00:00Hello everyone this is William Chambers. It is good to be here with you all today. If I had a
00:06title
00:06for today's message I would call it God confronts fatherlessness before he brings judgment. Today I
00:17want to talk about a topic that's uh near and dear to my heart which I'm going to try to
00:21be
00:21kind of quick because I can be long-winded on this because when I look at fatherlessness it
00:26runs in my whole family. My grandfather left his children fatherless. My daddy left his children
00:33fatherless and I have left my children fatherless not by choice. I'm forced to by by the court. However
00:41I could talk about this a lot and I could talk about the generational collapse that happens when
00:48this happens. All the devastation in the family when this happens. The issue of fatherlessness
00:54so bothered God's heart that he put it at the end of the Old Testament as the last thing he
01:03spoke
01:03to Israel before 400 years of silence. Almost as if God was saying this is a very core issue and
01:12he
01:12wanted to deal with it. So let us dive into the text. It reads like this. Behold I will send
01:17Elijah
01:17the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord and he shall turn the
01:23hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Lest I come
01:28and smite the earth with a curse. God closed the Old Testament revealing his deepest concern
01:35before judgment. His deepest concern was that hearts with inside families be restored. God wanted restoration
01:44in families. When we look in the book of Malachi God was talking a lot about religious performance
01:50but he at the end of this book on religious performance he ended it with addressing family
01:58collapse. God said within the family hearts must soften. I see a problem. It's hard hearts within the
02:07family. So this mattered to God. God called for healing between fathers and children. You can be
02:16religious and still relationally broken. God they were religious people but they were relationally
02:22broken. Israel had rituals but they had fractured families. Furthermore you can be underneath the same
02:31roof and have a fractured family. So God speaks on this issue. He addresses the heart. There must be
02:40transformation in the family. And in our nation there's so much brokenness that stems from
02:45fatherlessness. God addressed fathers first because they carried the responsibility. Leadership comes
02:52with responsibility. It is the fathers that were covenant leaders. It was the fathers that were carriers
02:59of identity. It is the father that transmit identity to a child. Tell them who they are. It is the
03:06father
03:06that transmits the blessing to the child. It is the father that transmits direction to the child.
03:13Without fathers children struggle with who they are. Amen. Without fathers they struggle with where they
03:20belong. Amen. I'll just amen some of these. Without fathers they struggle with why they are even here.
03:34Oh amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. These struggles result in instability. These struggles result in shame.
03:43Like why come I don't have a father? Why come they got one? Fatherlessness generates wounds.
03:49It's not isolated pain. It generates generational wounds. Generations. It flows down through generations.
03:57Trauma that the father's dealing with goes down to the children. The children end up dealing with it
04:01and it goes down. Pain goes all the way down through generations. And then you also see rebellion.
04:07Rebellion and bitterness the child deals with. Amen and amen and amen. Let me not talk about that too
04:13much. So fatherlessness is a social issue but it's also a societal crisis. We see all kind of crime and
04:21confusion, identity loss and bitterness multiply because fathers are estranged from their children.
04:28There are so many statistics that back all of what I'm saying up. True authority. God is saying true
04:35authority moves towards restoration. God said I am the true authority and I want there to be restoration
04:42because there's so much damage with estranged fathers from their children. God is also saying that I want
04:50the children to be restored too because God said I see the child. God's seeing the increased violence that
04:56they might have. The moral confusion that the child might have. God's seeing the spiritual famine that
05:02the children might have simply due to not having a father. So God said he God said I desire restoration
05:11above ruin. I'm going to bring a curse if this is not restored. If this relationship is not restored
05:18God said I'm going to take judicial action to stop this corruption. This is a corruption. I don't want
05:24this corruption to do further harm. God said I want healing. I want restoration in the family. This is
05:33my heart's desire. Healing one relationship can alter an entire family line. So generational curses don't
05:42go from family to family to family from family. Oh God said I want these curses to be broken out
05:49of
05:49families. I want families. I want restoration. Now God is not calling for children to submit to abuse
05:55but he is wanting there to be a restoration of truth and love in a relationship. Healing today
06:02can guard generations tomorrow. Ah when we get healed with God and that relationship gets uh restored
06:12that fuels horizontal healing. I can heal I can heal with other people when my restoration with God
06:21is being restored. Oh the restoration flows from God and then it flows horizontally. It flows vertically
06:29so it can flow out horizontally. That's what I'm trying to say. Jesus ultimately fulfills this verse
06:35right here because he restores humanity to God. Oh thank you God. And when that restoration is restored
06:44with God we can be restored with one another. The curse fell on Christ. Christ bore our curse so families
06:54can be restored in Christ Jesus. If the healing can flow from heaven to us because of what Christ has
07:02did
07:03God is saying in this text. I want healing to be restored in families. He's confronting fatherlessness
07:11before he brings the curse. Help us all God. We ask your help in Jesus name we pray and say.
07:17Amen.
07:22Well that was the word of God. To the believers, to the called, to the chosen, we are to walk
07:30the word of God
07:31out before this world. Let us remember that. May God help us in Jesus name. Until we meet again. God
07:38bless you all.
08:02God bless you all.
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