Freedom from Generational Iniquity & Curses 3 of 5

Speaker: Mike Connell

Notice this – the transgressions that’s doing something wrong, the sins that’s doing something wrong - everyone’s responsible for their own. Everyone is called to look to account for their own sin. You are not blamed for the sins your parents committed. You are not blamed or responsible for their transgressions - but the iniquity you carry. We need to deal with the issue of iniquity – the cursing in our flesh, that seems to produce these troubles.

We’ll just finish with one more scripture. You notice that what is visited upon the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation is iniquity. In Deuteronomy 23, I just want to read you one other kind of cursing that passes from one generation to another. In verse 2 - 3: “One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the LORD. An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the LORD forever”.

I want you to just be aware as we finish this session of just these two particular curses. The first one referred there, refers to illegitimacy – conceived, born out of wedlock. What it is saying is that there is a curse of rejection upon that person. In other words, when a child is conceived or born out of wedlock, then there is access of a particular type of spirit – the spirit of rejection - to their life.

Let me give you an example. I had a man come up in an altar call, we had a lot of people in an altar call, and we didn’t have time to counsel him, so I just ask a few simple questions. What is your problem? I want you to notice the questioning that gets to the root. Each day I pray that God will give me the ability to ask questions that go right to the root of problems. This is what I asked him – what is your problem? He said: “I’m angry, a lot of anger”. I said: “Who are you angry at?” “Everyone”. Now that means, he has a root of anger, he was angry at someone, but he never dealt with it. So I said, “how do you get on with your parents?” We’ll go right back and start there. He was very angry with both of his parents. I said: “Did they do something wrong against you?” He said: “I don’t know. I’m just angry at them”. I said: “Are you the eldest in the family.” He said: “Yes, I am”. I said: “Were you conceived out of wedlock”. He said: “Yes, I was”.

I said: “Here’s where the anger is. You are carrying a deep root of rejection and shame in your life, and you put the blame on the people who stepped in to help you. Being angry with them, you’ve continued now to project that anger on everyone. I said: “You need to forgive the parents who gave you out (for adoption). The father who rejected you, the mother who rejected you. You need to forgive the parents for projecting on to them all your anger. You need to go to them and put it right and apologise; because they stepped in to help and you’ve rejected them - you’ve greatly dishonoured them. That’s all it took!

Notice that the cause of it was the illegitimacy; and the deep root of rejection and anger that was in his life - and the way he carried it constantly. Anger is a demand - you took something from me, you must pay back. It’s a reaction to what’s felt or believed to be an injustice. You owe me - is the message of anger. Letting your rights go, and forgiving, is the release of it.

Just think about this – you go into a family line through four generations.... Assume that everyone had just two children. Your parents have two children, next family line there’s another 4 people there, next family line now we go back there’s more people. So gradually we begin to start to realise there’s up to 30 people involved. With 10 generations, there’s a lot more people.

Notice what we finish up with. God loves us passionately, but certain types of sins open the door for a generational curse, and an iniquity. We saw then, a cursing is a negative destructive force, empowered by an evil spirit. Notice that iniquity is a crookedness in the family line that causes people to sin. So iniquity and curses go together - they are quite different, but they go together, and they transfer from one generation to another. Next we’ll look a little bit more about those areas. We’ll look at some Bible examples and we want to come to a point of showing you how you’ll minister to people to get them free. Next we’ll show you some more things about it, then the path to freedom.

We’re looking at the topic of Generational Iniquity & Curses. Generational refers to something passing down from one family member to another. So, generational iniquity is a tendency in a family to a certain kind of sin, for example: patterns of adultery or alcoholism. There can be patterns of sin running in a family line. Generational curses are negative forces running through the family, one generation to another, that’s powered by evil spirits. Firstly, I want to look at how iniquity is transferred. How it shifts from one family member to another. Then we’ll look at curses in themselves, and how to identify them.

First of all, iniquity - how is it transferred? We’re going to list some possible ways they’re transferred. The first is: it’s generational, it’s inherited. Just as you carry physical features of your parents, you also carry some of the iniquity. Secondly, they can be empowered by spirits; there may be familiar spirits operating in the family. Thirdly, they may pass in a family line, because of bitter judgements against the parents.

Bitter Judgements - if you judge your parents for a particular sin or failure, you set in motion a cycle of sowing and reaping in your life. The thing you have judged will turn up in your own life. You hear someone say: “I’ll never be like my father”. That means they have been hurt, there is a judgement against their father, and now an inner vow. The result is, they’ll probably become exactly like him. When we judge our parents, we set in motion a cycle of iniquity continuing in our family. The thing we judge, we reap.

