Chapter 9
How The Bastard Curse Affects The Church Today
So far in the previous chapters we have seen that the bastard curse was used by satan with major impact to try to thwart the purposes of God. The purpose of God is to restore fellowship and intimacy with His people. The Father longs for children to love and bring near to Him for all eternity. Part of a loving father’s joy is in training his children. How those children respond to that training is a clear indicator of the stock from which they came.
Hebrews 12:5-13
And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:
Notice in the above verses that those who are willing to be chastised by the Lord are legitimate sons. They yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness in their lives. Those who do not submit to the chastening of the Lord are called bastards. Their fruit is radically different.
One of the hallmark characteristics of those who have the curse of the bastard in their bloodline is noted in verse 8, they refuse chastisement. They are unteachable, uncorrectable, uncoachable. They rebel when confronted with correction by anyone exercising legitimate, Godly spiritual authority such as a pastor, a husband, or a parent. A person affected by the bastard curse is unwilling to be governed by the Spirit of God. This shows up in their inability to have close fellowship with both the Lord and with fellow believers. Instead, they are often attracted to laws and legalism. They become hardened and easily estranged from fellow Christians, quickly offended, and unwilling to change focus from themselves and are consumed with the same.
Jesus used the analogy of a goat to indicate a person who was rebellious. Let’s look at how He taught the difference between sheep who hear the voice of their Master and are obedient, as opposed to goats who are always rebellious, and disobedient. This has enormous implications for the church today. Remember, the bastard curse is at the root of rebellion, like goats display.
Matthew 25:31-39
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
The difference between the sheep and the goats is very clear. The goat is into the self: self-interest, self-gratification, self-focus. The sheep, on the other hand, are full of compassion. They see the thirsty, the naked, the hungry. They are not self-focused. Instead they look to help others. When they help, they even forget that they have helped, and they expect nothing in return. While the goat is quick to say, “Look what I did!,” a sheep is content to seek neither reputation nor recognition.
Goats in the church call attention to anything good that they do, and quickly forget the evils they do. They also quickly forget the good things that others do for them. This makes it very easy for them to say, when a sheep has a need, “Oh, we’ll always have hungry people around us,” or, “If those nations only used birth control, we wouldn’t have to deal with so many children.” Or, “If you think they need help, then you go help them, I don’t want to hear about it.”
You see, goats are by nature rebellious. In a pasture, for example, goats always try to test the fence to see if they can get out. And when they do, they always lead sheep behind them. This is because sheep are naturally trusting, and willingly follow those who seem to know what they are talking about. Sheep are not very discerning. So they will follow goats, even to their own peril. This is why it is so important to have good shepherds over the flock. Moses knew this when he asked God for a good shepherd to replace him:
Numbers 27:15-17
And Moses spake unto the LORD, saying,
Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation,
Which may go out before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and which may bring them in; that the congregation of the LORD be not as sheep which have no shepherd.
In the Old Testament, goats and sheep were also sacrificial animals. For example, in Leviticus, we see that goats were used for the sin offering. In the following example, they were called scapegoats.
Leviticus 16:5-10, 15
And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.
And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself, and for his house.
And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for the scapegoat.
And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the LORD'S lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.
But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.
Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat:
Thus we can see how vital the goat was to the children of Israel. The goat sacrifice was for the spiritual protection and blessing of Israel. It is interesting that today, the goat is used as a figure to describe the rebellious, unloving person who pastures in the same fields as the Godly sheep. Those trusting sheep even follow the behavior of the ungodly, rebellious goats.
In verse 32 of Matthew 25,38 Jesus mentions how the shepherd must separate the sheep from the goats. The sheep are going to inherit the kingdom. Why? Because sheep do sheep things. When someone is hungry, they feed them, when thirsty they give them water to drink, they clothe the stranger, they visit those in prison. As they do those things with compassion. It is tantamount to having helped Jesus Himself in His need.
Jesus often referred to sheep in describing His ministry. In Matthew 15 he tells to whom His ministry was directed.
Matthew 15:24
But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of Israel. Israel had been scattered by the bastard curse. The records of Israel’s rebellion from God, as a result of their unwillingness to receive chastisement from the Lord, are numerous throughout the Scriptures. The result of such rebellion is the scattering of the sheep. There were lost sheep all over the place, and the Pharisees and established religious leaders left them to remain lost. Here’s how this scattering happens.
Under the influence of the bastard curse, people are unwilling to receive Godly correction.39 Under the Old Testament law, the rebellious would not be allowed to come into the congregation of the Lord. In comparison to today, those who labor under the bastard curse, exhibiting unwillingness to receive Godly correction, often become offended, and leave the congregation. Why are they unable to come into the congregation today? They can’t get along!
But often, the opposite happens. A goat who is a leader in some capacity over the flock drives out the sheep. In a flock, goats are the animals with the most personality. They are the cutest, smartest, most talented, the most enthusiastic, and most aggressive compared to the sheep. They even show tendencies of leadership ability. Yet they remain unwilling to receive correction. But they remain in the flock and continue to lead the sheep away from the protection that they need.
For example, goats can drink from rushing water. Sheep cannot drink in such water because the abundance of wool around their necks becomes so quickly weighed down with water that they give up fighting and get carried away to drown. They have
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