From His Heart

Speaker 1

It's always your fault, not mine. Have you ever said that to anyone? Really? Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.

Speaker 2

You can't control what people do to you, but you can control what you do in response. The fathers eat the sour grapes. That affects you, but you're responsible to God, and bad things may have happened to you.

And I'm not trying to minimize the bad things that happen to people, but bad things happen to everyone. How about this? How about you get before God and you say, "Lord, I don't like what's happened, but I'm gonna take personal responsibility for my life."

I don't care what the color of your skin is. That's how you succeed in life. You take responsibility for your life and you trust God. He can heal every scar with real truth, real love, real hope. From his heart.

Speaker 1

Here’s the truth. The devil loves people to blame anyone but themselves for their lot in life, for the bad things that happen. And in our world today, victimhood status has really taken on a moral ground of its own.

On this edition of From His Heart, Pastor Jeff Shreve wants to teach us that we're never going to get ahead and succeed in life until we take full responsibility for our own life and our mistakes. Thank you for joining us today on From His Heart with the message "Sour Grapes and the Justice of God Part 2." It's one of five in Pastor Jeff's challenging series, "Discernment in the Days of Deception."

Now, this series is also our special thank you gift for your support to From His Heart this month of any amount. You can get it in the format of your choice when you go to fromhisheart.org.

Now, open your Bible to Ezekiel, chapter 11. Here's Pastor Jeff to explore the difference between sour grapes and the justice of God.

Speaker 2

Here's the background of Ezekiel. He was ministering at a time when Judah, the nation of Judah, was falling apart. God tells him, "This is what I want you to do. I want you to speak to my people and warn them of danger." When we come to chapter 18, the Word of the Lord comes to Ezekiel. Then the word of the Lord, verse one, came to me, saying, "What do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, 'The fathers eat the sour grapes, but the children's teeth are set on edge'? As I live, declares the Lord God, you are surely not going to use this proverb in Israel anymore. Behold, all souls are mine. The soul of the Father as well as the soul of the Son is mine. The soul who sins will die."

This proverb, "The fathers eat the sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge," was very popular. The people repeated it over and over and over. It was just an adage that they said, and that's what they thought and believed. God hated that proverb and told Ezekiel to tell them not to say that anymore. Now, why was God so upset about that proverb? What's the big deal about it? That proverb is one degree off, and I want you to notice with me three lies that are underlying and undergirding this proverb.

Lie number one: This proverb teaches the lie that you are not at fault. It's not your fault that your fathers ate the sour grapes and your teeth are set on edge. Your fathers did all the sinning, and you're experiencing the punishment for that. But you didn't do it. It's not your fault; the fathers did that, and now here you are suffering. Life stunk in Babylon. It was hard there, and they said, "Well, this just stinks, and it's not my fault." The devil wants you to blame other people for your lot in life, but the Lord wants you to take responsibility for your life. You're never going to get ahead and succeed in life until you take responsibility for your life.

In the early 1900s, a false teaching came to America. Walter Rauschenbusch was the promoter of this false teaching, which we know as the social gospel. The social gospel said, "We're going to lead with the good works. It's all about the good works in his name." This left out the salvation part. As Adrian Rogers so correctly said many years ago, "If all you give people is soup and soap, and you don't lead them to salvation, all you do is make this world a better place to go to hell."

Today, most people recognize that the social gospel isn't the gospel, but what we have now is the social justice gospel. You've no doubt heard the term "social justice." It sounds good, just like the social gospel sounded good. I mean, helping people—yes, we are supposed to be doing that. Here's the thing: when the fruit of the gospel replaces the root of the gospel, the root of the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. It's repenting of sin, recognizing you're a sinner and you need a savior, repenting of your sin, and trusting Jesus. That's the root of the gospel. The fruit is the works that come from that. When the fruit replaces the root, it kills the tree.

That's what happened with the social gospel, and that's what's happening with the social justice gospel. People say, "Hey, we want justice for people, of course, because God is a just God." So we want justice. But social justice is rooted in Marxism. It says there are basically two classes of people: the oppressors and the oppressed. The message is clear: if you're in the oppressed class, it's not your fault. You don't need to repent because you're a victim. The proverb teaches the lie that you are not at fault.

Secondly, the proverb teaches the lie that God is not fair. Why would it say God is not fair? Listen to it again: "The fathers eat the sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." The fathers did all the sinning, and the children pay the penalty for the fathers' sins. Well, that doesn't sound fair, does it? Of course, it's not fair. Because that's not fair, God's not fair. Why? Because God is the judge. He's over all things. It's not fair that these things are happening. Not only is it not my fault, but God is not fair.

The devil wants you to think that God is unjust, that God is not right, that God is unfair. If you believe that God is unjust, not right, and unfair, it won't be long before you think He is unworthy of your worship and unworthy of your trust. How can you trust a God who's not right, who's not just, who's not fair? If God's just on a whim, "I like you, I don't like you," then you're in trouble. You can't go to God; you can't trust God because God is not fair.

