Fatherlessness in the Last Generation.
I. TWO REASONS WHY I BELIEVE WE ARE IN THE FINAL GENERATION
A. After 1897 years, Israel is a nation and controls Jerusalem.
Zechariah 14:2 I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked,
and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city.
1. For 1897 yrs Zechariah 14:2 has been an impossibility. Because of the events of 1948 and 1967, the stage is
now set.
B. The industrial, technological, and information revolution over the past 150 yrs was prophesied by Daniel and
connected to the last generation.
Daniel 12:4 “But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro,
and knowledge shall increase.”
II. GOD IS GOING TO SEND ELIJAH THE PROPHET BACK TO THE EARTH
Malachi 4:5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
6 And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and
strike the earth with a curse.”
A. This is extraordinary and stunning. What is going on in the earth that God would send a man who lived 2800
years ago back to the earth to minister?
B. The crisis on the earth that requires Elijah’s literal presence and ministry is the crisis of fatherlessness. Father’s
hearts across the earth have turned away from their children and as a result the children have turned away.
C. Jesus himself confirmed that Elijah was going to come.
Matthew 17:11 Jesus answered and said to them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things. 12 But I say to
you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise the Son of
Man is also about to suffer at their hands.”
1. Jesus says that John the Baptist was a type of Elijah but affirms that Elijah is yet to come and he will restore all
things. Jesus uses the definitive article “the” denoting a specific person not just a mindset or influence.
D. Elijah is most likely one of the two witnesses of Revelation 11.
Revelation 11:6 These have power to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy; and they have power
over waters to turn them to blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues, as often as they desire.
1Kings 17:1 And Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD God of Israel lives, before
whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word.”
III. LAWLESSNESS – THE RESULT OF FATHERLESSNESS
A. The role of a father is to identify and name his child and bring forth his or her destiny. The only way a child will
know who they are is if their father tells them. A persons’ primary identity is formed by what their father says about them
and how he acts towards them.
B. When a father turns his heart from his child, the child suffers a devastating wound of rejection. Their identity and
destiny is formed in rejection.
Romans 8:15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom
we cry out, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
1. This spirit of bondage is an evil spirit that drives a person to fear. Fear of not knowing who we are, a fear of not
knowing if we have worth or significance, a fear of being unvalued. We receive this spirit when we are formed in rejection.
2. This fear drives us either to reject all external value systems or to fight and strive to create our own identity through
performance. A value system is a system of measurement. When a person feels they’ve failed the measurement, they will
either drive incessantly to measure up within their own system (performance, religion, work-aholism), or they will reject all
value systems (relativism).
a. The wanderer or the performer
b. When a child is rejected by his/her father, and then the father tries to impose a value system on that child, the
child will willfully violate every point of the value system as a statement of protest in response to the rejection.
C. A root of rejection from fatherlessness will result in bondage and defilement.
Hebrews 12:14 Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: 15 looking
carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this
many become defiled;
1. Peace with people is horizontal harmony, holiness is vertical harmony. To achieve this place requires the grace
(divine desire and ability) of God. A root of bitterness will block the grace of God flowing in your life. Strongs defines
the word “bitterness” as “poisonous or acrid”. When something is acrid it has an irritatingly strong unpleasant taste or
smell.
2. If this poisonous or painful root is not dealt with, it will grow up and mature. It will cause you trouble. Strongs
defines the word trouble here as “to harass, crowd or vex”. This painful and acrid root will take over your life, it will
crowd you out and oppress you. This oppression is spiritual and from the enemy, it is a demonic exaggeration of a
natural wound.
3. The final stage is reached when a state of defilement is reached. Defilement here means moral defilement.
Moral defilement renders a person powerless to be a spiritual father and so the cycle continues and worsens.
D. The greatest need in the final generation is for fathers. This is why Elijah is sent. Widespread fatherlessness
is causing a bitter root of rejection to spring up in the nations, causing an opening for widespread demonic oppression
and defilement, resulting in global lawlessness.
