Once you can connect them that the murder, the sin of murder, flowed out of the anger in the heart. When a person unleashes their anger, they release a spirit of murder. It hurts and wounds people, and if it’s unrestrained it’ll result in violence that ends in death. See? Okay, we’re getting the idea. Now when Jesus spoke on the Sermon on the Mount, notice what He said. You’ll remember this very clearly now. Now you’ll see what He’s getting at. On the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:21 and 22, He said if you have anger in your heart, you are literally a murderer. Why? Because anger leads to murder. If you lust after a woman in your heart, you have already committed adultery. Why? Because adultery is the outward behaviour of lust, or the iniquity of lust in the heart, so iniquity, lust is the iniquity, adultery and sexual sin is the transgression. This is the outward, the other’s the inward. You don’t deal with the inward, the other will just keep bubbling out somehow. Religious people try to cover the outward and keep it hidden, but inside what goes on is all this iniquity; lust, fears, envy, hatred, bitterness. Those are all issues of the heart. That is what’s called iniquity. It’s the twist that inevitably will show up in your relationships, and this is the thing that Jesus came to deal with. Iniquity is the spider, the other stuff’s all what it produces (the web).
Now where does this stuff all originate from in the first place? Well the first place it originates in our life in several ways. It helps if you understand this. The first is it comes from the devil himself. The Bible says, the first reference in the Bible to the origin of iniquity is found in Lucifer himself, and we read in Ezekiel 28, in 14 to 18, we find that Lucifer was an anointed cherub in the Garden of Eden. He was an angel, full of worship. He was absolutely a beautiful sight to be seen – until iniquity was found in him. When iniquity was found in him, it then manifested, by him arising up and saying actually, I want what belongs to God. I want the worship that belongs to God. I want the place up on the mountain of God. I want to arise and ascend – and so his iniquity in his heart was pride, exalting himself, coveting, wanting what was only God’s and the result was rebellion, leading angels to react and rebel against God, and the result was they were cast out of heaven.
Iniquity originated in Lucifer, and he imparts it into lives. When you have iniquity operating, you’re touching something from the spirit realm that comes out of the demonic realm. See? When Adam and Eve ate, they didn’t just eat some fruit. They ate of what he ministered to them, and iniquity was imparted into them, so if you see almost straight away after Adam and Eve fell, the Bible says that they begat children in their own image, not the image of God any more, the image of them, which was they had iniquity operating in them. First generation, they’ve got anger and then murder. Second generation, third generation – if you watch the lines they just get worse and worse and worse. Why? Because there’s this thing operating called iniquity. Iniquity is the problem. We’re going to see how it gets in, and how to deal with it in just a moment.
Second origin of iniquity – the primary origin is demonic. The second is generational. You think oh blow, ooh, I didn’t want this to happen. You’re going to have to see this. Exodus, Chapter 20, you see why in a moment, and then you see how Jesus really dealt with it. In Exodus, Chapter 20, He’s talking about – the 10 Commandments – He’s talking about the sin of idolatry, Verse 4. Don’t make a carved image, a likeness of anything in heaven above, or the earth beneath, or the water in the earth. Don’t bow down or serve them. So He’s saying, don’t get involved in idolatry, putting things before God, because – notice this – because here’s why you don’t want to do it. Why? Because He said I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. Now notice what happens; He said I will visit the iniquity of the fathers onto their children, and their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren up to their great-great-grandchildren. That’s a lot of people.