Are Generational CURSES Real?! What the Bible REALLY Says... | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Hey dads, when you're fighting those dragons, you're not just fighting for you, you're fighting for your children and your children's children. Sin can be passed on from generation to generation, but on an encouraging side, faith can also be passed from generation to generation. One teenager made a decision many years ago to go, I'm not my granddad and I'm not my dad. That's my heavenly father and I got a new spiritual heritage now. And it changes the course of the whole Old Testament. Well, hey, Livfree Nation. Before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. But the Livfree Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this, we wanna invite you to take a simple next step and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook and our church online platform. And it's more than just watching a service, there are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church or just looking for a place to start, church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend and now enjoy the podcast. Let's kick this big. Let's kick this big. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Livfree Podcast. My name is Carlos Arrasso and today I'm here with the one and only Pastor Josh Howerton and Pastor Paul Cunningham. The boys are back in town. Hey, man. What a great episode we had last week. Man, you were just real quiet. You were. I didn't say it worked. The three of us, it was so great. I was a little stiff, you know, like, you know, just a little, I felt a little rigid. Least chemistry I've ever experienced with you ever. But I thought it was pretty good. I mean, how was vacation? It was good, man. Went to Disneyland. How was Disney? It was good. People don't know this, but there's actually a few people at Lake Point that they are like hardcore, die-hard Disney fans. It's a little cultish, if I'm honest. And so. Do you know this song? Do you know this song? It's by Nicol Beck. It's not. Stop. All right. I think I heard it. But yeah, it was great. We had fun, man. It was good. Did you boy have a good time? He did. Yes, we had a blast. And yeah, everything is new. All the, you know, Pixar characters. Oh, yeah, dude. So it was fun. I will say there is a, I saw that you shared a particular photo of me. I have no idea what you're talking about, man. I was going to ask you how that coin bar or hot dog was. Did you say, did you just ask your favorite photo of me? Is that what you did? It's one of my favorite pictures of you. Well, that's funny because. No, let's get ready to have fun. That's really funny because I actually have a favorite photo of you as well. He's been waiting to do this. What is this? He's been waiting. And so Trillity. You did it. Wait, no. Hold on. First of all, let me, I cropped it because I want to make sure that we major in the majors here. Oh, Janna would have loved me being this big shoes. Oh, OK. Well, you know, first of all, I will say this. I will say this, Josh, there is nothing you need to explain in this photo. Yeah, there is. Except for one thing. The shoes. The shoes. Look at the shoes. For what? For your words. Come on, dude. It's a real deal, man. Somebody gave me a free pair of Nike running shoes in an era of my life where I couldn't just afford to go get another pair. And I was running a lot. And so I wore them for like four years. Everything else is normal in that photo, but the shoe is OK. Let me explain this. And then we have quite a spicy episode. So we're going to talk generational curses. Are generational curses a thing? Can a Christian be possessed by a demon? And then, ladies and gentlemen, this becomes such a frequently asked question, we're going to do it. We're going to do every Christian denomination explained in 20 minutes or less. So and then we may rank them. Oh. I did not know that before. So we'll see. We'll see. But we're definitely going to do so. This is going to be interesting. That's going to be fun. So wait, I do want to explain that picture real quick. OK, go ahead. And then you've got to explain your camping picture. Oh, no. We were in, dang it, what city is that in England? We were in York, maybe. OK. Wherever the Jane Austen Museum is. And Janna could not miss the Jane Austen Museum. And then when you're done, they, you know, you can dress up as the characters. And Janna really wanted to dress up and get a picture. And as a sacrificial loving husband. Wow. I look at that. What an example. Season five. Wow. That's a thank you. That's my best Mr. Darcy impression. That's amazing. Well, that's my favorite photo of you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm happy to share it. Hey, if you are part of the Liv Free Nation, if you're ever in the DFW area and you want to come hang out and come visit us in person, please do. Come hang. Come say hi and find us on our first time guest tent. We're going to hook you up with some gifts. Every single week we do a hat giveaway. Boom. If you're on YouTube or Spotify, comment, hat. Boom. And we love to give away some free stuff. And by the way, some people are asking, hey, I didn't get chosen for the giveaway. We get this a lot. Yeah. There's a lot of people who