E. In 2 Thess 2:8, the Anti-Christ is called the “lawless one”. In a global atmosphere of lawlessness, the lawless one
will arise and the nations will follow him. His message will be, “I will tell you who you are, where you came from, and
where you are going”. He will give the nations a sense of identity and destiny that is separate from God.
IV. ELIJAH CONFRONTED THE FATHERLESSNESS OF HIS DAY ON MT. CARMEL
A. Elijah confronts, defeats, and kills 450 prophets of Baal in I Kings 18.
B. Baal worship was the official religion in Israel during the reign of king Ahab and queen Jezebel. Baal had several
names including Dagon and Molech. The Baal cult was a fertility cult. The people believed Baal produced fertility in the
land, in the animals, and in their own bodies.
C. It was believed that in the winter Baal went to the underworld and the land died. In the spring, in order to bring
Baal back to life from the underworld, blood sacrifice had to be offered. Both animals and human infants were used as
sacrifices. They would build an idol called a “topheth” and start a blazing fire in the belly of the idol. When the
outstretched arms of the metal idol were red hot, the priests would take an infant and place it on the idols arms,
burning the child alive.
D. The belief was that when Baal came back to life, he had to have sexual relations with his mistress Asherah in
order for their crops, animals, and bodies to be fertile. In order to encourage Baal and Asherah to mate, the priests of
Baal would gather the people for public worship and then proceed to have sexual relations upon the public altar with a
chosen girl. Then all the male worshippers would go off and have sexual relationships with prostitutes.
E. Baal was pictured with a rod of lightning in his hand and was considered the god of thunder, lightning, and rain,
so when Elijah shuts up the heavens with the word of his mouth, and there is no rain for three years, it is a direct
assault upon Baal and Baal worship.
F. The Baal fertility cult caused the gross perversion of human sexuality and the decimated the value of innocent life.
This was all done for personal, material, and financial gain. This was the straw that broke the back of God’s patience
with Israel and brought absolute judgment upon them.
Jeremiah 7:30 For the children of Judah have done evil in My sight,” says the LORD. “They have set their abominations
in the house which is called by My name, to pollute it. 31 And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the
Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come
into My heart. 32 “Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “when it will no more be called Tophet, or the
Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Tophet until there is no room. 33 The
corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth. And no one will frighten
them away.
G. The Assyrian siege on the city of Lachish is an example of God’s judgment on the entire culture. The Lord
brought the Assyrian army upon the northern 10 tribes of Israel in 722 B.C. and they were completely decimated. The
Assyrians then turned towards Judah to destroy it. They laid siege to the city of Lachish, south of Jerusalem, and
eventually annihilated the entire population (40-50,000 people). All the men were impaled on the end of spears (hung)
and suspended all around the city. The few prisoners Sennacherib took had rings pierced through their lips and they
were tied to horses by the lip ring, and drug back to Assyria to work in prison camps.
H. When archeologists excavated Lachish, they found homes where the people evidently were faithful to the worship
of Yahweh. These worshippers of the true God were not spared in the judgment.
V. FATHERLESSNESS HAS MANIFESTED ITSELF IN OUR DAY THROUGH ABORTION AND RAMPANT IMMORALITY.
A. Will God not judge America for it’s murder of 50 million babies for personal gain? Unless we get radical about a
lifestyle of solemn assembly, we will not be spared either. The only safety is in the place of contrite, solemn, lives of
prayer and repentance.
VI. AS END-TIME FORERUNNERS WE MUST HAVE THE SPIRIT OF ELIJAH
A. The end-time prophetic spirit of Elijah is a fathering spirit that sets the lonely in families (Ps 68), calls out this
generation’s identity and destiny, and confronts an idolatrous culture of immorality and death. This is the essence of a
forerunner spirit.
B. Since the Holy Spirit is the spirit which cries out “Abba Father” (Rom 8), then the Joel 2 outpouring of the Spirit on
all flesh is God’s answer for the Mal 4:5-6 dilemma of global fatherlessness.
VII. WE CAN’T EFFECTIVELY FATHER THIS GENERATION UNTIL WE DEAL WITH OUR FATHERLESSNESS AND
BITTER ROOTS OF REJECTION.
A. We must encounter our heavenly Father and experience Him identifying us and telling us our destiny.