Intro: Lets start off by touching briefly on where we are today. In our day, in the times we are currently living in, we believe that God (The Lord Living God, The Great I Am, Creator of heaven and earth) is in the process of bringing judgment to the secular systems of the nations and any people group aligned with them. As a result, He is preparing a witness for all mankind as to the fruitlessness of ignoring His will and His ways. There will increasingly become situations and problematic circumstances defying explanation. In truth, only leaders trained in employing biblical patterns across the fabric of our lives, who are knowingly able to craft Kingdom solutions from them, will have the answers many will be looking for.

What does this mean for us? To start, we must facilitate a coordinated forward looking effort to leverage our resources, talents, ministry abilities, and focus. To pick-up the slack from the progressive de-funding of the public sector. (Just last week in a March 25^th AP article, it was reported that Medicare will be wiped out by 2019 and Social Security will begin making payments that exceed income starting in 2017. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warned that the U.S. was facing a fiscal train wreck unless something is done.) Biblically based ideas for government will be the solution. But this will require a re-education of our Church and ministry leaders as to the 5 areas of biblical government and jurisdictions. Namely, the Individual sphere, the Family sphere, the Ecclesiastical sphere, the Business/Commercial sphere, and the Civil sphere. All the while, working to re-build the concept of the traditional family, promoting lifelong covenant relationships that facilitate generational transfer of Godly wisdom, wealth, knowledge and skills to our children, their children, and their children’s children.

Personally, I believe that my ecclesiastical calling in the days ahead, will be to help facilitate the formation of a local City Action Council of some form. City Action Councils are the bringing together of the civil, commercial and ecclesiastical leadership into an executive council. This presents in itself a host of issues that will have to be addressed and could take a considerable amount of time to achieve measurable results. We do however, see the need to move forward.

Lets begin by looking at a popular group of scriptures known to us as the Ten Commandments found in Deuteronomy chapter 5. I’ll be reading verses 6-26 from the NIV translation.

Biblical Historical Perspectives:

Deut-5:6:26__6 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 7 "You shall have no other gods before me. 8 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

11 "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

12 "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. 15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

16 "Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

17 "You shall not murder. 18 "You shall not commit adultery.

19 "You shall not steal. 20 "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

21 "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor's house or land, his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

22 These are the commandments the LORD proclaimed in a loud voice to your whole assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness; and he added nothing more. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

23 When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire, all the leading men of your tribes and your elders came to me. 24 And you said, "The LORD our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a man can live even if God speaks with him. 25 But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer. 26 For what mortal man has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived?(NIV)

Noteworthy:

1. 1400 -1420 BC_ that’s approx. 3425 years from today.

2. Notice the terrifying awesomeness and grandeur of our God as opposed to the small and insignificant role we normally assign to him in our lives.

Deut-5:9-10:_9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. (NIV)

Deut-7:9-10_9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. 10 But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him. (NIV)

Noteworthy:

Love and obedience on our part equals loyal love on God’s part. Hate and disobedience on our part equals wages of death right away on God’s part.

Example: What difference can a Christian family make? A study of the descendents of Jonathan Edwards and Max Jukes illustrates a potential difference. These men were contemporaries. Jonathan Edwards was a religious and moral man. Perhaps best known for his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of and Angry God.” At the time of the study, he had 1394 descendents from his marriage with a Christian wife, Sarah. Among these descendents were 100 preachers and missionaries, 100 lawyers, 80 public officials, 75 army and navy officers, 65 college professors, 60 authors of prominence, 60 physicians, 30 judges, 13 college presidents, 3 United States senators, 1 vice-president of the Unites States, and 295 college graduates, some of whom became governors of states and ministers to foreign countries.

Max Jukes was evidently an atheist and lived an ungodly life. Of his 540 known descendents, 310 died as paupers; 150 were criminals; 100 were drunkards; 7 were murderers; and more than half the women were prostitutes.

(Original source: Leonard Ravinhill, America Is Too Young To Die (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1979),p112.)

Personal Historical Perspectives:
Two Points: Generational Transfer and Self-Government

Notice verses 9_10 again: 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

What about our family tree? Each person has two parents, who had two parents, your grandparents each had two parents, and your great grand parents each had two parents. That makes 30 people who had the choice in their lifetimes to love God and serve Him or hate God and not serve Him. The question is were any of the 30 ungodly? And as a result, have they unleashed a landslide of generational curses upon us and our families?

