know, like parents like children, you know, uh sour grapes, parents pucker children.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: So every life belongs to me.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: Don't act like there's some cosmic law that children are gonna die for their parents' sin.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm in charge of life.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: There's no fate that's in charge of life.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: There's no fortune cookie in charge of life.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: The life of the father is like the life of the son, both belong to me.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm in control here, I'm in power here, and I'm laying down a justice principle.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: From now on, the person who sins is the one who will die.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: The person who sins is the one who will die.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, at this point, people reading this chapter will call me up or text me or something, and they go, uh, excuse me, what does um what does die mean here?
15:16
SPEAKER_00: Are we talking about hell?
15:19
SPEAKER_00: What are we talking about here?
15:20
SPEAKER_00: Die.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, really quickly, I'll go over this quickly.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: There are three kinds of death in the Bible, three kinds of death in the Bible.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: One is, of course, physical death.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens when you croak, right?
15:29
SPEAKER_00: Kick the bucket.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: Number two, there's a relational or a spiritual or a social death.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: When Adam and Eve sinned, when God said, Don't eat of that tree, and they ate of that tree, God said, Don't eat of that tree, or you will definitely and surely and certainly die.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: They ate of the tree.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: Did they die physically immediately?
15:44
SPEAKER_00: No.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: They lived another hundred years approximately.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: So how did that come true?
15:49
SPEAKER_00: It came true because immediately their fellowship with God was broken.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Relationally, they died.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: They died to each other in a way, they died to God and so forth.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is when you sin, when you rebel against God, you may not physically die at that point, though sometimes you may deserve to, but you will die relationally.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: It's broken your relationship with God, and oftentimes it'll break your relationship with the person you love that you've sinned against.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: That's relational death.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Third, eternal death.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: That is what we call heaven, hell, so forth.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: What are this?
16:22
SPEAKER_00: What is the death that we're talking about in this chapter?
16:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, clearly physical death for sure, because he's talking about siege and dying and so forth, physical death.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: He's also, of course, talking about relational death.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about you'll die spiritually in your relationship to me.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: He's not talking, however, to his own people about going to hell, about eternal death.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: And just need to make that clear.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Now he says, I'm gonna lay this out for you, just so you understand my justice principle.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you three cases to show you that what I'm saying will hold true.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Case number one, the case of the righteous parent.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
16:57
SPEAKER_00: Suppose a man's righteous, verses five through nine.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: He does what's just and right.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't eat at the mountain shrines, he doesn't look to the idols, he doesn't defile his neighbor's wife, he doesn't oppress anyone, he doesn't commit robbery, but, and now he turns to the positive.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Always starts with the negative, then goes to the positive.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: But gives bread to the hungry, covers the naked with clothing, he acts faithfully.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Such a person is righteous and will certainly live.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: This is the declaration of the Lord God.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: Right?
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Judges gavel comes down, life.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: Verses 10 through 13, the case of the wicked son.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: But suppose the guy has a violent son who sheds blood.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Stop right there.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: It is really surprising that the first description he gives of a bad son is that he sheds blood, or literally, he pours out blood.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: What does he mean by this?
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Let me quote to you a really excellent few sentences from this 1800-page commentary I'm using by Daniel Bloch.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: Literally, the man is a violent son who pours out blood.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he has a wanton disregard for the sanctity of human life.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: This statement highlights the fundamental difference between righteous and wicked persons, their attitudes toward life, human life in particular.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: Whereas the former, that's the righteous dad, does everything to preserve life, even that of the poor, to the latter, the wicked son, others' lives are expendable if they interfere with that person's own selfish pursuits.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: As you can tell, that has great application today.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Suppose the man has a violent son who sheds blood and does evil things, and I love this phrase, though the father hasn't done any.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: The picture here is dad and mom are looking at each other after they hang up the phone from the police department, which is explaining they've just arrested their son for doing something heinous.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: And you can see the dad saying here, whoa, whoa, whoa, where did where did he get that from?
19:08
SPEAKER_00: We didn't do any of those things.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: Right?
19:12
SPEAKER_00: You can feel the pain here.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Though the father's done none.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, when the son eats at the shrines and defiles, takes that first list of the dad and turns it just the opposite.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: He is the exact moral opposite of his parents.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Defiles his neighbor's wife, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, looks to the idols.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Will he live?
19:36
SPEAKER_00: He will not live.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: He'll certainly die.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: His death will be his own fault.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: God does not wait for you to answer the question, will he live?
19:44
SPEAKER_00: He answers that question one, two, three times.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: He won't live, he'll certainly die, and his death will be his own fault.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's move to the grandson, okay?
