On Eagles' Wings Pt 170 — Don Courville

Isaiah’s Promise of Renewed Strength

The Prophet Isaiah said, Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not? Neither is weary. There's no searching of his understanding.

He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might, he increases strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

They shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint. Heavenly Father, we ask that today you would speak to us from your word, that the thoughts that are shared today would have an impact on our lives, that we would understand what you are trying to say to us, and especially to us as fathers.

Fathers and the Influence They Have on Their Children

We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Well, it's Father's Day. If the timing's right, it's Father's Day. What does that mean to you? Well, it means a lot to me since I'm a father, and I have a father. My father's still alive.

The thing about being a father is we make an impression on our kids. Our children take on our characteristics, our traits, good and bad. The thing that I've been noticing lately is how many times the bad traits seem to have the most predominance in affecting our lives and our ministries.

I sometimes wonder if it isn't like the poem that Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote on the winds of fate when she said, one ship drives east and another west while the south same breezes blow. Tis the set of the sails and not the gales that determines the way they go.

Like the winds of the sea are the waves of fate as we voyage along through life. Tis the set of the soul that decides the goal and not the calm nor strife. And the thing I'm wondering is what's the set of the soul?

What's the set of the soul of your children, fathers? Which direction are they going? I received a letter last month from a Jewish missionary in regards to fathers and I thought I might open up today by sharing a few of the things that he shared in this letter.

Christ’s Mission to Set Captives Free

Then I'd like to take you into one of the areas that God is beginning to open up to the church today in a wonderful way in that it's setting people free. It's setting the captives free. I was just thinking about that wonderful passage that referred to the Lord Jesus Christ over in Isaiah chapter 61 in verse one where it said about the Lord Jesus, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. One of the things that we're seeing and discovering is that the captives can be set free.

What's tragic is many times when a father will have something in his life or even a mother that the child will not be set free of. He will go in and do this same thing or something in this area. But many times it's sort of like what's been said, what the parents do in moderation, the children would do in excess.

Well, it doesn't have to keep going on in the generations. It can be broke off. And I might take some time today, the Lord willing, and share with you about the iniquities of the fathers. But first, let me share with you about this from this letter that I received just to get us into gear today for Father's Day.

Now, we're not preaching. I'm not in a pulpit. Many, most of the sermons that come to you are from a pulpit, but I'm beginning to do more of my messages for you for the time being anyway from my home studio.

I think it's time that we sit down and we listen and we just talk. We have tons of sermons, tons of preaching. I've got dozens and hundreds of sermons, but it's time that we do some talking and we do some listening to God.

We do so many things just over and over and over because we've done them. But as I am seeing in the churches today, Satan's cashing in now, where he's had ground given to him, he's cashing in and he's claiming that ground.

And if we're not careful, we'll lose our children. We'll lose the years of investment in them with great tragic results. Now, listen to this letter. Dear Reverend Corville, may I lovingly ask you a question that will no doubt stir very strong feelings.

I certainly wish you no emotional pain, but there is a very compelling reason why I ask. What kind of memories do you have of your childhood relationship with your father? Now, let me just stop here. That's a good question.

The Past’s Effect on Present Bondage

Do you have good memories of your father? I know my memories, the strongest ones are of my dad and I going fishing. And I remember though, as we'd go fishing, we could travel all the way there and all the way back many times without saying a word.

We never did communicate a lot, at least not in my mind, we didn't. We'd have a good time fishing and we've got a few fishtails to share. But memories, memories, they're quite an interesting thing. Some of them can be very painful and some of them very rewarding and refreshing.

But what kind of memories do you have of your childhood relationship with your father? And the reason I'm going into this is because of our past, it affects our present. It affects what's going on in our life today.

And you and I, we're either free or we're in bondage of some kind. And the Lord Jesus came to set the prisoners free. He came to open up the door. And what he did at Calvary, when he died on the cross for our sins, he set us free from the penalty of sin.

When he shed his blood on the cross, he paid the price for your sin and my sin. And it was paid for, it was finished. He said it was finished. But just because he did that does not mean that you are free from the penalty of sin.

It is not yours until you cash in on it. The door has been opened and you have to walk out of that other world of being in that sin. And you walk into the world of God's forgiveness. You walk out of that door of sin's control and bondage and the wages of sin is death, the Scripture says.

You walk out from under that death and you walk out free through the gate of God's forgiveness. Now that's our salvation. When we receive Christ as our Savior, that can happen anywhere. It's not being baptized, it's not walking in an aisle, even though it can happen when you walk an aisle, it could happen when you're baptized.