This idea is repeated twice in Ezekiel, chapter 18, verses 25 and 29. Yet you say, "The way of the Lord is not right." And God says, "Are my ways not right? Is it not your ways that are not right?" They say God is not right; He's not fair. He doesn't balance like scales in a chemistry class. They think God's scale is off because He is not fair.

Now, where did they come up with this idea that "the fathers eat the sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge"? Remember, the devil is smart, clever, and slick. This idea is rooted in Scripture, in a misapplication and misunderstanding of Scripture. God repeats Himself in the Ten Commandments and when He reveals Himself to Moses. You remember Moses said, "Lord, show me your glory." The Lord said, "I will show you my glory, but you can only see the backside of my glory. No one can see my face and live." He took Moses, hid him in the cleft of the rock, covered him with His hand, and passed by. When the Lord passed by, He declared His glory and who He is.

The Scripture says the Lord passed in front of him, Exodus 34, and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations." People would read that and say, "There it is right there. God punishes children to the third and fourth generation for the sins of their fathers." But it's a misreading of Scripture. You're not rightly dividing the word of truth.

The word iniquity means twistedness. He visits the twistedness of the fathers on the children and the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations. For example, Abraham had trouble with lying. That was kind of his default setting. If he got into a bind, he'd lie. He told his wife, "Hey, Sarah, we're going to go down there. Pharaoh's going to take one look at you, and he's going to think, 'Wow, I want her as my wife.' So say that you're my sister." He did this twice in the Bible, which got him into terrible trouble.

Well, he has a son, Isaac, who does the very same thing with his wife. Then Isaac has a son, Jacob. The name Jacob means heel-grabber, trickster, con man, and he is a deceiver deluxe. He deceives his blind father, pretending to be Esau. Jacob has 12 sons, and 10 of those sons deceived Jacob into thinking that Joseph was eaten by wild animals when, in truth, they sold him into slavery. The trickster got tricked; the deceiver got deceived.

But here's the twistedness: the iniquity going from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to his sons. That's how that works. God doesn't punish people for someone else's sins. Your father's sins don't affect you in terms of being judged for them. They may affect you in terms of experiencing hardship because of them. If your dad was an alcoholic and abused you, are you going to experience some hardship from that? Of course. You don't sin in a vacuum. Your sins affect other people, but you're not going to be judged for your father's sins.

In Ezekiel, verses 5 through 20, he gives an example. He talks about a righteous father who has an unrighteous, wicked son. That wicked son has a son who is righteous. So it's three generations: righteous, wicked, and then righteous. Here is what he says about that in verse 19: "Yet you say, 'Why should the son not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity when the son has practiced justice and righteousness and observed all my statutes and done them? He shall surely live. The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son's iniquity. The righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.'"

Here's the deal: if you had a righteous father and you're unrighteous, his righteousness doesn't transfer to you. It's wonderful to have a righteous father, but it doesn't transfer to your ledger. God doesn't have any grandkids; He just has children. Everyone has to make his own individual decision before the Lord and take responsibility for his own life before the Lord. A righteous father can't redeem an unrighteous son, and that unrighteous son, when he grows up and has a child, his unrighteousness doesn't transfer to the kid. The kid can make his own decision.

In that scenario, the righteous father had a wicked son, and that wicked son had a son who didn't follow in his father's wickedness but followed in his grandfather's righteousness. Each one of those people alone, individually, stands before God and is judged for his own life. You don't pay the price for someone else's sin. The Lord wants you to see that justice comes to the individual sinner. It doesn't come because you're blamed for what someone else did.

It says in Jeremiah 31, "In those days, they will not say again, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.' Everyone will die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge." You pay for your own life. You are accountable for your own life. I'm not accountable for your life; you're not accountable for my life. I'm accountable for me, and you're accountable for you.

Thomas Sowell, an economist and social theorist, has a powerful quote: "Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?" That is so true. That's what's going on. It's the ultimate absurdity. God didn't like it when it was in the proverb because it's a lie, a degree off that starts to get further and further away from the destination.

So what's wrong with the proverb? Number one, it teaches that you're not at fault. You have to take personal responsibility for your life. You have to look in the mirror and sing that little song: "It's not my brother, it's not my sister, but it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer." Secondly, it teaches that God is not fair. God is fair; He's more than fair. He is skewed to the good of fair because He visits the iniquity of the fathers on the third and fourth generation, but He shows loving kindness to thousands of those who love Him. God is skewed to your good.

When you're in a negotiation with somebody and you say, "Let's come up with something fair," and they come up with something that is way to your benefit, you say, "Is this fair?" and you respond, "Man, that's more than fair." That's God. He's more than fair. He hated that proverb because it attacked His justice.