19:55
SPEAKER_00: So we have the case of the righteous grandson, verses 14 through 18.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: Now suppose he has a son, and we could say daughter, right?
20:03
SPEAKER_00: We're talking parents, children, male, female.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: He has a son who sees all the son's sins his father has committed.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay, he's observant.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: This is a son who's watching.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: This is a son who somehow we're wondering, can he learn from a negative example?
20:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's often said that only something like 20 or 25% of people can learn from a positive example, and less than 5% of people can learn from a negative example.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: But this son is looking.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: He's watching his dad, he's seeing the mistakes dad makes.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: He sees all the sins his father's committed, and he doesn't do likewise.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't eat at the mountain shred, he doesn't look to the aisle, doesn't defile his neighbor's wife, doesn't impress anyone, doesn't commit robbery.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: But positively, he gives bread to the hungry.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: He covers the naked with clothing, keeps his hand from harming the poor.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Such a person will not die for his father's iniquity.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: He will certainly and definitely count on it, he's gonna live, because I'm in charge of life and death.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: He will live.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: Now here's what's interesting, okay?
21:05
SPEAKER_00: So, so the people come back and they go, oh, you're the very people who are using the proverb as a cop-out, right?
21:12
SPEAKER_00: To blame shift, to play a victim.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: And they go, but why doesn't the son suffer punishment for the father's iniquity?
21:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're so used to this proverb they want to keep it around.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: And God says, sorry, since the son has done what's just and right, he will certainly live.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: The person who sins is the one who will die.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: He repeats it again.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: A son won't suffer punishment for the father's iniquity, a father won't suffer punishment for the son's iniquity.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: The righteousness of the righteous person will be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked person will be on him.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: God's justice principle.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: Repeat it.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
21:50
SPEAKER_00: But then God's like, God stops there halfway through the chapter and he says, But you know, that's only half of the story.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: That's only my justice, that's only half of the story.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you the other half of the story?
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you about the door of mercy that's open to almost to anybody?
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you about the way of life?
22:08
SPEAKER_00: So in the next few verses, he says, there's a door of mercy.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: If the wicked person turns from all of the sins he's committed, keeps all my statutes, and does what's just and right, he will certainly live.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: He will not die.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: None of the transgressions he's committed will be held against him.
22:26
unknown: Wow.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: No matter what you've done, I'm not this merciful.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm not.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: But God says, I am as a back door of mercy if you've sinned, then I won't hold your sins against you.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Why?
22:41
SPEAKER_00: The basis is, let me tell you what I'm like, he says.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: I have pleasure in life, not in death.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?
22:49
SPEAKER_00: I confess that sometimes I do.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: New England Patriots lost.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: Yay.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm sorry, they're not wicked.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: No, but I mean, I mean, you know how it is where somebody's so bad and you're kind of glad that the train runs over, I mean, that they that they uh suffer a little bit?
23:05
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't take any pleasure in the death of the wicked.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: Instead, don't I take pleasure when he turns from it and lives?
23:14
SPEAKER_00: I take pleasure in life, not death.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: But let me tell you, he says, there is another way, there's an option.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: If a righteous person turns from his righteousness and acts unjustly, committing the same detestable acts that the wicked do, will he live?
23:27
SPEAKER_00: No.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
23:29
SPEAKER_00: Everything turns around.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: This is why, by the way, the older people in this room, let me say to you, your old age is really important.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: Don't throw away a good life into the trash bin because you suddenly decided you live for yourself the last five, ten, twenty years of life.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: He will die because of the sin he's committed, 1824.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: So what's the bottom line?
23:56
SPEAKER_00: God ends the chapter by saying, so listen, I'm calling all of you to repentance, to do a U-turn.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: And he says three things.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: He says, repent and turn from all your rebellious acts.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Throw off all the transgressions you've committed.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: And three, get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: How do I do that?
24:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, he told us already.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: You ask him for it.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: God is the one who hands out new hearts and new spirit.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: Bow your head and pray.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: Why should you die, house of Israel?