actually think the only way to get a hat is to be the one person chosen out of 2,000 comments. That's not true. Pastor Paul, how do we get a hat? You text hat to 20411. Oh, OK. Is that the right guess? Yeah, that's right. That's it, man. Let's see. We were trying to make it easy for Paul. Put me on such the spot. I was afraid to get it wrong. Or go to Liv Free that shop to get a hat. Also, oh, man, I was going to get a flag. We're going to get a Liv Free flag. That's like a Liv Free workout. Not that. The flag is coming. I also want to tease this. And let's start talking about this. I just want to put this on everybody's radar. When we opened the Roy City campus, which is coming up. Oh, by the way, shout out Roy City. Roy City campus got into their building this week. Let's go. So that was soft launch. Hard launch is not until August. When we get into the Roy City building, Liv Free Nation, because it's going to be, honestly, pretty close to our 100th episode, I think we're going to do our first ever live podcast recording. Bro. It'll be so good. So you heard it here first. Yeah. Start making plans. You'll get more info later. One more thing to find our daily Bible reading plan plus the weekly sermon plus an early release of this Liv Free episode plus the discipleship guide. Download the Lake Point Church app and text the word app to 20411 or go to Apple or Google Play. So by the way, if you're on YouTube and you have not yet subscribed to our YouTube channel, you need to do that right now because we're literally like 50,000 subscribers away from hitting one million subscribers. A million. We're going to keep track of who specifically is the millionth subscriber. We're going to give him a special gift. Yeah, man. If we can figure it out yet. Two hats. Two hats. Two hats. Signed by Paul Cunningham. Signed by Paul Cunningham. Mid-tier, middle of the road podcast, man. Just not too bad at all. Sorry, that was for you. That's hilarious. That was great. And I took that personally. That's for Josh. That's great. Wait, can I make fun of the Israel thing? Yeah. Not Israel itself as a nation. No, no, the Israel thing. Yeah, I was going to ask you. We need every podcast listener to stop believing stupid things on the internet. And we need every podcast listener that doesn't believe stupid things on the internet to tell people who do believe stupid things on the internet that those things are really stupid. Yes. Okay, so this is, I just want to, I'm so tired of getting this DM that I'm just like, let's just get this out of the way. So toss that up there and we will, okay, good, we blurt it. So we keep getting this accusation that somehow, this is what I won't read the whole, actually, Josh, are you telling your parishioners that you are geofencing all their data on behalf of a foreign agent Israel? Somebody listened to Nick Fuentes too many times. And they will receive pro-Israel information as a result. Ba, ba, ba, ba. Show of Faith by Works LLC, list Lake Bointres and Rockwall. Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. The minute you had Ali Beth on, it was clear. I'm sorry, I'm being a teenage girl. Yeah, you're a good man. Keep going, keep going. For some one new Christian, you have become exactly what you preached and warned about. You are a huge disappointment. How could you do this, people who trust you? And this is like, we keep getting this. So here's what we keep getting accused of is receiving $7,000. This is the accusation that Lake Boint received $7,000. And in exchange, we sold everyone's data to the government of Israel so that they could propagandize our people. Ba, ba, ba, ba. Okay, let me just say, please stop believing stupid things. Please stop believing stupid things. That's a stupid thing. So we actually, we got this many times, we dug into this. So there actually was, there was an organization called Show of Faith or something like that, that they unbeknownst two churches, they had developed some plan to try to like, they actually were going to try to geo-fenced certain churches, that kind of thing, and send them some political propaganda, that kind of thing. But a, they were found out and it never happened. B, none of the churches had any idea this ever happened. C, do you guys have any idea how much crap people try to do to churches without churches knowing about it? And d, let me just tell you something. If we were going to do something like that, d, we never ever would do that. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. But I just want to say like, do you think we would trade everyone's data for $7,000? Like $7,000 per person. That's a metric zeroes on that thing. So anyway, this is just me publicly pleading with you, please stop believing stupid things. That's a public service announcement. That's a public service announcement. I'm getting a phone call right now. It's probably somebody from the government of Israel. Is that catching it? It's the prime minister right now. Hey, I want to celebrate this last weekend. We had 267 graduates this weekend's celebration. Nothing like it. It's not just a marathon but a relay race. So, man, we cheer on them on. Also, this weekend, we have a special guest coming in to preach. Bishop Jonathan Pucluda. Jonathan Pucluda. He's