Book Review - Challenges Associated With Family Tree and How....

Paying your ancestors bills – Blood Guilt

What it means is that every drop of righteous blood ever spilled from the time earth began until now, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was struck down between altar and sanctuary, is on your heads. Yes, it's on the bill of this generation and this generation will pay. Luke11:50-51 THE MESSAGE

The above scripture paints a vivid picture of what it means to inherit judgment from our ancestors. If this statement was made by less a person than Christ Himself, we may treat it lightly. The generation Jesus was addressing was to inherit blood guilt from more than two thousand years behind. And God was to make them pay for the innocent blood their ancestors shed.

In Africa we see this kind of thing in some families where their ancestors have been involved in ritual murder, human sacrifice, slave trade and other related evils. As we go through the family tree that this account represents, we begin to see people suffer for what they cannot explain.

What are the kind of things people under blood guilt suffer?

a. Missing lineage – Restless wanderer

b. Refugee situation

c. War and violence in their land

d. Poverty of a kind that force them to sell off their family asset

e. Rejection everywhere they try to associate with people

f. Failure at the point of breakthrough

g. Insanity

h. War within the family

This is to mention but a few. People under blood guilt are really in trouble. When people shed blood, it is an affront on the God of creation, and the blood so shed cries out to God’s court for vengeance. It is God that avenges blood and He only can forgive bloodshed.

The Lord said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth." Gen 4:10-12 NIV

Take note of what this scripture says-

1. Blood does not die even after the person is dead. Abel was dead but his blood was still crying out to God for vengeance

2. No matter where the dead is covered and his blood buried, God can still hear the cry of blood

3. Blood demands vengeance at the highest court; God’s court

4. Bloodshed attracts curses

5. The curse for bloodshed will bring failure at every point of endeavor

6. God’s creation resists somebody under the curses of bloodshed and they don’t cooperate with him - When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you.

7. Those under judgement for bloodshed end up as fugitives or restless wanderers

8. God punishes the sin of bloodshed Himself

And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man Gen 9:5 NIV

"'Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it. Num 35:33 NIV

The sad thing in the case we are discussing is that according to Jesus Christ, the people that had shed the blood has died and long forgotten but their children, were being called to pay for the sins of their ancestors. The result is that we begin to see most of what is mentioned above as the consequences of the sin of bloodshed in the life of those who never shed blood all their life.

Excerpt from my book, Challenges Associated with Family Tree and How....