24:23
SPEAKER_00: For I take no pleasure in anyone's death.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: So repent and live.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: Blame shifting.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel 18.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel is a book that loves the number four, so I've got four lessons for you.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Four lessons.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: I felt a little weird as I came up with the lessons from this chapter.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: I thought, these are not typical lessons.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: These are not, you know, Sunday morning lessons.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: They're more like the men of success, practical living lessons.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: I'll give them to you anyway.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: Number one, let's stop blaming parents for their kids' behavior.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes we in the church are the most guilty about that.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: When we see kids who are doing drugs or who are getting into crime or something else, somehow we just automatically point upstream.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: We use those verses that God meant to point downstream, responsibility verses, and we turn them instead into blaming verses.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Let's stop blaming parents for the kids.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Not just Christians who do this, though.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: National surveys asking our parents to blame for the way their kids turned out.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: The majority answer was yeah.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: You and I do know, yeah, sure.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: The way dad and mom raised us had a profound impact on us.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: The way you raise your kids has a profound impact.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: And I'll be the first to confess, I know I could have raised my kids better.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: I know that I made choices repeatedly as they were growing up that were selfish choices, not choices for their best good.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: And it's good for us to admit that.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: But I sure love a chapter that says kids don't turn around and blame your parents or grandparents.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Number two, let's place fault where fault is due.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: Now I have to be really careful about this, and I'm going to be, and I'm a little.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: But I must say that I think we could be wiser at not joining the lynching parties that society raises up around us.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking of two stories just this last week in the local and in the national news that had to do with holding responsibility.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: One several several days ago on the front pages of the Peak Capital Journal was an article about the Siemens High School administrators.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: For those of you that didn't read the article, I'll just summarize it was a story.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Basically, apparently, though many of us didn't know about it, of course, they're boys, uh grown-up boys, Siemens High School students who'd been manipulating, uh, threatening, even physically threatening girls at school starting last summer, to send, uh, shall we say, revealing pictures, texts to them on their phone.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: And according to the story, uh, some of these uh girls had gone to school administrators, at least one had, and according to the story, something hadn't been done.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Now, as the story is fleshed out during the week, you find the administrators took it to the police, and the police looked into it, and then the police dropped it, and then without telling administrators, and so forth.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: So everybody's fingers pointing in a different direction.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: But I confess to you, as I read that article, I felt very funny.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: In the end of the article, I thought, wow, and and I confess I'm married to a school administrator, so I admit a little bit of bias here, but I thought, wow, this article went through the whole thing, and I didn't feel any blame at all, really, toward those boys who were doing it.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: And beyond that, then you could point fingers in several directions.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you could point it at the authorities, you could point at the police, school administrators, parents.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: Felt like all the blame is put at the school administrators.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: And and maybe there were I'm just saying, saying it's important for us not to immediately join lynching parties, right?
28:12
SPEAKER_00: The other story is national, you know about this.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: It was another mass school shooting.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: I hate to even use those words, a mass school shooting, but it's something like the 20th we've had since uh in the last 18 years.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: Horrible.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: So you've got a teenager who takes a gun and he goes into school, and all of a sudden, this whole story about who's responsible, where should we place fault, has of course blown up over the weekend because all of a sudden we've got police coming forward and saying, Well, we confess we could have done more because we have been to his house 39 times in the last seven years because of violence and other stuff.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: 39 times.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: And the school administrators come forward and say, Well, maybe, you know, we did kick him out for violence last year, kicked him out of the high school temporarily.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: And now, of course, you've got the FBI coming forward and admitting that one of this guy's buddies, one of Cruz's buddies, called him just last month and said he's planning to shoot up the school.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: He's got acquired all these guns and he's told me he's planning a school shooting.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: And the head of the FBI says, uh, I guess we should have taken it more seriously.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, you think?
29:15
SPEAKER_00: You think?
29:17
SPEAKER_00: But of course, when you turn on the television, I just feel sometimes the blame isn't put on the on the perpetrator.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: The kid is basically, there's one word used about this kid, the word is troubled.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: Troubled.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: Not much is said about the school administrators, a little bit said about the FBI.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: No, the blame is put, you know, far away on the National Rifle Association, gun manufacturers, gun owners, and so forth, congressmen who haven't passed laws against guns.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: That's why I say I have to be careful, because I know we have different political views here, but I think you can agree with me that we need to work a little bit harder at being wise to try to place fault where fault is legitimately due.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Right?
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Can you say amen to that?
30:04
SPEAKER_00: Let's just let's just not join lynching parties too quickly.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, the third and most important point is to take responsibility for your own behavior, for your own behavior.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: Teenagers, if your childhood sucked, it's time to stop blaming your parents.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm just, I'm not, I don't use that word, but there it is in the in the headline.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: This is my cop-out.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm blaming someone else.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: So um, because when you blame others, you give up your power to grow.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: When you blame others, you give up your power to change.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Stop blaming uphill parents, grandparents for the way you are.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: If you like Harry Potter, then listen to the words of J.K.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Rowling.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: There's an expiry date, expiration date, she says, British word expiry date.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: The moment you're old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I say that is the number one, school counselors tell us that when they confront kids in their office and say, why did you do that?