taller than me, man. I'm short in people thing. He's taller in people thing. We're excited for that. So, Pastor Mike Burrow crushed it this last weekend. And Pastor Josh, I want to ask you, I know there's a couple things from Acts 26. This is the second week where we're in it that you wanted to double down on and kind of explain what... Yeah, so here's what we want to talk about. The reason we want to lead into this. So, Acts 25 and 26, Paul is obviously testifying before the Roman judicial system there in... Where is he there? He's in Caesarea, Meritama. What he does in Acts 25 and 26, he testifies before a guy named... You just see in your Bible it just says Herod. Or actually, it just says Agrippa. It says Herod and Agrippa, if I remember right. But that's one of those names. And let me just say this real quick, and then there's a reason you're going to see when we talk about generational curses. This actually is a passage that sometimes people will use to give an example of a potential generational curse. Because what's really interesting when Paul testifies before Herod, there's two names in the New Testament that trip people up all the time. There's Mary and Herod. Because there's a million Mary's and there's a million Herods. So, the big deal on this guy is that there's one of four Herods mentioned in your New Testament. They're all related. It was called the Herodian Dynasty, the Herodian Family Tree. They were all extremely powerful in the Roman Empire. So, for Bible readers, this is a quick Bible nerd moment. So, here's who they are, here's where they're mentioned, here's what they did, and here's how they're related. And then you're going to see why all this leads into the question. Are generational curses a thing? Let's do a theology that real quick. So, number one, the first guy is mentioned in Matthew 2. So, the guy mentioned in Acts 25 and 26 is Herod Agrippa II. That's who historians definitively pinpoint as the Herod. Herod Agrippa II. So, if you're listening, book Martha out of your head. The first guy that's mentioned is his great-grandfather was a Herod just called Herod the Great. Herod the Great. He's mentioned in Matthew 2. Matthew 2 is a chapter where he's the guy, by the way, that the wise men come to him and they're like, ah, there's a king, going to be born. He's the guy that's mentioned in Matthew 2. There's a king going to be born. He's the guy that sends people to slaughter all the kids, two years old and under, in Jesus' hometown to try to kill Jesus. So, book Martha out in your head. Not a great dude. So then, that's Herod the Great. Now, the second one that's mentioned is mentioned in Luke 9. That's another Herod. That's Herod Antipas, also related. He is the great-uncle of Herod Agrippa II in Acts 25. Now, again, you're going to start to see a pattern develop here. He's mentioned in Luke 9 because that's the Herod, who, she's not as mistress. The girl that dances, Salome, or whoever is... Oh, yes, it's like daughter and mom. Daughter and mom, something like that. She does the shape of the little dance. And he and his buddies are, I don't know, man, I don't even want to talk about it. They get all excited about her little dance. And he essentially goes, I'll give you anything up to half my kingdom. She asks for the head of John the Baptist. Side note, that's always what happens is godless political leaders want to kill faithful prophets. That's always what happens. And so he is the guy that beheads John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, John the Baptizer. So that's two. Now, there's a third one that's mentioned. The guy's mentioned in Acts 12. That's Herod Agrippa I. So that's, obviously, Herod Agrippa II. Dad, I don't know. Good little... There you go. This is the guy he's mentioned in Acts 12. He's the guy that has the apostle James beheaded. So that he's the first... James the first apostle of the Samaritan. Yes. James the first apostle of Samaritan. He beheads James in Acts 12. That's also the chapter where Peter gets arrested. And then the angel lets him out. All that happens in Acts 12. So he's the guy that kills the first apostle and tries to kill Peter, the leader of the apostles. So for you who are listening, if you start putting this together, when Paul's standing in front of this guy in Acts 25 and 26, I just want to think about this. It's the kind of thing you read your Bible and you don't realize the emotional tension that's built into the chapter because Paul knows everything about this guy's family tree. So Paul knows his great-grandfather tried to kill Jesus, his great-uncle did kill John the Baptist, his dad killed James and tried to kill Peter. Paul knows that. And Paul's on trial in front of this guy. And think about this, dude. Testifying to the guy whose family tried to kill Jesus and killed a bunch of Jesus' followers, Paul stands, he stands firm and he testifies to the Lordship of Jesus, the fact that Jesus is the king of kings, that Jesus did rise from the dead and he's pointing to the reality that Jesus, in the words of the apostles, creed, from thence he shall come to the church the quick and the dead. So, bro, you want to talk about courage. That's Job, Martin's little thing of, hey, man, God wants you to be saved, he doesn't