Have you ever noticed how things such as poverty, divorce, depression, anger, and depression seem to run in families? The world would tell us these are learned patterns of behavior. The Bible teaches us that the sins of the father can visit the third and fourth generations (Exodus 20:5).
Sin that opens the door in one generation can become a generational curse to the next. A parent can commit a sin, such as gambling, and that sin can produce a curse of debt or poverty. The curse then causes a generational iniquity or weakness to pass down the family tree. The children therefore, receive an inheritance of financial struggle and debt that come to steal from them every time they are about to breakthrough! The sins of our forefathers are greatly affecting us today!
We know that satan and his demonic angels are trying ensnare souls through sin, and keep Christians from the full call of God on their lives. Generational patterns of iniquity therefore work on the weaknesses of the family and tempt them into repetitious patterns of sin. The children of the gambler, mentioned above, may never gamble themselves, but they are likely trapped under the curse of debt that came in the generation before.
John Eckhardt defines a curse as follows: God’s recompense in the life of a person and his or her descendants as a result of iniquity. The curse causes sorrow of the heart and gives demonic spirits legal entry into a family whereby they can carry out and perpetuate their wicked devices.
Eckhardt goes on to quote Derek Prince’s seven common indications (not proofs) of a curse operating in the bloodline:
- Chronic Financial Problems.
- Chronic Sickness and Disease.
- Female Problems (also barrenness)
- Accident Proneness
- Marital Problems
- Premature death and
- Mental Illness
Anytime there is a choice to sin we move out from under the blessings of God and invite a curse to be established in our family. The demonic kingdom doesn’t overlook any opportunity to kill, steal, and destroy!
We know that Jesus took all sickness and disease to the cross. He became a curse for us! He died so that we could live through salvation. But just as salvation is something that we must appropriate as an act of our free will by accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we must also act to appropriate freedom from generational curses. By an act of our will we are to ask forgiveness for the sins of our forefathers and break the generational curses familiar to our family.
Once the curses have been broken, the legal right of the demons associated with that curse is terminated. At that point deliverance, the process of casting out the demons (Mark 16:17) can be accomplished.
If you have been struggling under a generational curse you see repeating in your family line, call us or find a deliverance ministry that offers a balanced Biblical perspective to deliverance. God wants his children set free from captivity. He wants you free more than you do, there is work to do. The harvest is ready but the workers are few!
I have a personal testimony in this area of generational curses and it is covered in a previous blog post. My mother had just passed away and the demons that had tormented her were now trying come upon me. Read more..
If you have had repeated help, ministry, teaching and prayer for relief in certain “inherited” issues and are still not free, maybe you should consider getting deliverance ministry?