The Blame Game is the Wrong Game
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Introduction
Introduction
Two waves of captives have been taken in exile from Judah to Babylon.
They were suffering. They were bitter.
They were trying to explain the reason for their suffering…and it had to be someone or something else’s fault!
The blame game started in the Garden. (Adam and Eve: they were suffering the consequences of sin, but were not willing to admit it.)
God has always asked mankind to come to Him and be honest about our sin.
13 The one who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
Prov
1 John
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
However, mankind has always struggled to do this. Instead of living a lifestyle of repentance, if we are not careful, we play the blame game.
We say or think: I have not sinned. There is another reason for my suffering.
I want us to look at this passage together and determine if we have chosen to play the wrong game with God—the blame game.
They were hiding behind a wrong view of themselves.
They were hiding behind a wrong view of themselves.
They were playing the blame game. When you have a wrong view of yourself, you blame others for your suffering.
1 The word of the Lord came to me:
2 “What do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel: ‘The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?
3 As I live”—this is the declaration of the Lord God—“you will no longer use this proverb in Israel.
4 Look, every life belongs to me. The life of the father is like the life of the son—both belong to me. The person who sins is the one who will die.
eze 18 1-
When Babylon and king Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem and started taking people captive, the people should have repented. Instead, they blamed their fathers. They were blind to their own sin. They had a wrong view of themselves…when this happened, they sought to blame the previous generations for their suffering.
Look closely at what has happened. They have been quoting a proverb to each other.
The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.
They are basically claiming that they are having to suffer the punishment for the sins of their fathers.
This is not reality! They are not suffering for their father’s sin! Look at what God told Ezekiel and Jeremiah:
30 I searched for a man among them who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land so that I might not destroy it, but I found no one.
31 So I have poured out my indignation on them and consumed them with the fire of my fury. I have brought their conduct down on their own heads.” This is the declaration of the Lord God.
1 Roam through the streets of Jerusalem. Investigate; search in her squares. If you find one person, any who acts justly, who pursues faithfulness, then I will forgive her.
Jere
Before God allowed king Nebuchadnezzar to reek havoc on Jerusalem, He searched for just one person who was righteous so that He would not have to destroy the city and judge His people.
Remember Abraham? God told Him that if He could find just 10 people in Sodom and Gomorrah, He would not destroy the cities.
God could not even find one person who loved Him in Jerusalem!
Don’t miss this: God is sick and tiered of their blame game! How dare they blame the last generations for their suffering! They were suffering for their own sin!
God is determined to put an end to their blame game!
We play the blame game also
We play the blame game also
There are times in Scripture where we see someone who is innocent, suffer:
Abel was murdered by his brother Cain simply because he obeyed the Lord.
But there are also times that we suffer…and we are not innocent.
Your immediate suffering might be the result of someone else’s sin. (if Heather hits me with a frying pan, I will suffer from her sinful choice)
But I don’t want you to miss this: I am a sinner! Even if I didn’t deserve a beating when my wife hit me, I have done something else that I got away with!
When things are going good, there isn’t a lot of visible blame going around. And things are pretty good at our church right now.
Although we don’t deal with a lot of finger pointing right now, we still do the same things that the people of Judah are doing in this passage. We tend to have a wrong view of ourselves.
We, like the people of Judah can have a wrong view of ourselves.
As God searches us this morning, how many does He find that are righteous before Him?
If we are not careful, we can develop a wrong view of ourselves and develop huge blind spots regarding our own sin.
One of the biggest problems with the American church today is our tendency to think we are good people, when in fact we are not!
The Bible says that we will all stand before God on The Day. The blame game will not work on that day. On that day, if you have had a wrong view of yourself…it will come to light:
God, I didn’t learn to explain the Bible, because ...
God, I didn’t tithe regularly, because ...
God, I didn’t go to church because ...
God, I didn’t share the gospel with anyone, because ...
