Generational Impact - The Vision of Destiny - David Mitts

Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the LORD has blessed." (Isaiah 61:9 NIV)

In the midst of the Passover Feast, as we celebrate deliverance and salvation by our Passover Lamb, Yeshua, this is a good time to remember that we are NOT just saved OUT of Egypt, in our lives but also INTO a Destiny.  

Listen to "General Impact - The Vision of Destiny"

When God chose Abraham, He did that for a destiny that He called by naming Him Abraham from Avram. Let’s look at that in Genesis 17:4-14

"As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God." Then God said to Abraham, "As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner--those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant." (Genesis 17:4-14 NIV)

Abraham’s calling was to be a father of many nations.  Kings would come from Him and he would the vessel generational blessings of identity and purpose.  This is the blessing and purpose of the covenant.

This ties into Passover and deliverance because God also declared the captivity.  Egypt was part of His plan.

Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. (Genesis 15:13-14 NIV)

This is a powerful piece of the purpose of God.  We tend to focus on the salvation from Egypt but forget that it was God’s intent to redeem the time in Egypt.  We have all had experiences in our lives that are Egypt’s for us.  They are times of slavery where our life’s output was stolen from us.  We were in that sense trafficked by Satan.  Make no mistake about it, we are all Job in some respect.  Our return for our effort has NOT panned out.  We gave, we served and like slaves we even went backwards as Pharaoh (who represents Satan) increased the tax on our effort and made things harder.  Amid this struggle, we cry out in pain and suffering.   God not only has a method for our escape but He also has a plan for our provision and blessing. He is the supreme accountant. Justice is His Love as we heard last week.  There is no losing in God as long as we don’t operate in unbelief.  This is the strategy of Pharaoh-Satan to get our eyes on our slavery, become slaves and lose faith not only in our deliverance but also in our redemption.  

Our redemption, the financial return, is not one for one.  Yeshua didn’t just get one life back for His Life.  No! Our redemption, our return on investment, is innumerable. It is generational.  

Israel was holy to the LORD, the firstfruits of his harvest; all who devoured her were held guilty, and disaster overtook them,'" declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 2:3 NIV)

Since Israel is the firstfruits, she is His.  We are His firstfruits. Egypt consumed the firstfruits.

You see death is one life long.  You only die one time.  Yeshua only died one time.  But the seed of deliverance, the place of blessing is forever!  Iniquity, generational patterns last 3-4 generations max but blessings is unlimited in generational impact.

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 parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:5-6 NIV)

Freedom is not the opposite of slavery.  Freedom is a whole new reality full of blessing and possibility.  When Israel came out of Egypt at the Passover they didn’t just become un-slaves. No they became possessors of a destiny to possess the promised Land, birth Messiah and father the nations of the world.

This role for redeemed Israel included the restoration of provision that was their due from the years of slavery.  Since, however the blessing is more than just the removal of the curse it also included an overwhelming abundance which was generational in impact.

So when we return to Isaiah 61 and the anointing in verse 9 we see this generational component of the anointing.

Then their offspring will be known among the nations, And their descendants in the midst of the peoples. All who see them will recognize them Because they are the offspring whom the LORD has blessed.(Isaiah 61:9 NASB)

Let’s look at the spiritual empowerments that are being declared here:

1. Offspring or seed that are known.
1. This is a clear declaration of glory.  God doesn’t just save you from something, He saves you into a destiny into a purpose.  The anointing on your life is to bring you into prominence.  An even greater part though is to bring your seed into prominence.  
2. A good example of this is the story we all heard in Ancient Paths of John Wesley versus Max Jukes.
3. Max Jukes descendants:
1. On the basis of the facts gathered by Mr. Dugdale, 310 of the 1,200 were professional paupers, or more than one in four. These were in poorhouses or its equivalent for 2,300 years. Three hundred of the 1,200, or one in four, died in infancy from lack of good care and good conditions.
2. There were fifty women who lived lives of notorious debauchery.
3. Four hundred men and women were physically wrecked early by their own wickedness.
4. There were seven murderers.
5. Sixty were habitual thieves who spent on the average twelve years each in lawless depredations.
6. There were 130 criminals who were convicted more or less often of crime.
4. By contrast Jonathan Wesley:
1. First His inheritance:

Among the first men to come to the new colonies in New England was William, a son of this clergyman, born about 1620, who came to Hartford, where his son Richard, born 1647, the grandfather of Jonathan, was an eminently prosperous merchant. Richard was an only son. The father of Jonathan, Timothy Edwards, was an only son in a family of seven. Aristocracy was at its height in the household of the merchants of Hartford in the middle of the seventeenth century.