But it's receiving Christ as your personal Savior. Now what happens there is you are released from the guilt of your sins. But Christ also at that point delivered you from the power of sin from that point on in your life.

That door was opened too. And you have to walk away from sin's control in your life. And this is where you go to Romans 6 and you reckon yourself dead to sin. When you and I get up in the morning, if we're Christians and we know Christ as our Savior, we have the right, the birthright to say, now Father, I reckon myself dead to sin.

We're dead in Adam, but we're alive in Jesus now. And I'll walk today by faith. I'll walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Father. I need the anointing power of the Holy Spirit. And I thank you by faith.

And we walk by faith and not by sight. You want to get confused? You walk by sight. You want to get confused? You walk by feelings. You walk by your emotions. No, we walk by faith. It's a tremendous thing.

Iniquities Passed Through Generations

But what happens many times is we are not delivered from the iniquities of our fathers. We have things that have happened in our past that we drag with us into our Christian life. And this is what I want to talk with you today.

And I want to get into these things after I get done with this letter. Now, let me go on. Your answer may well bring a wide variety of responses and emotion from the positive. We had a marvelous relationship.

We were, and may still be, the very best of friends to the negative. My father never expressed love. He was never there for me when I needed him. And we can go on and on on that. He says, I sincerely hope this question evokes a flood of wonderful memories.

And if you are blessed to still have your father, be sure to honor him during June when we observe Father's Day. That's today. But if my question happened to bring unhappy thoughts, it may be that you can better understand this sobering fact.

There is a tremendous father crisis in our land. Indeed, this tragedy extends around the world. God's institution, the family, is under demonic attack, and fathers are the bullseye of the target. And that's why we're taking today, a key day, to talk to you about fathers, because this is true.

Fathers are the, they're right on the mark of, they're right in the crosshairs of Satan's scope. And if he can destroy the father, he can destroy the family. The image of father figure in the home is on the one hand being undermined by our progressive society, and on the other hand being abdicated by absentee fathers, leaving countless families without moorings or foundations.

Many homes have single parents only, who because of heartache and problems must attempt to be father and mother to their children. And this is why one of the reasons for this program, too, to be an encouragement to you, that are in extreme circumstances where you have found yourself, that you can learn to live by the grace of God, you can learn to fly on eagle's wings through those sometimes almost unbearable circumstances where tragedy has left you in situations that you would in no way have chosen.

But, it goes on, many homes have single parents only, who because of heartache and problems must attempt to be father and mother of their children. My people are not insulated or protected from this vicious onslaught that brings such misery and chaos.

This is the Jewish people. Of course, this is a Jewish letter. Try to get some Jewish prayer support and financial support. But I want to get you over to the other page. He says, the very concept father means so much to those of us who are Jewish.

The Father as Priest, King, and Prophet

Biblically, the Jewish people had a patriarchal system where the father determined the spiritual direction of his family. Now, here's the point I want you to listen to. He was the family priest, standing before God on behalf of his home.

He was the family king, giving God's direction, and the family prophet, teaching God's truth in the home. He was the essential person in the family to reveal God's message. And this comes from Deuteronomy 6, 7, and 8.

Did you notice that as priest and king and prophet, he represents Christ there? Priest, standing before God on behalf of his home. Father, you're the priest of the home. You're the high priest of the home there.

God's order is God, Christ, man, and then under man comes his wife, if he's married, and his family. And he alone represents his family before God. And we need to be careful, pastors, that we will not usurp the position of the father by taking and teaching women or counseling women where they need to be going to their husbands.

We need to work with the husbands as men. Men work with the men in this area. And in the proper order, the women work with the women. But he is the family priest. The father is the family priest, standing before God on behalf of his home.

And then he's the family king, giving God's direction for the family, seeking it out. He's the family prophet, teaching God's truth in the home. Isn't this good? And actually, you can have a church right there.

Matter of fact, the scripture gives you the qualification, if two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the mist. And you can minister there to your family. And he said, going on, Sam said, in my own home, my father would attend synagogue, but for all practical purposes, he was an agnostic, not knowing what to believe.

Modeling Faithfulness at Home

Now we get down to where the rubber hits the road. In many of our churches today, the father is one man at church, and he's another man at home. And that is hypocrisy. And that turns our children away from the God that we are supposed to be representing.

We are to be one person at home or out in the public. And what we are will be strongly emphasized at home. And you know, one of the things that as fathers, that is a sobering thought is this, that we cannot impart to our children what we do not possess.

