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It Is Written

John Bradshaw

History’s Most Hated Father

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It Is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

Well, there are sunnier subjects, I guess, but I'm not sure there are too many that are more important.

We're going to take a few moments together to talk about history's most hated father.

And honestly, it might be a subject that arouses strong feelings, especially if your relationship with your own father wasn't or isn't good.

Examine history and you'll find some tyrannical fathers.

You'll find accounts of emperors and kings who murdered their children.

Look in the news and of course you're going to find truly disturbing reports of monsters who've treated their children hideously.

I'm not planning on getting too far into that.

But I am talking about much more than the father who refused to buy ice cream, or never attended a game or a recital, or the dad who always worked late.

Not the worst father ever, but history's most hated father.

I'm going to tell you who it is, and you might be surprised by who I identify.

I don't think there's any question about it.

In the Bible, you'll find fathers who made terrible mistakes.

Lot's mistake was moving his family to about the worst place they could have gone.

But then he followed that up with getting drunk and what happened afterwards was not something he would ever have been proud of.

We could think of King Manasseh who made his children pass through fire, which is really a euphemistic way of saying that he sacrificed his children to the devil.

But even after that, not even Manasseh is history's most hated father.

But it's not known that Hitler had any children.

Probably wasn't the perfect father, but there's nothing suggesting he was an especially bad father either.

So if you're trying to figure out who wins the prize as history's most hated father, You need to set your sights a little higher.

Genesis 1.1, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

This was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit working together.

Verse 26 says, And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

The text doesn't explicitly state 3 persons, but we can deduce that by looking elsewhere in the Bible.

Genesis 1.27 says, So God created man in his own image.

Now let's establish that there is a Father God.

Ephesians 4.6 speaks of 1 God and Father of all.

In John 20 verse 17, Jesus encountered Mary Magdalene shortly after His resurrection and said, "...do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father.

But go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." Malachi 2 verse 10 says, "...have we not all 1 Father?

Has not 1 God created us?" Matthew 5 verse 16, "...let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

In Matthew 6, verse 9, Jesus says, In this manner therefore pray, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name." So you get the idea.

But How have his children related to God?

Let's go back to the time before God's people had made it to the Promised Land.

Exodus 32, starting in verse 3, So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron.

And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool and made a molded calf.

Then they said, This is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.

So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it.

And Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.

Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings.

And the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." So let's think this through.

God liberated them from Egyptian slavery.

God miraculously saved them from certain death.

He opened up an ocean, or at least the Red Sea.

And as God is giving Moses the 10 Commandments, His very own people are at the bottom of the mountain, breaking every 1 of them.

They didn't know what to become of Moses, and it was a moment of weakness.

They'd been influenced by their time in Egypt.

Much later we read that Israel wanted a king.

God had been guiding them through prophets and judges, but that wasn't good enough for many of them.

And God said to Samuel in 1 Samuel 8 and verse 7, Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them." This is God speaking and He says, they have rejected me.

Speaking of Jesus, the Son of God, Isaiah wrote, He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him.

He was despised and we esteemed him not." That's Isaiah 53.3.

Of course, this was a rejection of the Father.

A similar thought is expressed in the New Testament, starting in Mark 12 and verse 6, "...therefore still having 1 son, his beloved, he also sent him to them last, saying, They will respect my son.

But those vinedressers said among themselves, This is the heir.

Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.

So they took him and killed him and cast him out of the vineyard." Mark 12, 6-8.

They killed the Son and in doing so were rejecting the authority of the Father.

In Jeremiah 2, 5, God asks, "...what injustice have your fathers found in Me, that they have gone far from me, have followed idols, and have become idolaters." He goes on to say, "...I brought you into a bountiful country to eat its fruit and its goodness.

But when you entered, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination.

They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." You see what was happening?

God had made them, created them, loved them, fed them with manna from heaven, brought water out of a rock, opened up the Red Sea.

And yet, he was out and out rejected by his people.

In Isaiah 5, God asks, What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it?

Really, has there ever been a more hated father?

Hated and rejected by people all over the entire world for thousands of years.

Even 1 in 3 angels warred against God in hatred and rebellion.

In a moment, what is God's response to this rejection?

There is nothing in this world more precious than a meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ.

Today's free offer, Steps to Christ, is 1 of the best books ever written on how to build a successful relationship with Jesus that will see you through to eternity.

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History’s Most Hated Father

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