want you to be soft. Like Paul, man, spying of steel and he just goes, hey, man, I cannot define my conscience. Here's who Jesus is and he even just says, I want you on Team Jesus. It's crazy if you think about it, all these herds, in some sense, they all were exposed to the Gospel by, you know, again, there was a wise man and every single one of them responded in the same way with a heart and heart. That's one. And then two, this is literally, like you said, multiple generations of herds that are actively and demonically opposing the Gospel and the Word of God. And so my question, Pastor Josh, is our generational curse is real. Okay, let's talk about this. Now, let me just say, pre-podcast, we may disagree because we rolled into the podcast so let me tell you how I view it. We can have more debates here. We have a little debates. Yeah, let's talk about this real quick. I'm just going to tell you how I think about this. And then Carlos, I want you to try to disagree with us. That's great. And then we can figure this out again. Let's talk. So here's what I would say. I would say it depends how you define what you mean by curse. So how I like to say it, if by curse you mean, hey, man, because of what somebody's ancestor did, there is a spiritual opposition to them, and they will not be able to overcome that spiritual opposition without something like an exorcism. They can't be free without filling the blank. I do not believe in that. So what I would do, and I'm going to give a biblical case for this, what I would say is, in my language, generational curses know generational influences yes. So here's what I would say. Say that one more time. The language I'm most comfortable using is generational curses know generational influences yes. I think there is, in one sense, what I would say is it's almost like there's a spiritual DNA. We were talking about this before the podcast. Sometimes we've heard reform guys say that because of the actions of a father, it can give a covenantal permission for sins or spiritual influences to happen in your family. But what I would say is, generational curses know generational influences yes. Here's what I would say. Now first of all, I'll give the positive. The passage, and I want you to add to this, you guys add to this, one of the passages that make people say yes, in addition to, for instance, you got the herids here. Here's what you need to acknowledge. Frequently in the Bible, righteous men result in righteous children. And evil and wicked men and women result in evil and wicked sons and daughters. And we could give a million examples of that. I'm going to read one passage that makes people say yes to generational curses. And then I'm going to read one that makes me go no. I'll say why. So you remember that passage, Moses is like, hey, can I see your glory? And God's like, hey, I'm really sorry. I would love to do this for you, but no man shall see me and live. And then God takes him and he puts him in the cleft of the rock. And then it's, I had memorized in college one of my favorite passages in the whole Testament. The Bible says that God, quote, turned his hind parts to Moses. And he passes in front of Moses in the mountain of verbally declaring his character. And God says, the Lord the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God. By the way, before I quote this, this passage is the most quoted passage in the Bible by the rest of the Bible. Did you ever hear that? Frequently repeated in terms of his character. This refrain over and over again. I've read before that this verse is quoted by other parts of the Bible more than any other verse of the Bible. I need to fact check that. So God passes in front of Moses, he says, the Lord the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Listen, listen, listen. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation. Now that makes some people go, man, seems like there's a reality of generational curses that if dad does this, there's a spiritual reality that lasts for three to four generations. The reason that I'm going to say no and then let's open it up and then I want to talk about some spiritual realities. Here's why I'm going to say no is this. I'll give you an example. I will not say who and I will not say where. When we were adopting, we had some people who came from a more hyper-Pentecostal background, who they literally gave us a warning against adopting, like, hey man, watch out, you may bring a kid home that has a generational curse on their line. So all of a sudden now, you start to get like, oh bro, stuff starts to hit the pavement. Okay, what about this? The reason I had no fear of that at all, like not even a little, a passage like this. Here's the CQL 18. By the way, this passage I think, if you wanted to get real spicy, this passage I think both is a rebuke to the hardcore generational curse crowd and honestly, it's a rebuke to modern therapy culture. That's a whole different conversation. So, CQL 18. God is rebuking Israel. And here's what he says. Let's see real close. He says, the word of the Lord came to me, CQL 18.1. And then he says, what do you mean by quoting this proverb in the land of Israel? And here's the proverb. You say, the parents eat sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. In