If you do not have self-control, you will not impart self-control to your children. If you are not based on the principle of love, you will not impart into your children the principle of love. If you have a principle of greed at the basis of your operation, and self-will, self-desire, whatever selfishness you have, you will impart that to your children.

Your children may even recognize it. And we get over into a principle I learned when I was studying under psychology, is many times we will see something that repulses us that we do not like in our parents.

And because we do not like it so much, we actually focus on that thing. And of course what you focus on, you will become like. And a terrible reversal comes into our lives. If you've been raised in hatred, maybe even alcoholism or whatever, so many times that thing that repulsed you comes back to haunt you and even destroy your life as it destroyed your family's life, your father's life or your mother's life.

Tragedy upon tragedy happens to us today. Let me read you this passage in Deuteronomy 6, 7 and 8, the basis of this letter and the things he was writing about the priest, the prophet and the king. Deuteronomy 6, 7 and 8.

Teaching God’s Word Diligently to Children

And thou shalt teach them diligently. God said this is what Israel was to do to their children. The fathers were given this direct command. They were to teach the Word of God diligently unto their children.

They were to talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. He said in verse 6, These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart.

What's in your heart? You are to impart to your children. Now one of the things that we are seeing today, and I'll give you an illustration. I know of one man who's been knocking on death's door for the last several months.

It just comes so close. And then he'd sneak away. By the grace of God, he'd get away. And his son has been praying for him to get saved. And I know this man, he's a pastor. But he's not seeing his father get saved.

Now the thing about this man is the very characteristic that this man exhibits in his life is the same characteristic that this pastor I've noticed has represented in his life. It's a characteristic of a weakness, an iniquity that's been passed down to him.

And as I've seen him wrestling with some things and going over some things, he's been refusing to deal with this. And as a result of that, his father still not got saved. And I believe personally that if he would get victory in that area and that iniquity, that would be the key to his own father getting saved.

Now I don't know if you understand that, but this is what I've been noticing many times is the key. There's keys. I'm getting a key ring built up. Maybe I'll give you a sermon one of these Sundays or a study on the keys of life.

Breaking Generational Patterns and Finding Freedom

But so many times the key to a father for setting his children free, he has that key to set his children free. And if he would only take the key and use it, he can set his children free. And many times children come to Christ and then they will have the key in turn.

I was talking to a young lady last night that came out to our house. My wife and I were visiting with her. And before she left, her father's unsaved. I said, you have the key. You probably have the key that will unlock your father's heart.

You go to him for counsel and wisdom and advice. You stay. Your father will see how much you trust him and how you confide in him. And he will have more confidence in you and listening to you. You have the key probably to reaching him.

We have these keys. Now, one of the things though that keeps us in the prison of our life is iniquities. I don't know how much time it'll take to go through this, but this is so important and it's so vital that I wanted to share it with you because it can set you free.

We're seeing people set free. And this is what a ministry is to be. If you're in a church where people are being set free to receive Christ as their Savior or they're being set free from bondage of sin, then you're in a place where the Spirit of God is working.

A church is just not a place where we go and sing songs. That's all right. And where we go and praise God. That's all right. But it's a place also where we minister one to another and we see people set free.

And if unsaved people come into your church, they should be set free from the bondage of death, spiritual death. And if they can continue in your church week after week, month after month, year after year and not be saved, then there's something wrong there.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: Deception Across Generations

It's a place where people should be set free, where we minister one to another. Now, if you remember Abraham and Sarah, remember when Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, she is my sister. What did Isaac do?

Isaac went right along and said the same thing. He said, she is my sister. For he feared to say, she is my wife. And what happened? Jacob came right along. Now, notice he had the same iniquity. Now we have a generational sin that's passed on from Abraham down to Isaac, now to Jacob.

Only with Jacob, it comes out with a little bit different form. And he says, I am thy son, thy firstborn, Esau. He lied. All of those though were lying. The principle of lying then was there. It may not be identical.

So what happens many times is, and I'll share maybe a little story here in a few minutes on this from a young lady. If we can get to this today about a young lady who recognized this principle in her own life when somebody pointed it out to her how her father could not make decisions.

And when she saw the light that she could not make decisions either, then this friend was able to lead her to freedom in Christ. Then she in turn was able to turn around and help her father. But listen, the iniquity of deception that Abraham practiced was passed on to his son and grandson.

With each generation though, the deception increased. And if I might give you a definition of iniquity without taking a lot of time to go into this in the background, this is an interesting study. But here's basically a definition of it.