If so, is there anything we can do? Or what will it take to break these curses? There is only one biblical solution provided to break a curse forever and that is the blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ applied through repentance and forgiveness of sins. (Gal 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. NIV)

“Stop and pray for deliverance, forgiveness and release.”

Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and keep Your commandments. Please, Lord, let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now. I am interceding for those in attendance here this day. We confess corporately the sins and iniquities of our hearts and our lives. For not loving you or committing to keep your commandments like we should. Confessing and forsaking the sins of our fathers before us as well. Save us now we pray, forgive us totally and completely, release us from the curses that have plagued us for generations, today and right now. We pray in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ our Lord to apply the cleansing blood of His sacrifice on the doorposts of our hearts, so the curse of sin and death and darkness may pass-over our households now. We thank you now for forgiveness, deliverance and release. Our confession from this day forward shall be from John 8:36_If the Son has set you free, you will be free indeed!”
Hallelujah! Amen!

Ok, what about now? Is there anyone here who knew that it completely matters going forward, what decisions we make with our lives? Who in here may have said previously, “What does it matter what I believe? It only affects me and no one else gets hurt but me.” Wrong,wrong,wrong,wrong, wrong!

Summary of the Familiy Tree

1. Family Tree: Backward & Forward

2. 4 generations_2-6-14-30 people

3. Godly or un-Godly?

4. Blood of Jesus only way to break the curse

5. Send blessing forward 4 generations by our love and obedience today!

Our new attitudes should be, “Today we break the generational curses to prevent them from advancing any further. Instead we choose to forward generational blessings 4 generations and beyond!”

Generational Transfer exemplified!

Self-Government

What about Self-Government? Galatians 5:22-23_ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (NIV)

Special thanks to Mark Beliles, Stephen McDowell, and Doug Anderson from the Providence Foundation. We have borrowed from their books, Building Godly Nations, Liberating the Nations, and Contending for the Constitution for the following contributions to this message.

All government begins internally in the heart of man, with his ability to govern his conscience, will, character, thoughts, ideas, motives, convictions, attitudes, and desires. How a man governs himself internally affects his external actions, speech, conduct, use of property, etc. Each external sphere of government is a reflection of the internal sphere. In other words, the internal is causative to the external. The type of government that exists in the homes, churches, schools, businesses, or civil realms of a country is a reflection of the self-government with-in the citizens.

The seventeenth century Dutch scholar, Hugo Grotius, who systematized the subject of the Law of nations, summarized the principle of self-government in the following quote: “He knows not how to rule a kingdom, that cannot manage a province; nor can he wield a Province, that cannot order a City; nor he order a City, that knows not how to regulate a village; nor he a Village, that cannot guide a Family; nor can that man Govern well a Family that knows not how to Govern himself; neither can any Govern himself unless his Reason be Lord, Will and Appetite her Vassals; nor can Reason rule unless herself be ruled by God, and wholly be obedient to Him.”

There are many civil government leaders today who are attempting to govern their nation, yet are unable to effectively direct and control their own lives or their families. These men and women should be replaced by those who can rule their own lives. Those who are self-governed are the ones with real power according to the Bible.

The fourth President of the United States and chief architect of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison, stated:

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

(Stephen McDowell and Mark Beliles, Liberating the Nations (Charlottesville: Providence Foundation, 1995),p6-8)

Our founders understood that a people cannot govern themselves in civil affairs if they do not govern their own lives well. The basis of the ability for man to govern himself well is rooted in his being subject to a higher power. The founders’ firm commitment to God, as well as their commitment to govern their lives according to His laws as contained in the Bible, was the foundation for self-government in America.

As people in a nation become less self-governed, and give up power, the civil government (especially the national government) will grow and grow, making more and more laws (many outside of its realm of jurisdiction) and spending more and more money. Lack of self-government leads to greater centralized external government which results in loss of individual liberty.”

Federal Historical Perspectives:

To the founders of our country, who had a predominantly Christian worldview, they saw God, through His Son, Jesus Christ, as their savior. The state served a legitimate but limited purpose to protect the life, liberty, and property of the citizens. From a Christian perspective the state is limited, God, however is not. America’s founders certainly saw the state in this manner. Once again James Madison, then serving in Congress, was arguing for the narrow interpretation of the “general welfare clause” of the Constitution.

