Welcome to overcoming temptation my name is Oyisi our topic today is titled: The consequences of negligence. We shall be reading from 1 Samuel 22: 18-19. It says, The king then ordered Doeg, “You turn and strike down the priests.” So Doeg the Edomite turned and struck them down. That day he killed eighty-five men who wore the linen ephod. He also put to the sword Nob, the town of the priests, with its men and women, its children and infants, and its cattle, donkeys and sheep.
When I first read this passage I was angry and wondered why God allowed such evil happened to innocent priest and their families. So the story started when David was running away from King Saul, he came to these priest for help, and they helped him and gave him some bread to eat. So Doeg an Edomite saw this and mentioned it to King Saul, Saul in his madness then asked his guards to kill all the priest for helping David, but because the guards feared God they were not able to carry out the Kings orders. So Saul asked Doeg who was present to do it and he gladly killed them and their families.
However this problem started many years before, in 1 Samuel 2 we read about Eli sons I will read some verses. Verse 12. Now the sons of Eli were corrupt; they did not know the Lord. V.22. Now Eli was very old; and he heard everything his sons did to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. V. 27 Then a man of God came to Eli and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Did I not clearly reveal Myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh’s house? 29 Why do you kick at My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling place, and honor your sons more than Me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel My people?’ 30 Therefore the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever.’ But now the Lord says: ‘Far be it from Me; for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed. 31 Behold, the days are coming that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your house. 32 And you will see an enemy in My dwelling place, despite all the good which God does for Israel. And there shall not be an old man in your house forever. 33 But any of your men whom I do not cut off from My altar shall consume your eyes and grieve your heart. And all the descendants of your house shall die in the flower of their age. 34 Now this shall be a sign to you that will come upon your two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall die, both of them.
Wow what a judgement. Now the Bible records that the priest of Nob where all Eli’s descendant, so even though the priest were innocent they were suffering a judgement pronounced on Eli and his descendants by God due to the wickedness of Eli’s son Hophi and Phinehas and since Eli did not take solid steps to prevent them. They did so much evil by sleeping with the women who came to worship at the temple and by taking the best sacrifice brought to God for themselves.
So as parents you need to be very firm if your children are going the wrong way, by petting them you are only destroying them and their generation.
I know some people do not believe in ancestral blessing or curses but the truth is that they exist. You will notice that some race or tribes prosper more than others, and you may not really have any clear explanation for it. So what is the lesson? The Lesson is that whatever we do affects our children, and whatever our parents did affects us. So we need to do good and train our children well so that they can inherit a blessing. Since we cannot control what our parents did we need to ask God for mercy that any wrong doing of our ancestors should not affect us. That’s why the bible says in Psalm 11:3, When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do? So lay a good foundation for future generations. Have a blessed day.