Iniquity as Doing Our Own Will

Iniquity is doing my own will even though it is something good. This is not my definition. Somebody else wrote it. But the scripture talks about iniquity. Matter of fact, in Matthew 7, 21 through 23, the Lord Jesus said this, "'Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, "'shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, "'but he that doeth the will of my Father, "'which is in heaven.

"'And many will say to me in that day, "'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, "'and in thy name have cast out devils, "'and in thy name done many wonderful works? "'And then will I profess unto them, "'I never knew you.

"'Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.'". So iniquity, it's an activity in our own will. Rather than doing the Father's will, we're doing an activity in our own will. And many times this iniquity has been passed down to us from generation to generation.

And this, my friend, is where we'll get into the area of how we can give ground to Satan in our lives. And as fathers, we may not know that we have passed down to our children iniquities that we have inherited from our ancestors.

Now, there is principles that we have been violating from the Word of God that's caused this to happen. And many times in our churches today, we have iniquities that can be seen in the lives of the people in the church that we're not addressing.

We're just sort of bypassing it. It's fruit. It's fruit out of the lives. You know, the Lord Jesus said, "'By their fruits you will know them.'". And we're not talking about judging people and criticizing people, condemning people.

No, we're talking about observing fruit and ministering to people, specifically as the fathers to our own children. Fathers, do you see where you're at today? Do you see your children doing things that you do not like?

One of the things that we should be doing as the priests and the prophet and as the king, we direct in our family as the priests, we're representing our family before God, but as the prophet, we're teaching.

Now, one of the things about teaching is that we learn. Before we can teach, we must learn. Sometimes very humbling to learn that we may have something in our life that's not right. Well, going on now, by understanding how iniquities are passed from parents to children to the third and fourth generation and dealing with these iniquities in a scriptural manner, a lot of Christians are getting freedom today over long standing conflicts and habits.

This is what God has given us wisdom to see how to do this. Now, just because of the shortage of time today, when you only have a half hour a week, we can't really get into things. I may have to try to give you maybe an outline on what I want to share with you today.

Distinguishing Personal Sin from the Iniquity of the Fathers

And that's this, there's in the area of iniquities and getting free, there's three things in dealing with the iniquities of our forefathers. And there's other things that we need some study on, trust that your pastor's been teaching you about this somewhere along the line in his teaching.

And that's the difference between sins and the iniquities of our fathers. For instance, in Daniel 9, 16, where Daniel said, O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain, because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us.

We need to have the distinction on iniquities between our own personal iniquities and things that we have picked up from our ancestors. Because the scripture says that several times, for instance, Exodus 25, the Lord says, I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting, notice the word visiting, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.

We're talking about this visitation of God. For instance, in Exodus 34, verse seven, keeping mercy, God says he keeps mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquities and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children unto the third and the fourth generation.

We're talking about getting free from this visitation of iniquity on our children, getting free ourselves and letting our children get free. Because it says in Numbers 14, 18, the Lord is long suffering and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

Another verse, Deuteronomy 5, 9, thou shall not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them for I, the Lord thy 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.

Identifying and Confessing Generational Iniquity

I can see that we're gonna have to take some time to go on next week and share with you about this area of getting free. How to deal with the iniquities of the forefathers. Basically, I'm gonna give you the outline quickly, and it's this.

Identify the precise iniquity that has been passed on. You identify it. You get your pinpoint right on it, and then the second thing is you acknowledge your sin and your forefathers' iniquities. You confess it.

If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me, and that I also have walked contrary unto them and have brought them into the land of their enemies, if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, then will I remember my covenant.

God told them in Jeremiah, or that was in Leviticus 26, 40 and 42, but in Jeremiah, he said, we acknowledged, O Lord, our weakness and the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against thee. This is an important area.

Taking Thoughts Captive Under Christ’s Authority

We need to get a hold of this because if we're not, if we don't have a grasp on this, we won't understand the importance of what the scripture says when he says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations in every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

We come right back into the area of thought, judging our thoughts, taking them captive, seeing where these things come from, finding out if they're from Satan or actually from God. Well, my time's gone.

We've got to go. Remember the Lord Jesus Christ is all you need, but I hope you've come to the point in your life where he's all you want. May God richly bless you, my friend. But before you go, let me throw this in.

Remember, there's another thing. We're to reclaim the ground and yield yourself to God. Another thing we're to do is we're to cast down the strongholds of Satan in your mind. These are things that are important for us to do and to teach as fathers.