Today’s Scripture Reading (September
28, 2012): Deuteronomy 29
A number of years ago I had a conversation with
an older Pastor. His church had been struggling with some unexpected
circumstances. They just seemed to suffer disappointing setback after
disappointing setback. And so we talked. As the conversation moved on he openly
questioned whether there was unconfessed sin in his congregation. He realized
that biblically unconfessed sin was a very real problem.
Neil
Anderson, an expert on church bondage issues, speaks of churches that over
generations keep on making the same damaging decisions. He tells stories of the
limits that churches experience over and over again. And all of it is because
of sin that the church had not dealt with. According to Anderson, once Satan
finds a way into a church, he is very uncreative. He will just continue to take
the same path into the church and cause the same destruction.
As strange
as this might sound to our modern ears, it is exactly the warning that Israel
received. The people had suffered generational sin. They had learned the sin at
the feet of the Egyptians. And even though the people that now prepared to
enter into Canaan were the sons and daughters of the people that had lived in
Egypt, generational sin was going to be hard to break. They were going to have
be diligent about the poison that was bound to be among them.
Breaking of
generational sin is hard, and it is made harder by our disbelief that it
exists. Yet the evidence seems to point that way when generation after
generation we make the same mistakes and are at the receiving end of the same
destruction. But generational sin can be broken, if we are diligently searching
for it.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading:
Deuteronomy 30
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