“Generational curses” seem to be a hot subject nowadays, but I can’t find it in the Bible where people who are born again have them. We get prayer requests often from people wanting to be free of “generational curses”. Many times it involves marital problems, or pornography, or gambling, or alcoholism. So, the first thing I do is find out if they are saved or not.  The 18th chapter of Ezekiel talks about sins of the “generations”, and in verse 20, it is written, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die, the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.”  Exodus 20:5 says, “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me:….”

 While I know if you are not saved, you ARE subject to generational curses, but once you’re saved, you aren’t.  Jesus delived you from it.  Let’s not get in the ditch here, folks.  If you are indeed under a generational curse because you are unsaved, let’s get you saved, and Jesus will free you!

If your grandfather was an alcoholic, and your father was an alcoholic, that doesn’t mean you have to be!  It’s a matter of choice, and often the work of the flesh. Most of our problems we have are from not keeping our flesh in line with the word of God. The devil can’t make you do anything if you don’t want to do it. But if you insist on living in sin, and you keep opening that door to the devil more and more, sooner or later, he will move in bag and baggage and take you over. Then you have real problems.

 
Some say cancer, or diabetes, for example, is a generational curse. It can be, if you are not saved.  Some families do have genetically susceptible bodies that several of them end up with cancer or diabetes. That isn’t a devil necessarily. They may all have poor eating habits, or drink, or smoke. Again, that’s the flesh. We are the product of our choices, whether we be saved or unsaved.  If I, by my uncontrolled habit decide to drink 30 cups of coffee a day, and my parents drank 30 cups of coffee a day, and it killed them, chances are it will kill me too, but not because of a generational curse, but because of my lack of good common sense and plain old “discipline”.
When Jesus died on the cross, He made it possible for us to be free from the law of sin and death, and that freedom becomes ours when we make Jesus our Lord and Savior.  Since everything that the devil is about is sin and death, then that means once Jesus sets us free, it is up to us to stay free, by making our flesh line up with the word of God. Romans 12:2 says, “And be ye not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

The Holy Spirit is given to believers in order for us to have power to say NO to temptation. But the Holy Spirit will not make us say no. That part is up to us. Therefore, I believe that people who are born again give the excuse that they are suffering from a “generational curse”, when the truth is, they just don’t want to “crucify the flesh and all it’s fleshly desires”. Excuses come easy, right? Blame it on a generational curse if you don’t want to accept responsibility for your own actions, by saying, the devil made me do it.

There are things in my own life I daily have to make an effort to get in line with God with. Living a life committed to Christ Jesus doesn’t come easy, there is a price to pay. Jesus said to take up our cross and follow Him. He didn’t say He would walk behind us carrying our cross for us while we ride in the air-conditioned Limo. What happened to the verse in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me”?

Can Christ in you help you overcome your personal “curses”? Of course, if you will let Him.

 We look for so many things to blame the devil for, when the fact remains, if you look at society as a whole, people today just don’t want to be accountable for their actions.
 Look at murderers on death row, they may say the devil made them do it, or maybe someone told them that murder is a generational curse in their family. Well, Cain was the first murderer as far as men go, but Jesus said the devil was a murderer from the beginning. So, people will use that for a crutch to have an excuse to kill someone. The truth is, they just wanted to kill that person to fulfill the lust of their flesh, plain and simple. And kids running around with no discipline in their lives isn’t a “generational curse”, it’s poor parenting. Let’s put the blame where it belongs.

To say that someone who Christ Jesus has set free suffers from a “generational curse” is a slap in God’s face. Looking deeper into that issue, we get into works of the flesh trying to get that person “delivered” from their “generational curse”. I once went to a conference on deliverance that had sort of a 12 step program to get someone “free”, and they talked a lot about “generational curses”, where they had to renounce this, and renounce that, and go through this whole list of things, in order to “break the curse”.

When asking the teachers about scriptural proof of what they were teaching, they said, “There isn’t any, we just do it this way because it seems to work better.” Works better than what?? I can’t find where Jesus ever did that, nor can I find where His disciples did, neither did Paul teach it. Jesus makes things simple, but men seem to be good at complicating things. Surely it doesn’t work better than the blood of Jesus!
We get off into serious error when we try to add something or take something away from what Jesus taught, and what the original disciples taught the first church. Jesus commanded devils to come out, and they came out, and that’s how He taught His disciples. They didn’t leave a crowd of people behind suffering from “generational curses” to have to deal with later. Remember where Jesus warned His disciples about the “leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees”? This is partly why there are so many messed up Christians out there.

People try to add stuff to the Gospel that just isn’t in there. And one error soon leads to another. Pretty soon, you have “another gospel”. Paul had a thing or two to say about that. He wrote in Galatians 1:6-7, “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.”

Let’s take an extreme case here, let’s say a person raised by devil-worshipping parents, dedicated as a child to the devil, who then made their own pact with the devil. Can Jesus set them free from this “generational curse”? The moment they invite Jesus into their heart, they are free. And they don’t need a 12 step deliverance ministered to them, either. Will they still be living under a “generational curse”? As my Pastor says, Get a life. Will I make some people mad by that statement? Probably. But I’m not on anyone’s payroll, so I can preach the word of God without compromise.
John 8:36 says, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

 That’s what Jesus said. And I dare say that includes the so-called “generational curses”.