It seems likely then, that causes of this iniquity moving from one family generation to another are: familiar spirits; bitter judgements; and possibly genetic code. It’s quite possible that some of these areas of sin corrupt the genetic code, and create issues that pass through the genetic line. Another cause or source of the iniquity transferring is just patterns of learned behaviour. In other words, people tend to copy what their parents do.

In looking at iniquity continuing in the family line: 1) there’s a spiritual power, and a curse operating. We’re bearing the consequences spiritually of their sin. 2) Bitter judgements. 3) Patterns of behaviour; and possibly familiar spirits; and maybe genetic code.

You understand then, if you’re going to deal with something, you need to know what it is you’re dealing with. For example, if the person has judged their parent, they need to repent of the judgement and forgive. If the person has learned or copied their behaviour, they need to learn new ways of behaving and living.

Now, let’s have a look at the issue of curses, generational curses. I want you to understand what a curse is, and how we can recognise them. Usually curses are spoken words, which set in motion spiritual powers. Curse – you speak words, and they’re spoken with force, and they release spiritual powers. Generally they continue from generation to generation until they’re broken. The power behind the curse is an evil spirit or a demon. To curse someone, means to bring evil, or calamity, or destruction on them. Curse – bring evil or calamity upon them.

When a curse is operating, there’s a spiritual pressure on the person, to continually bring destructive results in their life. This presses the person who presses their relationship, presses their circumstances. Another way of putting it would be: recurring cycles of defeat.

Where does the curse come from? Proverbs 26:2 said “the curse, without a cause, shall not come”. Or to put it another way: if there’s a curse, there’s always a reason. There’s always a reason. One possible cause of the curse is God – He set laws in place, you violate the laws, there are consequences. Breaking God’s laws, gives demons room to move in a person’s life.

A second cause of curses is people - people speaking out, cursing our family, cursing us, or people practising witchcraft. Witchcraft – words are spoken that release spiritual power against someone. For example, a person dedicating a child to an idol or a temple - that initiates a cursing. If a person opens their life to an evil spirit, or dedicates themselves to an evil spirit - that would initiate a cursing.

Sometimes, authority figures can speak words of cursing. “You’ll never do any good. You’re stupid”. People in authority, speaking in destructive words, can cause cursings to take place.

People can curse themselves. “I’m a failure. I’ll never do any good. I’ll probably fail.”

Another potential source of cursing on a person’s life is occult objects. Deuteronomy 7:25-26. This is what the word of God says: “You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the LORD your God. Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.” So, objects such as idols or occult objects can bring spiritual forces into the home, and you have undue influences.

If a curse is operating, there will always be fruit. If you want to discover if a curse is operating, you just look for repeated patterns of failure. When we’re looking for generational iniquity and curses, we’re looking for repeated patterns of failure - particularly the ones that pass from one generation to another.

So what kinds of patterns of failure? The book of Deuteronomy lists many. Deuteronomy 28:15 says: “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you”.

It begins to talk about these and gives a whole list of them. What we’ll do is, we’ll just summarise them so you’ve got a list to look for. These are evidences it could be operating. There may however be other factors as well. At least it’ll give you a start place to look for.:

1) Recurring mental and emotional problems in the family.

2) Recurring chronic sickness and allergies.

3) Difficulties with pregnancy. That means difficulties conceiving; miscarriages; childlessness. Interestingly enough, this is particularly associated with idolatry. In the book of Hosea 9, it says that idolatry - one of the consequences is: the womb will cast forth its fruit.

4) Recurring patterns of family breakdown and divorce. So, repeated cycles of divorce and family breakdown. Also conflicts in the family – everyone’s against everyone.

5) Recurring patterns of financial lack. Everything should be going right, we should get blessed, and suddenly there’s a setback; recurring patterns of family lack or financial lack.

6) Another symptom is that a person’s got patterns of accident-proneness. Tend to constantly get accidents; or it seems the family has patterns of accident in it.

7) Another thing to look for is recurring patterns of suicide, or premature death. You look in a family, and there’s a history of suicides or people dying unexpectedly early - that could be evidence of a curse.

8) I’ve also come to the conclusion that patterns of abuse and traumas or mistreatment is also evidence of a curse.

9) Another one that I have observed is inability to settle - no rest, no ability to be stable. Remember that Cain was cursed with this - he was a vagabond; he couldn’t rest or settle anywhere.

Now, all of these problems can have a variety of causes, but if they are repetitive problems, they tend to be generational. For example, if someone came to me and they’re suffering from tormenting nightmares, I would ask: “Tell me what is the problem. How is it affecting you. When did it first start?” “I’ve had it all my life” - that would suggest it is family or generational. Or they could answer – they’ve got another problem, “I’ve got these allergies”. “How long have you had them?” “All of my life” “Did anyone else in your family have them?” “My mother had them, and her mother had them.” So you see a repeated kind of pattern, and you realise there’s something operating down the family line.

