Receiving the Promise of the Fathers
By Dan L. Cox

“One generation shall praise Thy works to another, and shall declare Thy mighty acts” (Ps. 145:4)

We often skip over all the lists of “begats” in the Scriptures. The details of the generations of Adam, Noah, Shem, Tenth. Jacob and the 12 tribes of Israel, perhaps we feel they arc not important. Although reading through the genealogical lists may seem irrelevant to us, it is imperative we understand that the very presence of these generations indicates an enormous generational interest in the heart of God.

The “God of Abraham” became “the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac.” Then He became “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” The revelation of God grows through the generations.
When you open the Gospel of Matthew it begins with the genealogy of Jesus. This speaks to us that the foundation of the New Testament is in the generations that preceded Christ. The Gospel of Luke does not place Jesus’ genealogy at His birth, but at the inception of His ministry. Thus Matthew shows the life of Jesus is based on previous generations, and Luke demonstrates that the genealogy of Jesus has direct bearing on His ministry. Jesus cannot be born without a family, so Jesus cannot minister without a record of his ancestry (see Ezra 2:62).

Receiving our inheritance depends upon the flow of impartation and blessing from generation to generation in the family of God. Abraham was chosen as the father of the faith because God could say this of him: “For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord” (Gen. 18:19).

Abraham waited to hear the voice of God through lonely vigils and dark nights. His seed had the written Law of Moses. Abraham sacrificed his own lamb s, but his children had an established priesthood. Abraham worshiped under the stars, not knowing exactly where god could be found. His sons had a house of God: “And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory” (Ex. 29:43). This is the progression of spiritual generation that begins in a single father of faith, but flows into the next generation.

The danger lies in that we are only one generation from losing everything we have in God:
“And also all that generation were gathered into their fathers: and there arose another generation after him, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel” (Judge. 2:10). This is why we need fathers and sons to pass the inheritance from one generation to another.

Each generation is supposed to glean from both the successes and failures of the men and women of god who preceded them. We are called to worship the God of our fathers. God desires a magnification of revelation through the spiritual inheritance of the fathers being passed to the sons: “And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and He will do thee good, and multiply thee above they fathers” (Deut. 30:5). We can be multiplied above our fathers. Each generation should have a deeper relationship with God than their fathers did. It is the lack of generational understanding and concern that makes us unable to receive the impartation from previous generations. This will cause a decrease of magnification and the loss of inheritance in the children of God.

For example: Our mis-focus upon the “rapture of the church” has caused us to see little need in passing our impartation of inheritance to the next generation. Failing to provide for a future that we think will never arrive: we have lost our children and grandchildren to the world in mass numbers. We have fathers who are not looking for the return of the Lord for His church, so we have children that are not looking as well that Jesus could come at any time.

The fathers of faith of today must recover generational connection and spiritual inheritance. We must return to the order of father to son.

From, “Indiana Apostolic Trumpet/January 2009/Page 15