God, I didn’t forgive the person who wronged me because...
God, I didn’t sing praises to you and worship You with joy because...
If you are suffering in your job, are you completely innocent in your suffering? Are you doing your job as unto the Lord?
God, I didn’t obey you in marriage because...
If you are suffering in sickness, have you eaten your whole life in the exact way that the Lord has instructed us to eat? Do you exercise perfectly?
If you are suffering mentally, if you are depressed or anxious, are you praying three to seven times a day as some of the men and women in Scripture did? Are you memorizing Scripture regularly? Have you obeyed the Lord in all of your choices?
If you are suffering because of a broken relationship, have you loved others as you love yourself? Have you loved the other person as God has commanded you to love?
The people were hiding behind a wrong view of themselves. They had convinced themselves that they were innocent! They had convinced themselves that they were basically good people, when in fact they were not!
Another thing I want you to notice: When you have a wrong view of yourself, you blame others for your suffering!
Have you every known someone who is always complaining, always pointing their finger at someone else, always spewing venom about someone else, always right in the middle of drama and disfunction?
If you are playing the blame game this morning…stop it! When suffering happens, repent, and endure your suffering as discipline from the Lord.
Don’t be that person. Don’t live your life…don’t spend your energy finding what is wrong with everyone else. Instead, live like the psalmist:
7 Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline?
8 But if you are without discipline—which all receive—then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
9 Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them. Shouldn’t we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live?
10 For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness.
11 No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
12 Therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees,
23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.
ps 139 23=
if you are waisting energy putting the microscope on other people’s lives, you are playing the wrong game! You are playing the blame game.
They were hiding behind a wrong view of God’s word.
They were hiding behind a wrong view of God’s word.
They were playing the blame game. When you have a wrong view of God’s word, you distort what God has said. You blame God’s word for your suffering.
1 The word of the Lord came to me:
2 “What do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel: ‘The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?
3 As I live”—this is the declaration of the Lord God—“you will no longer use this proverb in Israel.
4 Look, every life belongs to me. The life of the father is like the life of the son—both belong to me. The person who sins is the one who will die.
eze 18
20 The person who sins is the one who will die. A son won’t suffer punishment for the father’s iniquity, and a father won’t suffer punishment for the son’s iniquity. The righteousness of the righteous person will be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked person will be on him.
When they developed this false proverb, they were not only blaming others for their suffering. They were blaming God’s word.
They had a wrong view of God’s word. They misinterpreted God’s word grossly!
I want to show you where this proverb came from:
1 Then God spoke all these words:
2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.
3 Do not have other gods besides me.
4 Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth.
5 Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ iniquity, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me,
6 but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands.
ex 20 1-
v5 God says: “I the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ iniquity, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me.”
They were using the first commandment to make themselves feel better. They were twisting what God said to paint a false picture that made them feel better!
God was not saying that He would punish innocent children for the sins of their father to the fourth generation! How do we know this?
Let’s look closely at what God is saying:
First, Moses clearly described that God is not promising to punish the innocent for their father’s sins:
9 Know that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps his gracious covenant loyalty for a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commands.
10 But he directly pays back and destroys those who hate him. He will not hesitate to pay back directly the one who hates him.
deut
16 “Fathers are not to be put to death for their children, and children are not to be put to death for their fathers; each person will be put to death for his own sin.
deut
Back to the first commandment:
5 Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ iniquity, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me,
6 but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands.
What is God saying?
1. God is showing a contrast between His mercy and His judgement. He will allow sin through the third and fourth generation before He judges those who hate Him, but He will show faithful love to a thousand generations who love Him.
2. God is promising to judge His people when the children refuse for several generations to turn from their father’s sins. God is speaking about generational sin among His covenant people. This is a situation when His covenant people turn from Him to worship idols. God is saying that He will wait to judge them in the third and fourth generations when they refuse to turn from their sin.