other words, apparently throughout Israel, and all of a sudden this starts to sound like 21st century America, all the kids were going, do you know my life so messed up? Because my dad did. Man, you know, all the problems in my life, do you know where it comes from? My family of origin. So that's what it means when that's an ancient Israelite way of saying, all my problems were from my family of origin. In verse three, he says this, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For everyone belongs to me, the parents as well as the child, both alike belong to me. Watch this. This is the key verse. The one who sins is the one who will die. In other words, I don't care what your dad did, don't care what your mom did, God's going, did you sin, then that's going to be your problem. If your dad sin, that's going to be his problem. Now he keeps going. Yet you ask, this is much later, yet you ask, why does the son not share the guilt of his father? Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. So he's talking about, he had just finished talking about why are there situations where you got an evil dad and actually end up with a righteous son and he's answering that. In God goes verse 20, here's why. The child will not share in the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share in the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them. I'll give one more and then I want to open it up and then I want to start, I want to make a biblical connection that's like a little mind blowing. I want to actually, I want to see if you guys have heard this before. The other one I'd say, I think, we may disagree here, it kind of depends on how you define curse, that's fine, let's talk about it. I think Jesus actually cuts against this in John 9. So John 9 is a passage, Jesus is walking by the dude, this guy, he's born, man born blind is what it says. That's the whole passage, man born blind. And then everybody looks and I think what they're doing is they were a more superstitious spiritual culture that believed in something like generational curses. And they went, they asked Jesus, man Jesus, this guy's blind, so who sinned? This man or his parents, here's what Jesus says. Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. So in other words, now we can go a layer deeper and I do want to go a layer deeper. But on the surface, what I would say is I think what you're seeing there is Exodus 34 points to the reality that very, very frequently, especially when a dad, everybody, but especially when a dad does not slay dragons in his life, you better watch out because you're going to pass some spiritual DNA. So I would say this to our dads. Hey dads, we got to stand up and bend the knee to Jesus, act like men, slay some dragons. When you're fighting those dragons, hey man, you're not just fighting for you, you're fighting for your children and your children's children for the third and fourth generation. So that's one, it's a reality. On the other hand, I think those passages make it tough to believe in something like a generational curse as we defined it earlier. Agree, disagree, additional comments, let's talk. It's funny because we did not know we were going to talk about this, so I wish I would have been more ready, but why am I minus one? It sounds like it really depends on what you mean by a generational curse. At the end of the day, because you said no, but then you describe something that sounds like what a lot of people would describe as a generational curse. So I think you defined it as, and I'm taking notes so I can be as accurate as possible, you defined it as they can't be free without somebody praying. So as Christians, we don't believe that. Jesus can save you or make you free in so many different ways. How I would rephrase that is that God uses some people to pray for a specific type of deliverance of some sort of spiritual stronghold that has been consistent over in multiple generations of a family. And by the way, I do believe that. As far as generational influences, I do think, let's just be honest, man. So it's really interesting. We got therapy terms for things that have the theological origins, and therapy just doesn't have the theological background, so they're grasping for language that the Bible already described. Dude, if you go to a therapist, a lot of times, what they'll do is they'll have you fill out what's called a genogram, and it's literally like sit down and, hey, man, what issues were in your granddad's life? Oh, my granddad was an alcoholic. What about your great granddad? And they'll tell you, I want you to go find out. They'll tell you this. Go find out, ask your grandma, and you'll tell her to fill out those genograms. You're going to start, oh, dang, man, I didn't realize there's alcoholism four generations deep in my family. I thought I was fighting this alone. Man, maybe there was something that was passed or divorce. That's right. Stuff like that. So again, generational influences, 100% a real thing. So again, when people say generational curses, people think different things. Honestly, that's what I think, but there's a sin that has been consistent over multiple generations and somebody at some point, and I know, because for me, I've seen