“If Congress can apply money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may take into their own hands the education of the children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may undertake the regulation of all roads, other than post roads. In short, everything from the highest object of State legislation, down to the most minute object of policy, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provision for the general welfare."

(Mark Beliles and Douglas Anderson, Contending for the Constitution (Charlottesville: Providence Foundation, 2005),p153)

One of the best known examples of a Congressman objecting to a bill for the lack of “general welfare” is that of Davy Crockett, frontiersman and U.S. Representative from Tennessee from 1827-1835. A fellow Congressman told the story of a bill taken up to appropriate money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. No one opposed the bill until Mr. Crockett rose to speak against it. Excerpts of his speech follow:

“We have the right, as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate even a dollar of the public money…. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker I have said we have the right to give as much of our own money as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

As a result of that speech, the bill ended up being defeated. What is noteworthy however, is the result of Davy Crockett’s challenge for each Congressman to put up their own money for the charitable act of paying the widow. None did and that is the problem today. It is much easier to spend other people’s money than to it is to spend our own.

Today, as a result, the distinction between general and specific welfare has been virtually obliterated. Congress now passes legislation to spend money on bailout for airlines, prescription drugs, education, Social Security, various welfare programs, subsidies for farmer, and thousands of similar items that go beyond the “general welfare clause” of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution as the Founders intended.

There are many who claim that welfare and various assistance programs are based on the Biblical principle of charity. The parable of the Good Samaritan is an obvious example of this Biblical principle. Yet those who make this claim are missing two very important distinctions. Nowhere did God expressly state in the scriptures, let alone even imply, that such charity is to be a function of government. The Biblical emphasis has always been on individuals or groups of people assisting the poor or downtrodden of society on a voluntary basis and for the purpose of showing the love of God. In fact, showing the love of God is the whole point of acts of charity from a Biblical perspective.

1 Corinthians 13, verse 3, says that we can do all sorts of great “works” but if they are not done in love for the purpose of demonstrating God’s love, everything we do is worthless. Those who assert that government poverty programs are consistent with the Biblical principle have missed the point: the end is not to help the poor, that is the means to the end. The Bible teaches clearly that the true end is glorifying God by showing His love for people so that through acts of kindness and charity, they will be motivated either to begin to serve God themselves, or to strengthen their relationship with God.

The Good Samaritan acted voluntarily on his own initiative, to show the love of God. He paid for the wounded man’s stay at the inn out of his own pocket; he wasn’t forced to do so by government decree, nor did he compel others who were not so inclined to pay “their fair share”.” He certainly did not advocate that government should take care of the problem, as many people would argue today. When the Federal government gets involved, we lose both aspects of the Biblical principle of charity because the monetary assistance is from coerced tax money, and it is distributed by government workers who, more times than not, are not motivated by the love of God, but are just doing their jobs. Even assuming that many government workers administrating these programs genuinely care for the people they are assisting, the misapplied doctrine of the separation of church and state precludes the demonstration of God’s love to the people be assisted.

Another aspect to consider is that when government provides the assistance, the focus is not on God or the recipient’s need for God, the focus is on government. Over time, government is looked on as our artificial “savior” and provider. Yet those are the roles of God alone, not government, and our Founding Fathers understood those separate roles and were careful to keep them distinct. Today’s social reformers do not.

The result has been an exponential increase in government spending, federal largesse, and overburdening the American citizens with inordinate taxes which they resent paying. Instead of creating an atmosphere of love and compassion for the poor and needy through private, voluntary charitable programs, the government’s welfare state has created division, resentment, dependence, and animosity that has depreciated into “class warfare”

(Mark Beliles and Douglas Anderson, Contending for the Constitution (Charlottesville: Providence Foundation, 2005),p154-156)

Review points quickly:

1. The terrifying awesomeness and grandeur of our God

2. Love and obedience on our part equals loyal love on God’s part. Hate and disobedience on our part equals wages of death right away on God’s part.

3. Generational Transfer_ blessings and curses _ Family tree_4 forward 4 backward

4. Self-government_ James Madison, stated:

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

5. Federal government- 5 generations of secularization and excess.

6. Davy Crockett_ I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

7. Love of God must be communicated through our charity with proper Biblically based funding!

(See Wealth, Riches,& Money _God’s Biblical Principles of Finances, Craig Hill and Earl Pitts).
Dennis Peacocke proclaim's -"This book is right on time! It is undoubtedly the finest study I have ever seen on the basic principles of personal Kingdom-based finances."