So you’re looking for repeated patterns - something that’s crooked and twisted. There’s a power operating behind it. I’ll give you a few examples in the Bible, where clearly either iniquity or curses are operating. You can quite easily see that actually, the two are connected, but you can usually easily see which is which. We’ll have a look at a few of them now.

Let’s look at King David. 2 Samuel 12:10 – these are the words of Samuel: “Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.” So what does that sound like? Sounds like a curse - the sword shall never depart from your house. So what did David do that caused this problem in his family? He committed adultery and murder. Here’s the first question – did David get forgiven by God? Yes he was forgiven. However, the consequence, or iniquity, went down his family line. So, if you follow David’s family, you realise there was adultery, there was rape, there was bitterness, there was betrayal, and one of the brothers killed the other brother. So looking at David’s family line, you see many problems, which had a generational root.

I’ll give you another example from 2 Kings 5:27. You remember Gehazi and Elisha. Remember how Gehazi coveted the money and goods that came from Naaman the Syrian. This is what Elisha spoke to him (2 Kings 5:26 - 27): “Did not my heart go with you, when the man turned back from his chariot to meet you? Is it time to receive money and to receive clothing, olive groves and vineyards, sheep and oxen, male and female servants? Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your descendants forever”; and he went out from his presence leprous, as white as snow.

You notice that his sin was that there was coveting, or greed in his heart. He lied - he deceived, in order to manipulate someone to get some possessions in gold. In doing so, he ruined the strategic alliance between Elisha and Naaman, who was a high military person in Syria. Elisha did not want anything from Naaman the Syrian, even though he was an extremely wealthy man. He wanted to leave this man in debt to him, and to operate free of any requirement of him - this would give him power to speak into his life. If he took money from him, if he charged for his services, it would undermine his authority and the strategic relationship.

Just to give an example of that, there are times when I minister to some very highly important people in Taiwan. It’s always important that when I go to them, I never ask or want anything from them. That I go, what I give is free. That keeps then, the ability to keep my heart clear, and to have influence in these people’s lives. This is because the moment I was to show any signs of greed, they would pick it straight away.

Authority in their life depends on being totally free from a hidden agenda; so this greed in Gehazi’s heart was very serious - it undermined Elisha’s reputation. You notice that the result was leprosy - physical sickness. Notice that it was ‘cling to you and your descendents’. His sin opened the door for a generational leprosy in the family line.

Think of some other ones. In Genesis 12:10-13, remember how Abraham lied about his wife Sarah? In Genesis 26:7, Isaac his son lied also, about his wife. In Genesis 27:19, Jacob lied - pretended to be Esau - lied and deceived his poor blind dad. Then in Genesis 37:33, the whole family lied, when they covered up the death of Joseph. This is an example of an iniquity - a tendency towards dishonesty – lying in the family line. Notice the sins get worse and worse.

Another example would be Eli – 1 Samuel 3:12-14 and 1 Samuel 2:30-33 Remember he was unfaithful in his priesthood, and the curse came upon him and his family. Let’s just have a look at what the curse was - 1 Samuel 3:13 – “I will judge his house forever, for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them.” So notice there, verse 14 says – “Therefore, I have sworn to the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.”

Now we find out exactly what it was - go back to chapter 2, verse 31: “Behold, the days are coming that I will cut off your arm, and the arm of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your house.” Verse 33: “But any of your men, whom I do not cut off from My altar, shall consume your eyes and grieve your heart; and all the descendants of your house shall die in the flower of their age.”

Basically what he’s saying is: the generational legacy of worshipping God will be removed from you, and there’ll be premature deaths in your family. He said – there’ll be constant grief. What he’s saying is that there is a generational curse coming, and it can’t be removed.

So there are other examples: Genesis 9:23 – Noah’s grandson Canaan was cursed. Genesis 4:11 – Cain was cursed with his descendents.

So we see then, the activity of generational iniquity and curses. How are we going to get the person free? What are the steps to freeing a person up?

The first thing is to know and understand fully what Jesus did, and then how to apply it. So we’ll just give you the scriptures for this, without taking too much time to develop them.

First, in Galatians 3:14 - Jesus positioned us to be blessed by breaking the curse. So in Galatians 3:13-14 - He redeemed us from the curse of the law. In other words: paid full price, to rescue us from all of these curses. If He paid the full price, there’s no price we have to pay. He did it so that the blessing of Abraham might come upon us through faith in Christ, and we receive the promise of the Spirit. So Jesus broke the power of curses, and positioned us to be blessed.

He also carried our iniquities. In Isaiah 53:5, it says: “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

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