this, especially coming from a more Latin American background, Pentecostal, we'll talk about this in just a second, and then they go through some sort of experience where somebody prays for them, and after that, it just breaks that pattern that they saw their whole family go through, but now they're free and they start a new legacy. Again, you see this in Scripture. I don't believe in that. So it seems like we agree. It's more of, so how do we call it? Again, also... Here's what I do not believe. Let's define our terms. This is what you want to do. Every time there's a potential agreement, define your terms. Disagree in your terms. What I don't believe is that you can have a generational curse in terms of you can have a Christian person who is free from some spiritual issue in their life that they inherited from previous generations until, whatever you want to call it, an exorcism, a deliverance moment happens. I do not believe that. The reason I don't believe that is my theology of what happens when somebody gets saved. And dude, and we can talk about this in a second, one... We've talked about this before, but one aspect of the atonement is just historically been called Christus Victor. One of the things Jesus did at the cross is he, quote, in the words of... I want to make sure I get it right. In the words of Colossians 2, that he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame. Triumphing over them in him. In other words, one thing he was doing at the cross is he literally dunked on Satan and demons, conquered them, and then that atonement gets applied. It is the application of redemption to everybody that is under Jesus Christ. You are already in his victory over demonic forces and powers. Now that does, and we can talk about this in a second, that does lead into... So can a Christian be possessed by a demon? So anyway, I don't believe what I said earlier. Yes, and I would agree on the helpless part. So as Christians, we would say, of course they're not helpless, where I think I would slightly disagree would be if you're saved, then let's say you're good. I think and you know, I wasn't ready for this conversation, but we can talk about this. Well, hey guys, as you know, Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Christ, live free and change the world for God's glory. But here's the thing, movements by definition move. And so if you're not moving, then the question is, are you really being a part of the movement? I've said that too many churches are like football games, 22 people on the field in desperate need of rest, being watched by thousands of people in the sense and desperate need of exercise. Hey, listen, we refuse to be a church like that. And so if you call Lake Point Church your home church, and if you have not yet joined a serve team, I want to invite you to take your next step right now. Text award serve to 20411, and we'll help you find your spot where you can serve in person or online. On whichever serve team you are being called to serve. Hey, thank you for being obedient to God's calling in your life, and let's keep doing this together. I think God uses different means of grace all throughout your Christian life to set you free. But ultimately we would agree, the hope is in Christ, the hope for any generational curse. If anybody's listening to this and they say, well, man, I'm a victim because of my father or my grandfather, in Christ, in Christ, you are not a victim. That's right, you are a victor. And you have freedom in him. But I think God can use different means of grace to set you free in the same way that if you're a Christian and you've struggled with pornography or alcoholism, you don't just immediately stop or don't feel any urge. Again, there's a process there. And then again, we were talking about this with Paul, I think you see it more in Latin America with things like witchcraft or some sort of like a spiritism background with people that have... They find out that their grandma or something like that were involved in some sort of like occult activity that was just sketchy weird. And then they see a pattern all throughout the different generations and then it's like, hey, I'm a Christian now. I need to find my new identity in Christ and any generational curse is done in Christ. So the point of agreement that I want to highlight though is the helplessness part. This is theologically significant. Because honestly dude, I just think the Bible specifically rebukes and contradicts the idea that a saved person is helpless before a demonic spiritual power until somebody else does some sort of exorcism, deliverance, whatever you want to call it. Paul, what do you got? Well, building off of what you said, I love that passage in Colossians. This is an Ephesians 1, which is interesting because it has similar language where it talks, but after Jesus Christ was raised, he seated the right hand in the heaven place as far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, which often when that's used, it's talking about spiritual dominions there. But then what's interesting is it says, and then he put all things under his feet and gave him his head over all things to who? The church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all and all. Which is a cool little