But the people were hiding behind a wrong view of God’s word. Instead of admitting that they had turned to follow idols for several generations, they twisted God’s word to make themselves feel better.
They ignored part of God’s declaration, while focusing on the other part that made this God’s word’s fault.
We play the blame game in this way also:
We play the blame game in this way also:
We take part of God’s word at face value while ignoring other parts of God’s word to make us feel better. I will give you one example:
We say things like: there is power in prayer.
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.
james 5 16
We forget the confess your sins to another part…and the prayer of a righteous person part.
We are bad about blaming a lot of our suffering on the Devil.
We say: Tell the devil to leave you alone…just speak the Name of Jesus, and the devil will flee from you!
7 Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
7 Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
If you are suffering, the worst thing in the world to do is to twist God’s word and blame it on the devil! If you blame it on the devil, it means that you have not submitted to God and resisted the Devil! The Word of God promises that if you submit to God and resist the devil…he will flee from you!
You might be ignoring your own sin.
If we are not careful, we can twist God’s word like the people of Judah to make us feel better:
James
if you have spent years letting false teachers fill your head full of twisted interpretations of Scripture, if you do no closely guard who gets to teach you the word of God, if you are not personally searching Scripture to know it for yourself, you are playing the wrong game! You are playing the blame game.
They were hiding behind a wrong view of God.
They were hiding behind a wrong view of God.
They were playing the blame game. When you have a wrong view of God, you blame God for your suffering.
1 The word of the Lord came to me:
2 “What do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel: ‘The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?
When they developed this false proverb, they were not only blaming others, blaming God’s word…but they were also blaming God!
They had a false view of God. They were saying that God is the kind of god that enjoys making innocent people suffer! They were accusing God of enjoying judgement!
But look how God corrects their wrong view of Him:
23 Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” This is the declaration of the Lord God. “Instead, don’t I take pleasure when he turns from his ways and lives?
God is saying to them loud and clear: You have the wrong idea about me! I am not punishing you, because you are innocent, but your fathers sinned. You are wicked! I am punishing you, because your father’s sins became your sins and you didn’t repent!
But I don’t enjoy punishing you! I would rather take pleasure when you repent!
So stop using this proverb…it is false. Admit your sin and repent!
I want you to see that when they hid behind a false view of God, they ended up blaming Him when things didn’t turn out right.
We play the blame game in this way also:
We play the blame game in this way also:
If we are not careful, we develop a wrong view of God and end up blaming Him when things don’t turn out right:
We pray for revival and want God to do something mystical to save people. But God is saying: How are people going to be saved if you are not sharing the gospel?
We fall in love and marry a person that doesn’t love the Lord and wonder why God doesn’t keep our marriage together.
.
We teach our children that they must go to school and prepare for their careers, but if they don’t like church we don’t make them go…and we wonder why they don’t go to church and follow Christ as adults.
We keep voting for candidates that don’t live lives of obedience to God, because they are with that party or this party... and wonder why our country keeps getting worse. We wonder why God is not blessing our country.
We spend our weekends or nights at the bars or at parties, and wonder why the community doesn’t believe that God is doing a mighty work at our church.
We don’t forgive the person who has wronged us…and we wonder why we become bitter. We wonder why God hasn’t given us peace.
The people of Judah were hiding behind a wrong view of God. God did not want things to turn out poorly for them…He wanted them to repent so He could forgive them and bless them!
Invitation:
Invitation:
Are you playing the blame game today?
Do you have a wrong view of yourself? Instead of repenting of your own sin, are you waisting energy putting the microscope on other people’s lives?
Do you have a wrong view of God’s word? Have you spent years letting false teachers fill your head full of twisted interpretations of Scripture? How closely do you guard who gets to teach you the word of God?
Do you have a wrong view of God? Are you blaming God for the bad things that have happened?
God has called us to live lifestyles of repentance.
Live like the psalmist:
23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.