Have seen and heard so many religious leaders talking people out of following the footsteps of their ancestors, claiming that anything about ancestors is evil and demonic; and people out of ignorance believed them and turned their back on the ways of life God delivered to their forefathers to better their lots and secure their future.
Well, for the sake of some who are tired of their unproductive lives despite all their prayers and fasting, please note that there is nothing evil or demonic about one’s ancestors and for your information, an ancestor is a person, typically one more remote than a grandparent, from whom one is descended. Meaning, your great, great, great, great-grandfathers.
Several times in the Bible the Bible mentions ancestors, but because the word ancestor was not directly mentioned, no one pays attention to it and considers it so.
In Exodus 3:15, it was said that; moreover, God said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the god of Jacob, has’ sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.’
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the ancestors of the children of Israel in this context and to the best of my knowledge, God made a covenant with the ancestors, not to their children.
This was practically confirmed in Jeremiah 31:31-32 when God made a new Covenant with the children of Israel saying; “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.
Please, pay attention to the last statement, “My covenant which they broke”. Every rule and regulation you have in your family is from the Lord. No matter how ungodly you think it is. If you break any of those laws thinking and foolishly claiming that the blood of Jesus Christ had set you apart from those family laws, trust me, the same laws that you break will turn back to break you into pieces and I bet you, you won’t survive it. I’m not cursing you, I’m simply stating the facts.
The laws that you read in the Bible and clinched to are the laws given to the children of Israel to secure their lives in the real world and their future in God. To date, they keep to those laws even when they don’t believe in the birth, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Those laws are not the laws for the church or Christianity and that is the reason why some of those laws are not working for you because they’re not meant for you.
The laws that are meant for you to secure your lives in the real world and your future in God are in the fabric of what your family is made of and the laws and regulations that govern the family you are born into.
In Genesis 32:24-32 it was said that Jacob was left alone, and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day.
Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him.
And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!”
So He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.”
And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.” And He said, “Why is it that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there.
So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”
Just as he crossed over Penuel the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip.
Therefore to this day, the children of Israel do not eat the muscle that shrank, which is on the hip socket, because He touched the socket of Jacob’s hip in the muscle that shrank.
The last verse says therefore to this day the children of Israel do not eat the muscle that shrank, which is on the hip socket, because He touched the socket of Jacob’s hip in the muscle that shrank.
God did not tell them to do so. The Angel did not tell them to do so. Even Jacob did not tell them to do so. Out of their initiatives, they decided not to eat the muscle that shrank, which is on the hip socket, because He touched the socket of Jacob’s hip in the muscle that shrank. What the consequences of eating such will be physically or spiritually they did not know, but in honour to God and memory of the great battle between the angel and Jacob.
Not only that, in Jeremiah 35:1-14 God sent Prophet Jeremiah to the family of the Rechabites and the Bible recorded the event this…the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying,
“Go to the house of the Rechabites, speak to them, and bring them into the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink.”
Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, his brothers and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites, and I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, a man of God, which was by the chamber of the princes, above the chamber of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door.
Then I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites bowls full of wine, and cups; and I said to them, “Drink wine.”
But they said, “We will drink no wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, ‘You shall drink no wine, you nor your sons, forever.
You shall not build a house, sow seed, plant a vineyard, nor have any of these; but all your days you shall dwell in tents, that you may live many days in the land where you are sojourners.’
Thus we have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he charged us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, or our daughters, nor to build ourselves houses to dwell in; nor do we have vineyard, field, or seed.
But we have dwelt in tents, and have obeyed and done according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us.
But it came to pass, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up into the land, that we said, ‘Come, let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans and fear of the army of the Syrians.’ So we dwell at Jerusalem.”
Here are the Men from the Rechabites family, obeying the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, their father, and disregarding the voice of Prophet Jeremiah, the Man of God. But here you are, disregarding the voice of your parents because of what your Pastor said and you want God to prosper you? No God will not.
You cannot disregard your parents turn your back on your family heritage and expect God to prosper you, He won’t. In Proverbs 30:17 it was said that the eye that mocks his father and scorns obedience to his mother, the ravens of the valley will pick it out, and the young eagles will eat it.
I loved the way the Amplified Bible puts it; “the eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother, the ravens of the valley will pick it out, and the young vultures will devour it.”
To understand this better, citing Proverbs 20:20 won’t be a bad idea, where it was said that; “whoever curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in deep darkness.”