Harvard was America's only college, and it was a great event for a young man to go from Hartford to Harvard, but this Timothy Edwards did, and he took all attainable honors, graduating in 1661, taking the degrees of A.B. and A.M. the same day, "an uncommon mark of respect paid extraordinary proficiency in learning." This brilliant graduate of Harvard was soon settled over the church at East Windsor, Conn., where he remained sixty-five years as pastor.

While still in his teens he wrote a series of "Resolutions," the like of which it would be difficult to duplicate in the case of any other youth.

These things are dwelt upon as indicating the way in which every fibre of his being was prepared for the great moral and intellectual legacy he left his children and his children's children. Here are ten of his seventy resolutions:

_Resolved_, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general.

_Resolved_, so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.

_Resolved_, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new contrivance and invention to promote the forementioned things.

_Resolved_, never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.

_Resolved_, to live with all my might while I do live.

_Resolved_, to be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity and liberality.

_Resolved_, never to do anything out of revenge.

_Resolved_, never to suffer the least motions of anger towards irrational beings.

_Resolved_, never to speak evil of any one, so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.

_Resolved_, to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.

He became a Pastor until his death at age 56.

Remember the size, ages, and financial condition of the family when the father died--the sons being aged eight, thirteen and twenty--and then consider the fact that the three sons graduated from Princeton, and five of the daughters married college graduates, three of them of Yale and one each of Harvard and Princeton. A man might well be content to die without lands or gold when eight sons and sons-in-laws were to be men of such capacity, character, and training as are found in this family.

They were not merely college graduates, but they were eminent men. One held the position of president of Princeton and one of Union College, four were judges, two were members of the Continental Congress, one was a member of the governor's council in Massachusetts, one was a member of the Massachusetts war commission in the Revolutionary war, one was a state senator, one was president of the Connecticut house of representatives, three were officers in the Revolutionary war, one was a member of the famous constitutional convention out of which the United States was born, one was an eminent divine and pastor of the historic North church of New Haven. This by no means exhausts the useful and honorable official positions occupied by the eight sons and sons-in-law of Jonathan Edwards, and it makes no account of their writings, of noted trials that they conducted, but it gives some hint of the pace which Mr. Edwards' children set for the succeeding generations.

It should be said that the daughters were every way worthy of distinguished husbands, and it ought also to be said that the wives of the sons were worthy of these men in intellectual force  and moral qualities.

2. There is a clear anointing for generational impact here.  The blessing is clear and the increase.
3. Now I want to finish up with looking at how this is best transferred generationally.
1. The author of this history points to education, formal education
2. While education is important especially spiritual training, there is also the issue of the anointing which is a directed impartation.  
3. This could be referred to as a mantle such as that passed from Elijah to Elisha or “hod” which we spoke of years back, the authority transferred from Moses to Joshua.  These are certainly spiritual lineages that are different from descendants or seed.
4. Seed or generational impact of the type by Jonathan Edwards is connected to seed.  Seed is Word but also physical seed which is also Word but implanted physically.  I think it is a combination and activated by the anointing.  The anointing requires an alignment of thoughts in the heart with focused intent.  The anointing isn’t just there.  It is activated by aligning our hearts and minds with the stated intent in the Word.

Activation:

1. Pressing in for generational impact is more than just an exercise here today.  It is a commitment to be an individual of destiny.  God gave Abraham a mandate, to be the father of nations.  We have a mandate within that mandate.
2. Write out a vision for the generations.  What do you foresee for your children’s children?  Think in terms of quantitative and qualitative.