30:58
SPEAKER_00: the immediate answer in almost all of them is it was my parents.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: It's my parents' fault.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: It's time to stop blaming parents.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, confession.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: If you've only known me in recent years, you'll be maybe surprised to hear me say this that I used to be late to everything, all the time.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Starting in college, consistently, late to classes, late to breakfast, late to lunch, late to dinner.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes missed it because I'd try to cut it really close, you know.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Late to meetings, came here to church, late to every Bible study, late, late to the things that I did, always late, always rolling over after the alarm went off.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: You go, what?
31:46
SPEAKER_00: That's not you.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, what happened is that a couple decades ago, for some reason I wasn't the last person.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: Somehow, someone beat me as the last person.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: And I remember sitting there and being absolutely steamed that someone was proud enough to think their time was more important than my time.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: You know?
32:04
SPEAKER_00: And then they came in with an excuse.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Quite similar to the excuses I always invented and came up and came in.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, this happened, that happened, you know.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, wow.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: And I vowed that day to stop making excuses.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: You know what happens when you stop making excuses, stop shifting the blame to someone else or something else?
32:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're out there on an island all by yourself.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: And you don't have anything left but to be on time.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, listen, if it's never our fault, then we can't take responsibility for it.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: And if we can't take responsibility for it, then we'll always be its victim.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: There are only two options make progress or make excuses.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Now I sound really good up here, but to my absolute astonishment, I blew it last night.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: It was late at night.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: Melody came a little bit late, she was doing something, and I was working at the computer, I was working on my sermon, and I look over there, and she has this amazing brownie that is frosted, like with red and white frosting, brownie.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: And I go, where'd you get that?
33:28
SPEAKER_00: And she tells me.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Can I have one?
33:33
SPEAKER_00: And she takes the plate, which has three more of these big, beautiful brownies on it, and she shoves it over, she puts it next to me, and she heads toward the bedroom.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: About an hour later, I feel this pain in my stomach, this heaviness.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: I look up, I look over, and the plate is empty.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: Empty.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: And I realize I've eaten the other three large frosted brownies, and they're sitting down in my stomach.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: And I know who to blame.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: She walks in the room at that precise moment.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: She comes up to me to kiss me, she says, I got I'm sleepy, it's late, I gotta go to bed.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Honey, do you remember an hour ago when you came home, you were eating that brownie, and I said, Where'd you get it?
34:21
SPEAKER_00: And you told me where you got it, and then I said, Can I have one?
34:24
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Yeah.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Why didn't you cut off one brownie at that point and put it in front of me and then go hide the plate?
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Why didn't you do that?
34:35
SPEAKER_00: She looks over, she says, You ate them all?
34:39
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yes, whose fault is that?
34:43
SPEAKER_00: And she comes up close to me and she nuzzles me, starts laughing, and she says, Don't blame me for your lack of self-discipline.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: And I laughed, and then I thought, oh dear, I'm preaching on this tomorrow morning.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: And I just blew it.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: So I I have a long ways to go on this myself.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: Please don't send brownies on Saturday night.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: But let me summarize the message in this.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: The message is entitled Stuck, not my fault.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: Can I say it in one sentence?
35:17
SPEAKER_00: If you're stuck, whether it's an addiction, whether it's some other problem, if you're stuck and it's not your fault, maybe you're stuck because it's never your fault.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: You understand what I'm saying?
35:37
SPEAKER_00: Let's stop blaming parents for their kids.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Let's place fault where fault is due.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: Take responsibility for your behavior.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: And finally, let's end where the chapter ends.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: Turn and live and give God pleasure because God has pleasure in life rather than death.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: We sang a song a little while ago.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: So important for this.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Song that applies to you, whether you're a believer or not a believer.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: The song went just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: One day you'll go to heaven and you'll stand before God all alone.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: And your sins will be on you and you alone.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: And you may in that day look around for someone else to point at.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: Someone else to blame.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: But your parents won't be right there, your grandparents won't be there, there won't be anyone else to blame.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: And at that moment, at that critical moment, the most important thing you can say, if God asks you, why should I let you into my heaven?
36:47
SPEAKER_00: Is just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou biddest me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I came.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: I came.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: And the most important thing for you as a Christian is you go through life and you look at your behavior and you look in the mirror, and your tendency is to blame shift, is to sing those same words, just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou biddest me come to thee, O Lamb of God.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: I come.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: I come.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for a practical message like this.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: And uh there's a lot of hurting people here, hurting parents, hurting grandparents who feel guilty, you take responsibility, and I pray that you'll comfort them this morning.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: All of us, Lord, need to take more responsibility for our behavior.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: Stop playing the victim, shifting blame, making excuses so that we can improve, we can change by the help of your Holy Spirit and your Son Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming.