The Iniquities of the Fathers

I have a quiz question for you in the Ten Commandments. I won't give you this scripture, because I don't want you to turn there. This is a memory quiz. And it's not unique to that place. It's repeated over and again in that famous place later in Exodus where God declares his whole name, I am God, here's who I am. And he makes a comment that ends with his generosity to thousands who love and obey him. But that's preceded by an ominous statement of something visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.

Do you know what it is that is visited without turning back to look? Now, like I said, it's in the Ten Commandments. It's repeated again when God gives his name. It is then repeated again in Deuteronomy. Let's turn back to Exodus 20. Exodus 20, verse 4, You shall not make for yourselves an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them nor worship them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing the children for the iniquity of parents to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. Now, you'll pardon me if I'm not reading exactly the same as you are. I was reading that one out of the New Revised Standard, but the key word is consistent across New King James, New Revised, and several other translations.

It is visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children of the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. Now, it's an interesting statement, and as we walk through the message, what we will see is that God and man are not always tuned in to the same wavelength.

And man, rather than stopping for a moment and asking, what wavelength is God on? So, we're hearing and understanding the same message. Man just simply says, this is how I see it, and I don't care how anyone else sees it. Now, these statements were made as they were coming out of Egypt. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years later, when we arrive at the time of Israel's, excuse me, Judah's captivity to Babylon, the topic comes up again. I'd like you to turn with me to Ezekiel 18. Now, the same topic is on the table. God has listened to man follow his own path, his own reasoning, without ever parking and saying, God, would you explain to me what you meant in Exodus 20 and verse 5?

Would you explain to me what you meant when you passed before us and declared your name and you used exactly the same phrase? Man simply says, my wisdom is based on observation. Isn't that where science and religion always bang heads? Science says, I don't accept things. I can't see, I can't touch, I can't taste, I can't hear, I can't smell. Science is all about I have to be able to see it, sense it, feel it.

It doesn't matter what generation, the attitude is the same. And so in Exodus chapter 18, a long chapter where God repeats the same thing forward, backward, and sideways, he said, the word of the Lord came to me again saying, what do you mean when you use this proverb concerning the land of Israel saying, the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge?

So Ezekiel, by command of God, is challenging a customary position. He says, what do you mean? Now, isn't it God doesn't know what they mean? He's not happy with what they mean. As I live, and there's nothing God can say more powerful than that because in essence he's swearing by his eternal existence. As I live, says the Lord God, you shall no longer use this proverb in Israel. Now, what God is saying is, you need to come over to my way of thinking. I know how you think you've been thinking that way for centuries. You've been thinking that every since you walked out of Egypt toward the promised land.

And he said, you need to get in sync with me. He said, behold, all souls are mine. The souls of the Father as well as the soul of the Son is mine. So I own everybody. I own the Fathers. I own the Sons. And the soul who sins shall die. But, there's three-letter word in the English language, but if a man is just and does what is lawful and right, if he's not eaten on the mountains, not lifted up his eyes to the idols of the House of Israel, that's the same topic as was covered in Exodus 20, verses 4 and 5.

Not defiled his neighbor's wife, nor approached a woman during her impurity, he has not oppressed anyone, but has restored to the debtor his pledge, has robbed no one by violence, but has given bread to the hungry, and covered the naked with clothing, if he's not extracted or exacted usury, nor taken any increase, but has withdrawn his hand from iniquity and executed true judgment between man and man, if he's walked in my statutes and kept my judgments faithfully, he is just.

He shall surely live, says the Lord God. So, he went down and gave a substantial list of, I hate to use a term for instances, but I use it only because that's not a complete list, but it's a key fundamental list of conduct toward God and toward man. He then flips the coin over and says, if, now this is a just man, I've just defined for you a just man, God said. Now, he has a son.

If he has a son who's a robber, this is verse 10, Ezekiel 18, or a shedder of blood, who does any of these things and does none of those duties. So, in other words, he's everything that I commended you for. He turns his back on. He has eaten on the mountain, defiled his neighbor's wife, oppressed the poor and needy, robbed by violence, not restored the pledge, lifted his eyes to idols, committed abominations.

Verse 13, extracted usury, taken increase. Shall he then live? God says he shall not live. If he has done any of these abominations, he shall surely die. His blood shall be upon him. Now, God, you know what? God said at the beginning of this chapter, no more are you going to say this. Ezekiel 18 is an amusing chapter because God covers the topic. I mean, it's the same topic, but He comes at it from this direction. Then He turns around, and He comes at it from this direction. And then He comes at it from this direction and that direction.

He's not leaving any wiggle room at all for somebody to say, I didn't get it. Would you say that again? So, verse 14, He says, if however he begets a son who sees all the sins which his father has done, so now we've got a son. We just finished having a righteous father with a rotten son. It says, the father's just, he shall live. The son isn't, he shall die. Now we've reversed roles.

If however he begets a son who sees all the sins which his father has done, role reversal, and considers but does not do likewise. And now He goes through all the list of, for instance, all over again. This Ezekiel 18 could be labeled righteousness for dummies, or unrighteousness for dummies. Take it either way, because God doesn't leave you asking, what do you mean? What do you mean? He may bore you to death saying, I've heard that before, I've heard that before, but He's not going to leave you saying, what do you mean?

So now we've got a son that looks at his father and says, my dad's not a good man, and I don't want to live like my dad lived.

He says, well, that is a person who, in verse 15, has not eaten on the mountain. That's simply, in their day and time, they understood that as a part of just a part of the gross idolatrous services. Nor lifted his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, nor defiled his neighbor's wife, has not oppressed anyone, nor withheld a pledge, nor robbed by violence, has given his bread to the hungry, covered the naked with clothing, who's not withdrawn his hand from the poor, and has not received usury or increase, but has executed my judgment and walked in my statutes. He shall not die for the iniquity of his father. He shall surely live. As for his father, because he cruelly oppressed, robbed his brother by violence, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he shall die for his iniquity. So, we go back to that beginning where God says, listen up. Never again are you going to use this proverb that we put in parentheses with justification. I'm sure the people continue to use the proverb, and God says, I'm going to remove any excuse you have for using it. The attitude comes out clearest crystal in the next verse. Yet you say, why should the Son not bear the guilt of the Father? Because the Son has done what is lawful and right, and has kept all my statutes and observed them, he shall surely live.

But their pushback is, why not? Why not? He goes on in verse 20, the soul who sins shall die, the Son shall not bear the guilt of his Father, nor the Father bear the guilt of the Son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

Now, I want you to remember, file this away because we're going to come back to it.

But I want you to remember the pushback in verse 19.

Okay? Remember, yet you say, why should the Son not bear the guilt of the Father?

Keep that one. Mark it, write it down. You don't put a marker in your Bible, because we're going to come back to that. It's a fulcrum point. So, he goes on in verse 21, but if the wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all my statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.

None of his transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him, because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live.

Verse 21 is us, brethren.

Now, it's personal.

You may not have felt prior to conversion you were wicked, and in the sense that we use it in our culture, you probably weren't.

But God defines it simply as breaking his commandments. And now we fall into Paul's category where he says, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I'm looking at a room full of people who turned, and God says, I won't remember any of the things that were prior.

So, anything that breaks God's law in this particular verse would fall under the term wicked. And he says, when you turn from that way to my way, that's labeled as righteous.

He says, you're not going to die.

None of the transgressions committed will be remembered.

Now, that's the beauty of God's calling and the acceptance of that calling and the transformation.

And then God gives the grand overview of where he sits.

Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, says the Lord God, and not that he should turn from his ways and live?

You know, the only reason you have prophecy, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Osea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, all the way to Malachi, and then Revelation. The only reason you have those books is God saying, why won't you turn so that you can live?

Then he addresses smugness. Verse 24, Yet you say, so now we have another pushback, the way of the Lord is not fair.

Here now, O house of Israel, is it not my way which is fair, and your ways which are not?

Who's fair here?

You're pushing back at me saying, you're not fair, God. God says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, who's not fair?

In a bean counting religion, which ancient Jewish religion probably thought that way.

God, I've done this right. I've done that right. I've done that right. I've done that right. I've done that right. Oh, well, yeah, those were all in the past, and I'm not doing them anymore.

You know, today, it's an interesting euphemism when you talk with somebody about church attendance. What church do you go to? Well, I go to the United Church of God. What church do you go to?

And the person may say, well, I'm elapsed, and then they put the denomination behind it.

I'm elapsed, meaning the religion that I would claim is whatever religion, but I don't do it.

I don't practice it. I've let it all lapse, just like an expired driver's license.

God says, when it lapses, I don't remember any of it. Lapsing isn't acceptable.

He then says again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness which he committed and does what is lawful and right, he preserves himself alive because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions which he committed. He shall surely live. Yet the house of Israel, verse 29, says, the way of the Lord is not fair.

O house of Israel, is it not my way which is fair, or my ways which are fair, and your ways which are not fair? Therefore, you know, you always look for therefores and wherefores because that's like in mathematics where you see the two slashes. We're now ready for the sum. Therefore, I will judge you, O house of Israel, every warn according to his ways, says the Lord God, repent and turn from all your transgressions so that iniquity will not be your ruin.

Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed.

Get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. O, why should you die, O house of Israel?

For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies, says the Lord, therefore turn and live.

God and Israel were communicating on two completely different wavelengths.

When you go back to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there are times where the disciples are walking with Christ, and Christ is talking with a long view, the kingdom, the culmination, the destination, and the disciples are hearing in the near term.

One of the greatest examples we go through every year at Passover when we go back to John and Christ says, I'm the bread of life. If you don't eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part in me.

People were hearing cannibalism, and the majority of his disciples packed their bags and left after that message to the place where he looked at Peter and he said, Peter, are you leaving also?

Peter said, I don't have anywhere to go. You're the only one that has truth. Now, they saw literal blood drinking and flesh eating.

The disciples, following the last Passover with Christ, understood the long view.

This is a case similar to conversations on different planes. Based on the plane they were on, Israel had no reason to vacate their reasoning.

They simply should have stopped and said, God, what plane are you on? So, I can get on the same plane as you are.

These were people who would hearken back to the scripture I started with, Exodus 20, verses 4 and 5.

They would hearken back to the iniquities of the fathers or visited upon the children of the third and fourth generation. And when God gave them something different than what they were used to, they said, that's not right. That's not right. That's not fair.

The context is very interesting. You know exactly the same thing I've been reading to you in Ezekiel. Ezekiel discusses it in much more detail. He'd spend the whole chapter. Jeremiah discusses the same thing.

Now, look at the setting. Israel is saying, the fathers eat sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge.

Were they justified if you're on their level, saying that? Absolutely.

As I said, the problem was they didn't ask God what level plane are you speaking on.

Because who was hearing these words? Who is hearing the words that you and I are reading? But they were hearing. But they were hearing.

The majority of the house of Judah sitting on the river Kibbar in Babylon.

In captivity.

When the Babylonians came in and hauled the people away, it wouldn't be any different than hauling away all of a city today in the United States.

Every city is the same. You have some very kind and generous people.

You have some people that have no moral values. And I use moral in the full sense. That is, I don't care. I'm not talking about sexuality. I'm talking about morality. I don't care about anybody but me. No moral fiber. And you have everything in between.

And so these people sitting on the river Kibbar could see people that they felt were absolute scoundrels sitting next to people they thought were pretty nice people. Fathers and sons and grandsons and maybe even great-grandsons all sitting there together. And they see the perfect logic of, we're all here in Babylonian captivity together.

Jeremiah, meanwhile, was back in Jerusalem telling them, you haven't gone there yet, but you are going to join the people that Ezekiel is talking to. So they're both talking during the successive waves of Babylonian invasion and exportation of Jews to Babylon.

And so they're pushing back saying, God, your way doesn't make any sense, but mine does.

Look at here. Look at where we are. Look at the shores of the river Kibbar. Or look at Jerusalem, and look at the people that have been carried away.

But that isn't the conversation God is having.

God is having a conversation, and the tip-off to God's conversation is in verse 31. God, cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

God's statement in Exodus was, oh, that there were such a heart in them. In Jeremiah, it says, and the day will come where I will give them a new heart, and I will write my laws on their heart and on their mind.

The conversation God is having here in Exodus 19 is a salvation-level conversation. It's a salvation-level conversation.

And the captives in Judah, and those to whom Ezekiel was written, which included the house of Israel, were looking at it as a contemporary message for them in their circumstances and their condition. And they said, you know what? Common sense says to me, this doesn't wash.

And God says, you need to come up on my plane and listen to me on my plane, which is something they were not prepared to do. Now, where was their reasoning springing from?

Exodus 20, verse 5.

Later in Exodus, later by 40 years in Deuteronomy, that's where their reasoning was springing from.

So let's go back to Exodus, chapter 20.

Exodus, chapter 20, verse 5.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.

You know, brethren, one of the things that a Christian learns, and it's a part of his or her maturing, is that as you read verses like the one that we're reading right now, where the appearance is very personal, that I, God, am pulling the strings and pushing the buttons for every single human life on this planet. As opposed to the reality where God simply says, my ways and my standards are inviolate.

And when you violate them, they carry with them consequences.

And you can't escape the consequences of violating my law because my law is inviolate.

You can't violate it and say, well, nothing happened.

Doesn't work that way. The consequences are built in, in the same way that the blessings are built in.

And so when he says, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, takes absolutely no action by God. He doesn't have to look and say, well, here's John Doe. Let's look at what his dad did. Okay, then, no, not necessary.

There are a couple of commentaries that do great justice to this particular verse.

The most outstanding would be Ellicott's commentary, and second to it would be Barnes' notes.

I'd like to read Ellicott's comments on visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, and I would like to spend considerable time expounding, because Ellicott does a beautiful job of capturing what God intends by what he's saying.

And so Ellicott, under the phrase, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, begins to develop the meaning in this fashion.

It is a fact that under God's natural government of the world, which is a beautiful way of putting what I just said when I said God's laws are inviolate.

If you break them, they break you. If you keep them, they keep you. Ellicott is saying the same thing, but he simply says it is a fact that under God's natural government of the world, the iniquity of the fathers is visited upon their children.

Now, I'm going to stop there for a minute to make sure we understand the difference between sins and iniquities. When I gave you the quiz and I asked you what was written, and I won't ask anybody to identify what went through their mind, I'll just pose it as a question.

Did your mind read the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, the third and fourth generation? Or did your mind read the iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation?

There are times in the Bible where the translators blur the fine differences between sins and iniquities, but iniquities are not identical to sins, and sins are not identical to iniquities as we are reading what God is saying in Exodus 25.

So we're looking at the iniquities of the fathers being visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation.

Have you ever sat down in a quiet time of meditation and closed your eyes and asked, how many of the iniquities of the fathers am I suffering?

And by fathers, we're not talking about your physical father, we're talking about the previous generations. Now, I would imagine every younger generation does that, whether they do it in a disciplined way or not. Every generation does do that. Every younger generation automatically does it.

It may be a one-off where something happens and they say, well, this is what they have made a mess of that I have to live in, and I'm not happy with it. This is what I'm going to do to try to turn it around. Every generation has looked at the generation before and the messes that it made and said, I don't like the messes they made and to the degree that I have power to change it, I want to see it changed. I don't blame them. I don't blame them. If you're 20 years old and that's where you are, it's just, you know, we can say, welcome to the club. Because everybody in this room, when they were 20 years old, sang the same song in the same verse. I don't like what has been done to my nation, my environment, my surroundings, my city, my state, and I want to see it different. So let's go on.

Let me start back at the beginning. It is a fact that under God's natural government of the world, the iniquity of the fathers is visited upon the children. Diseases caused by vicious courses are transmitted.

Ever gotten sick? Because somebody coughed on you and you go home, and two days later you've got a fever? You didn't do anything. You didn't do anything at all.

The parents, now we're going back to the closer relation, the parents' extravagance leaves their children beggars.

I've enjoyed watching the English version of Antique Roadshow. It's a much more genteel version, and antiques are not just the 1800s. They're the 1400s, 1500s, 1300s, so you've got some muscle on antiques.

But they go to different, absolutely fabulous estates. And you just think, how can you have so many castles? And how can you have so many absolutely phenomenal estates in a country that small? But they went to one, and here was a huge portrait of the last great Duke, Earl, whatever his title was that had been there.

And it was a large portrait, you could tell he was quite a dandy.

And he basically, and this was back three or four hundred years ago, he just basically took everything that made that estate what it was and squandered it. And when he died, they had all the big buildings and all the land, and not a penny to support it.

And so the family went from a long-established family of wealth, prestige, and honor to poverty.

So, as Ellicott said, the parents' extravagance leaves their children beggars.

Any time someone does what this particular titled individual does, they completely leave everything in ruin. To be the son of a felon is to be heavily handicapped in the race of life.

Not as much an issue today because felonies are far more common and far less punished. But in a time where these things had great significance and great power, and it's not that it's gone away.

You know, as you get to know someone, and you get to be friends with someone, they always want to know who you are, and you want to know who they are. And when somebody says to you, my dad spent 30 years in prison for murder, it doesn't help the relationship.

Any time you have to say to someone, my dad, and you attach to that a multiple-decade prison sentence for a crime committed, you have dented the relationship.

Did you do anything wrong?

Well, the only thing wrong you did, and I'm being facetious, the only thing you did wrong was to be born by that individual. Meaning you didn't do anything wrong.

Do you carry the burden of his iniquity? Yes, you do. You didn't ask for it, you don't want it, but you carry it. But that this should be so is perhaps involved in, quote, the nature of things.

At any rate, it is part of the scheme of divine government by which the world is ordered.

We all inherit countless disadvantages. Hang on a second. My screen decided to time out.

Bear with me a second, brethren. My screen timed out. Now I've got to go back and find...

There we are. We all inherit countless disadvantages on account of our first parent's sin, going back to Adam and Eve. We each individually inherit special tendencies to this or that from evil or from the misconduct of our several progenitors. We have this statement that the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree. You have different variations of it, but it's a way of saying when a child exhibits certain characteristics and it's just like dad, you say, well, not a lot of change between. Child didn't learn anything from the father's misconduct.

We each inherit special tendencies to this or that form of evil from the misconduct of our several progenitors. The knowledge that their sins will put their children at a disadvantage is calculated to check men in their evil courses. So what he's saying is, when God says, do you realize what you're doing to your children when you sin? He said it to mankind so that those who are honorable and sober and who will think will say, I don't want to do that because in the effect it will have upon my children.

You know, I find it pleasant.

I find it pleasant in terms of something that correlates with this, that you can pick up an alcoholic beverage and on it it will contain a warning for pregnant women.

Now, I don't know what's the right amount, the wrong amount during pregnancy, but just the principle. The principle of we are writing this because you will have children, and we would like your children not to be disadvantaged. That's an honorable process.

It doesn't matter whether the statement is right or wrong, the fact that somebody cares enough to say to you, please consider this if you're pregnant because of the potential it might have upon your children. The children, they're not going to be able to be able to be able to be able to be that are born from long-term hard drug users.

Don't deserve the life that they've been given. They didn't ask for it, but they got it.

Those who live in the classroom and those who deal with kindergarten and first grade children, when children from that background come in, they are a challenge to the system, they are a challenge to the teacher, and sadly they are a challenge to themselves.

And so, as Elikot was saying, the knowledge that their sins, that's the fathers, will put their children at a disadvantage is calculated, that is by God, it is calculated by God to check men in their evil courses more than almost anything else, and this check could not be removed without a sensible diminution of the restraints which withhold men from vice.

That's a wordy way of saying you warn, and you warn at this level because you want to sink in.

And if you soft sell it and soft peddle it to the place where it really doesn't hurt, then the person on the hearing end says, must not be that bad, and they go ahead and do it. So in other words, the force with which God says these things is done deliberately to sober the hearer. You could say it softly, and a person would say, oh, well, thanks for the advice. Now I'm going to get back to what I was doing.

Still, the penalty upon the children is not final or irreversible.

Under whatever disadvantages they are born, they may struggle against them, lead good lives, and place themselves even in this world on a level with those who were born under every favorable circumstance. Which is very true. When I look back at my career ministerially, I look at two people that come from bad backgrounds. And it's always interesting to counsel with people who will tell you about the sins of their fathers, or people that you simply know, and you know the sins of their fathers, because they're going to peel off to the left, or they're going to peel off to the right.

One of them is going to say, if that's the way my dad lived, that's the way I'm going to live. And the other says, I don't want anything to do with the consequences of life that I see my father suffering, and I'm going to run the opposite direction just as hard as I can run.

And it's as consistent as rain in life when you watch children come to the age of awareness. That they pick, and some will say, well, no, that's the way my dad was. That's the way I'm going to be. And the other will say, I've seen the sins of my fathers, and I've seen what it's done to them, and I don't want anything whatsoever to do with it.

So it's a beautiful way, as Ellicott put it, when he said, the penalty upon the children is not final or irreversible. Under whatever disadvantage they are born, they may struggle against them and lead good lives and place themselves even in this world on a level with those who were born under every favorable circumstance. It's a beautiful description.

If you have commentaries, if you have access to commentaries, it would be good to go back and read what I've read to you about Exodus chapter 20, verse 5 from Ellicott, and to go on and read what Barnes notes have to say. They help. In Exodus chapter 20, in verse 5, God was talking about this physical carnal life.

In Ezekiel 18, God was speaking on ultimates. Ultimates. Destination.

Where will you be for eternity?

And he said on that level, where you end up is what I judge.

If you started out righteous and you stay there, good for you. Good for you. If you started out a real scoundrel and you turned from your ways and became different, I'll forget all of the past. If you started out a good man and you decided for whatever reason that I simply am content with a lapsed religion, I'm not going to remember any of the good things you did. You abandoned mid-course a way of life. And when you abandoned it, I abandoned the credit that I gave you for it.

You know, brethren, we live in a world. We live in a world that if we stop and think about Exodus chapter 20 verse 5, we are a world buried, buried in the iniquities of our fathers.

We are so buried in the iniquities of our fathers, that we have forgotten, and in some cases, as individuals, we're absolutely clueless about where the consequences began three or four generations ago.

I was sitting reading the Columbian a couple of weeks ago, and I read a political cartoon, and I told my wife, I said, take that political cartoon and send it to me, and I'll put it in my photo file, because it fits so well. The political cartoon is a dark somber brown.

There's a big tall individual with his back towards you, and on the back of his back is written in large letters, China.

And he's holding a chain, and the chain is passed on down to a fellow who's a little bit shorter, and he's facing you with a baseball cap, hanging onto the same chain, and on his chest is written Mexico.

And the chain continues on, and so you've gone from a tall, bulky individual with his back to you, China, and a chain down to someone who's faced toward you with his head down on a baseball cap, Mexico, and further down even smaller, is a person hunkered over like this, with a scruffy beard and scruffy hair, sleeves rolled up to here, and hunkered down like I am right now, and it says USA.

And the caption of the cartoon is, the fentanyl chain.

I looked at the cartoon, and I smiled.

I smiled at the ignorance, total complete ignorance of the cartoon.

I looked at the cartoon, and smiled at how totally, completely oblivious both our nation and the cartoonist were to Exodus 20, verse 5.

One of the greatest burdens upon America's society is drug addiction, and the longest standing hard drug in the world of addiction are those in the opioid category, both for those who are recreational abusers and those who have been hooked by cross-addiction, which is sad when you see someone who's been medically treated and ends up now cross-addicted.

Who's to blame?

A short-sighted view, like this cartoon, says China.

How many of you have ever heard of the Opium Wars?

Two in the back. If you've got time this afternoon, look up the Opium Wars.

You know, the world is run by trade. I remember years ago reading the book entitled Astoria, and it was interesting. I have forgotten which of the great men of wealth in the days of Thomas Jefferson went to Jefferson and said, we need to get a hold of the northwestern part of this continent before somebody else does. And Jefferson said, you're right. And he said, whether eventually becomes a part of the United States or whether it's a part of my personal empire, we need to have control. And Jefferson said, you're right. And so he put out an exploratory company that went cross-country, and he put out another exploratory party that went all the way around the bottom of South America, and both of them were to end up at Astoria before there was an Astoria.

And the reason was trade, because beaver pelts were as good as gold. And since trading has been a part of the world culture from so far back in time, who can know?

Traders by this particular time in the 1700s said, if we're trading, we need to know how to trade all the way around the world. It does no good to leave England with a full ship lad somewhere dump it, and then take an empty ship all the way back across the ocean.

And so they said, we can take goods from the east coast, and we can carry them around to the west coast. On the west coast, we will pick up beaver furs, which are the most sought-after form of fur in all of China. And we will drop the beaver furs and pick up China.

And we'll take a ship load of China to England, where people want the dinnerware, the pots, and the vessels, and all the rest. Now we made money taking the furs to China and selling them.

Now we make even more money by taking the China to England and selling it. And in England, we pick up manufactured goods, and we continue the trip across to the colonies. And we've made money upon money upon money upon money. Opium goes all the way back to the Roman Empire, possibly even before. But when the great trading companies, the Dutch East and West India Company and the British companies, following the discovery of the ability to circumnavigate the globe, began to build their trading empires. Opium was produced in India, and the opium was transported to China.

Not by China's desire, but by you will take it or else. The Chinese were still a people, as were the Japanese, who really didn't want that much contact with the outer world.

In fact, it's interesting, even earlier, by the time of Columbus, the Chinese had ships several times the size of Columbus's vessel.

Eight to ten masted ships, capable of considerably better oceanic travel than Columbus's ships. And the Emperor of China said simply, there's nothing out there beyond China that really would make us a better people. We know more than anyone else in the world. Why would we go out and ask questions? Why would we go out and ask questions of people who are more ignorant?

And the Emperor at that time, banned, under penalty of death, the building and the sailing of any ships larger than fishing, coastal fishing vessels. China enjoyed their superiority from their perspective, and they enjoyed their isolation.

England and other countries came into China and said, you will open your gates to our trade. We're not asking, we're telling. And their maritime power and their fire power was such that they could enforce it. And so they did. And they brought opium into China. Anybody who watches Sherlock Holmes will see Sherlock Holmes in an opium den.

And if you watch it enough, you know that it was perfectly legal in England.

Now, they were all run by Chinese who had had the opium forced upon them by the English.

And so today, what are the consequences of early traders who took opium from India and forced it upon the Chinese?

The sins of the fathers visited upon the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.

If you want a very short definition from Wikipedia, Opium Wars, the Opium Wars were two conflicts waged between China and the Western powers during the mid-19th century. The first Opium War was fought from 1839 to 1842 between China and the United Kingdom and was triggered by the Chinese government's campaign to enforce its prohibition against opium trafficking by British merchants.

England simply went in and by force demanded that China traffic in opium. The sins of the fathers visited upon the children to the third, the fourth, the fifth, and however many more generations it would take if time went on before all of those hard drugs were no longer a part of American culture, which today no one can see far enough down the line to even see that utopian day.

So, brethren, as we look at Exodus 20 and verse 5, and as we look at Ezekiel 18, the entire chapter, we see two very interesting conversations. A God in heaven who says, when it comes to salvation, I am looking for people to live, not die. I have no delight in the death of the wicked. My only delight is to see him do a 180. And he says, why will you die? If you can live forever, I can't understand why you would choose to die.

Israel was stuck back in Exodus 20, verse 5, at a very earthly plane, saying, I can see all the consequences. I'm in captivity. And not only can I see the consequences, I can see the breadth and the scope of those consequences.

The God who spoke to ancient Israel was a God who was talking to physical people on a physical plane, a people that he had already described as a people who wouldn't listen to him.

And so, he was talking to them about, you are physical people going into a physical land, and I'm going to tell you how to have a physically happy life. I'm going to tell you the physical laws that will make you, and I'm going to tell you the physical laws that will break you. And I want you to be happy, and I want you to enjoy the land, generation after generation after generation. But I want you to understand, as Elikot said, that the natural government is such that as you break them, your children are going to do the suffering.

You'll make your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren suffer by not obeying me. Don't do that. Don't harm them. Don't impede them. Don't injure them.

Beautiful lessons, brethren. Lessons in life.

Lessons to live by.