Reference: 12 kings 23.1-21; Judges 6.22-28
On behalf of the pastoral team, I wish to welcome all of you our dear Christians in our todays service. Despite the new challenge on the possibility of having a second wave of Corona virus, we know that God will again protect us and our families and it will be well. Our prayer is that God may protect us and our children even as they study and others go back to schools. In Isaiah 43.2, God has promised that even if we go through fire, we will not be burnt and even if we go through the waters, we will not be drowned. The fires and waters of today are like covid 19, loss of employment and other challenges facing us at this time. Our today’s topic is breaking ungodly altars in our families.
In the last three Sundays, we have been talking about family altars. We looked at how to establish family altars; we looked at the importance and then looked at how to sustain it so that the fire in our family altars will not go out.  Family altars are where families encounter God in a special and very deep level. Families derive their spiritual and supernatural strength as they experience God in the family altars. Family altars have the power to shape children’s destinies ( compare Genesis 24. 50-56 where Rebecca’s destiny was shaped)

From our reading today, we find that although Israelites had a temple with God’s altars, in one way or another, foreign altars belonging to others gods and goddesses like baar, asherah and god molech found their way in the temple. Please read the text again to see how king Josiah struggled to demolish the ungodly altars, high places, these gods and goddesses priests etc. after Josiah finished cleansing the temple of all those ungodly altars, God then blessed his family and the whole nation.
From this story, we learn that it is true that we may erect Godly altars in our families but ungodly altars may be erected by other people or evil powers.  May be the best example of how foreigners can erect ungodly altars is when we read numbers 23 where propher Balaam was hired by king Barak to go and curse the Israelites. We learn that Balaam erected seven altars at three different times hoping to curse the Israelites but we know that the Isrealites were not cursed because God prevented Balaam from going to erect the strongest altar that would have affected the Israelites negatively by refusing his donkey to continue with the journey. Balaam was shocked to learn that he/she  who God has blessed no one can curse.

Ungodly altars can be erected in our families through ancestral covenants, sacrifices and worship. Remember blessings and curses can remain in the family up to third or fourth generations. Our great great grand parents may have dedicated their  children to the evil spirits consciously or unconsciously but the effect of those dedications may still affect us if that covenant is not broken. This is why the belief  in dedicating our children to God is very crucial yet some parents do not take their children for dedication. Our great grand parents may have made an oath to some powers and mentioned their children as the guarantors and in one way when those oarths are broken, we may find ourselves being affected by such oarths. Generational curses have to do with such things but the  good news is that God is able to break those curses. Some of us may buy land or houses from  non-Christians. We may not know that inside that house, there was a big altar of some certain gods or goddesses. This is why we remind Christians that you should not start using a new land or built a house before consecrating it and ensuring that it is free from any other forces.

Signs of ungodly altars among families can be seen in situations where almost all the family members face immature deaths. Please note it’s not when just one member dies before 50 years because that is normal but if none of this family members reaches 50 years, then there is cause to be concerned. Other families have a history of Insanity while other families suffer from strange diseases. This week I read about a family where three brothers had an accident at different times within a span of ten years but all of them lost their legs and had to be amputed. It becomes worse when the accidents usually happen at the same road around Nairobi. There are a few other signs like if the family has ten children and none of them ever get married etc. The good news however is that God is able to protect us from these forces. Like Gideon in Judges 6.22-28, we are able to remove those ungodly altars and replace them with Godly altars. Jesus Christ is superior to all those forces and hence when we dedicate ourselves to God, He is able to deliver us from the effects on ungodly altars. amen