Thirdly, this proverb teaches the lie that your response is futile. It doesn't matter what you do. Your fathers did this, and you're suffering for your father's sin. Because it's not your fault and because God's not fair, how do you fix it? You can't fix it. What's the use? The devil wants you to think it doesn't matter what you do, so "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die." It doesn't matter. How are you going to change anything? God is crooked; the system is rigged; it's against you. Life is against you. No matter what you do, it's not going to matter.

We have lots of people who believe that today. It matters what you do. It matters the choices you make. You can't control what people do to you, but you can control what you do in response. You have to take responsibility for the way you respond. The devil will lie and say, "Your response doesn't matter." The Lord wants you to know that your response is critical.

This is how the Lord ends this chapter in Ezekiel. He says in verse 29, "But the house of Israel says, 'The way of the Lord is not right.' Are my ways not right, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are not right? Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, each according to his conduct. Judgment is individual, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn away from your transgressions so that iniquity may not become a stumbling block to you. Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, declares the Lord God. Therefore repent and live."

That is critical. Your response is critical. Now is the time to respond to the Lord. What are you going to do? Are you just going to sit there and say, "Well, that was a good message," or "That was not so good a message," or "You know, Jeff must have been kind of off his game today"? The time that you need to be very, very engaged is at the end, where you have to do business with God, because that is critical. If you don't do business with God, He doesn't do business with you. The Lord does business with those who mean business.

So often we think, "Well, you know, God, I'm interested in this social event and that social event and this social activism and that social activism." We don't like to look in the mirror; we don't like to see what's wrong with us. God says, "It starts with you. Why should you die, O house of Israel? Repent and live."

As we close out today, I want everybody to take your fingers and interlock them in front of you like this. When you take your fingers and interlock them, you notice that you make a circle. The only person you can change is the person in the circle. If you want to make a difference in life, you work on the person in the circle. Don't worry about the person outside of the circle; you work on the person in the circle.

People in bad marriages want God to change their spouse. How about changing you? That's the thing we don't really want. "Well, you know, I'd like it more if God would work on Debbie." Who wouldn't? That would be great. But God says, "Jeff, I want to work on you." So work on the person in the circle. Take personal responsibility. The fathers eat the sour grapes; that affects you, but you're responsible to God. Bad things may have happened to you, and I'm not trying to minimize the bad things that happen to people, but bad things happen to everyone.

Some have so many bad things, like Job. What are they going to do with that? They could do what Mrs. Job said: "Hey, Job, just curse God and die." That's an option. Go smash everybody's stuff because you're angry. That's another option. Those are both bad choices. How about this? You get before God and say, "Lord, I don't like what's happened to me, but I'm going to take personal responsibility for my life." I don't care what the color of your skin is; that's how you succeed in life. You take responsibility for your life and trust God because God is over it all.

No one is over you. Ultimately, it's God. That's why all griping, all complaining, all rioting comes back to God. "I don't like how this is working out," and God is over it all. So it all comes back to God. All the grumbling comes back to God. God told Moses, "These people are grumbling against me." It all comes back to God.

It's so much better to say, "God, I don't understand these circumstances, but I'm going to trust you with it."

Speaker 1

Well, an easy truth to hear, a harder one to put into our minds and hearts and put into action, but a necessary one if we want to avoid being deceived by the circumstances. Pastor Jeff Shreve has taught through today's lesson on From His Heart about how important it is to take responsibility for our own actions. The message is called "Sour Grapes and the Justice of God."

Now, there's no question about it. The devil is working overtime in the hearts and the minds of people across this nation. We see it exposed in so many areas of our lives. The devil desires nothing more than to deceive you and me at every turn with lies and false teachings. There surely are false prophets among us that come in all shapes and sizes, from the person in the pulpit to the currently famous reality star. And they are sometimes not easy to detect.

In Pastor Jeff Shreve's timely series we've been in this month called "Discernment in the Days of Deception," he shares important questions and supplies the biblical answers that we need. You see, there are wolves in sheep's clothing that are deceiving a new generation, not to mention the older ones. Do you have discernment to know the difference, to know the truth?

This month, we'd like you to have this powerful and deep series as our thank you for your support. It comes on either USB flash drive, an immediate MP3 download, or CDs or DVDs. When you make your helpful gift today, we'd be glad to send it to you, helping us to reach around the world, seeking to bring as many people as possible into the family of God until He comes again. Will you help make your gift today and get "Discernment in the Days of Deception"?

Just call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-BIBLE) or simply go online to FromHisHeart.org, and you'll see the album cover right there on the homepage. Thank you for your discernment in how you invest in kingdom work. God bless you.

Well, thank you for being with us today on From His Heart. We trust you'll be right back here with us next time for the fourth message in the series "Discernment in the Days of Deception" with the lesson called "Wolves Among the Sheep," right here on From His Heart.

Speaker 2

There is true, there is bless There is hope that you always dream of he can heal every scars of truth. Real love, real hope from his heart.

Speaker 1

From his heart is the listener supported broadcast Ministry of Dr. Jeff Sri speaking the truth in love to a lost and a hurting world. Remember, no matter what, God loves you and he has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out more@fromisheart.org.