For our lamp not to be put out in deep darkness God provided us with Proverbs 23:22 saying; listen to your father who begot you, and do not despise your mother when she is old.
You cannot keep doing something contrary to the laws of the Lord for the family you are born into and expect God to bless you and prosper your way, no way.
In Genesis 26:1-6,12-14 it was said that there was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, in Gerar.
Then the Lord appeared to him and said: “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you.
Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.
And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”
So Isaac dwelt in Gerar.
Then Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him.
The man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous; for he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and a great number of servants. So the Philistines envied him.
God spoke to Isaac and promised to bless him because Abraham obeyed the voice of the Lord, kept His charge, His commandments, His statutes, and His laws.” And as a result of Abraham’s and Isaac’s obedience to stay back in the land, the Lord blessed him. He blessed him so well that Isaac began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous; he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and a great number of servants so much that the Philistines envied him.
Isaac’s prosperity did not start from Isaac, it started from Abraham his father keeping to the laws of the Lord handed over to him, and he to Isaac, and Isaac to Jacob and Esau, then to the twelve sons of Jacob and Esau respectively.
Also, the prosperity in your family did not start from you, it has been in your family for years and there are both physical, economic and spiritual rules that govern the prosperity so that it will not diminish. Operating your life against those laws is an invitation to poverty, and just as prosperity started with the generations before you, the poverty or lack you’re experiencing now started with your father who turned his back on the family rules and regulations or even you. My advice, do the needful before it’s too late.
Even though the Men the Rechabites rejected Prophet Jeremiah’s offer and stocked to their family rules and regulations, obeying the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab their ancestor, God was so proud of them, then came the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, saying,
“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Go and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, “Will you not receive instruction to obey My words?” says the Lord.
“The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, which he commanded his sons, not to drink wine, are performed; for to this day they drink none, and obey their father’s commandment. But although I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, you did not obey Me.
Now, I know the majority of us will be quick to say that Abraham is a Man of God. Well, let me blow your mind. Even though Abraham was referred to as the Prophet of God he was the first prophet ever in the entire Bible, but guess what, Abraham was an Idol worshipper, and so were Isaac, Jacob, and even the Twelve sons of Jacob and Esau are all idol worshippers. And yet, God cut a covenant with them.
Now, how our forefathers knew God is not the same way our fathers know God neither is the same way we know God and I bet you, the way our children are going to know God is going to be so different that we’ll have to be asking ourselves if they are truly on the side of God or not; but trust me, they are.
Now, it is one thing to be on the side of God it is another to align ourselves with the covenant God made with our ancestors which the majority of us know little or nothing about simply because our father had cut and we know nothing about it.
There’s a Yorùbá proverb that says, the family rites you did you teach your children about will disappear into thin air.
So many people are suffering today because they’ve turned their backs on the rules and regulations that are governing their families.
In the days of our fathers, there was no Christianity or Islam. That doesn’t mean that God was not in existence in their days and God was not in their affairs.
The majority of us always think that we know more than our parents because we’re Christians or Born Again Christians; my dear you are wrong.
Let me share a story with you. When I met my Ex and I prayed about her, I had a strong conviction that she was the one. Coupled with the fact that some things happened before then that led to our meeting that made me believe that it was God.
To be double sure, I told my sister, friend and some Pastors to help me pray about her and they all said yes. I told my parents to pray about her and both my parents said no.
I ignored my parent’s warning and went ahead with the wedding. The rest is history. The very thing my parents were trying to prevent me from was what eventually happened to me.
What happened to the saying of the Pastors that said she’s the one? I leave that to you to answer. I love the sayings of our Muslim brothers that say, one’s parents are one’s lord.
Believe it or not, even God said in Exodus 20:12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
This means when we dishonour our parents, anything can happen. Interesting.
There is nothing wrong if we align ourselves with the rules and regulations God gave our ancestors. Claiming the blessings of Abraham and connecting yourself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a prove of your lack of understanding.
You cannot connect yourself with someone or something God had not connected you to. God is the only one who can make the connection, not your faith, not your being Christian or Born Again, not even by visiting Jerusalem and walking on the same path Jesus Christ walked in his days. All those are just religious stupidity.
Let God guide you and lead you right. The battles of your life might not be the enemies, it might be you ignoring your family rites.
God gave rules and regulations to our ancestors to protect us from evils and prosper our ways. Dig into your family heritage and do things right.
Sam Adeoye, a Pastor, is author of Inspired You.