thing in Colossians that talks about how Christ is the fullness of deity. The word there is play Roma, same word here. Christ is the fullness of deity. Somehow the church is the fullness of Christ. And the victory that he won, he gave to us and we can have as well. Yeah, a few things here. One, I mean, just to briefly go back to the Exodus passage, if anyone were to hear that, try to use for generational curses, I would just like to highlight it doesn't talk about generational curses here. It says he does not leave the guilty unpunished and he punishes the children. So this is about punishment. And if you think about the context here, they're at Mount Sinai. After this, they're leaving to go to where? The Promised Land. They send some scouts in. The scouts disobey God. They don't go in and so was the punishment. They have to wander in the wilderness for 40 years, which would be about three to four generations at that time. Wait, say that one more time, because this is very significant to understand that passage and Exodus. They would have wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, which would have been at that time probably about three to four generations. And in the one you could say, those children were being punished, not for the sins they committed, but for the sins that their parents had committed. But it wasn't a generational curse. It was punishment that they had to experience. Same thing. How was that not a generational curse? It sounds like there is a consequence because of something that somebody else in your family did and they're paid in some ways, experience it. That's why I just refer to the word. It's a punishment. Or a consequence. We might disagree on what we call it. It comes down to semantics. Yeah, it's... Because I'm like, I'm with you. If I hear curse, it makes it feel like there's been something put on me by an outside entity that I have no control over and I have to then be delivered from the outside. This is about just the consequences of someone else's sin. But you do, though. I mean, not that you can't be delivered. That's the only part in that sense that I would disagree. Here's what I would say. But everything else is true. Here's what I'd say to the pushback on. Is the way some people think of generational curses. Let's get real specific. I think it's easier for you specific examples. Is a dad or grandfather dealt with pornography and then the next person does, and the next person does, and the next person does. It's a specific sin that's committed. Here, that's not what you get. Because the first generation, they didn't... They did not believe the Scouts report. I mean, sorry, they did believe it and they didn't go in. That's not here. They simply are getting the punishment. It's not a repeat sin that they're completely committing. That's how I would distinguish here. The second part I would say is, I kind of like, as I was listening to y'all, maybe the word that I would prefer is generational strongholds. That there are such a sense of generational strongholds as it relates to sins. By the way, for the... It's going to take a pair of scissors to get the concept of a spiritual stronghold out of the Bible. That's straight out of Ephesians and Colossians. 100%. You do see that. But what you also see in Scripture is that, again, the strongholds don't have to persist. As you have Saul, who is an evil king, one point of good king but then becomes an evil king, his son Jonathan doesn't follow his example. Can I give you my favorite one? Come on. What you got? Can I give you my favorite one here? Because I've been waiting for the moment for this. So, dude, here's the best example of like, if you want to say break in a generational curse, you want to say break in the power... Generational influence of sin. What are you going to say? This is my favorite one in the whole Bible. And, bro, there's a deep cut here. It's like... I didn't recognize that. I've been reading the Bible 30 years. I've never seen this until two years ago. All right. Josiah. Let's talk about Josiah. Where are you going to go next? Yeah, let's go next. So, let's think of Josiah. So, if you don't know who Josiah is, Josiah, when he's a teenager... Oh, bro. A little teenager ascends the throne of Israel, and God finally sees one kid that has a pure heart before him. Josiah walks in the back of the temple. I'm giving a little Josh version. And he finds the old, dusty Bible that nobody in wicked Israel has read in generations. Maybe to the third and fourth generation, because of the sins of the fathers. I'm going to talk about that in a second. And he pulls it out and he starts reading it. And he's a kid that just decides, I'm going to believe what I'm reading here. And he walks right out, and he starts tearing down a whole bunch of demonic idols and statues. Now, where do those come from? Let me tell you who Josiah's grandfather and his dad were. So, Josiah's grandfather was arguably the most wicked king Israel ever had, a guy named Manessa. Let me read to you what Manessa did. It's nasty. He rebuilt the high places, which was just spiritual, nasty, strongholds, demonic things. He worshiped Baal and Asherah. He worshiped the stars. So, now we're into astrology, that the other pagan nations were into. I'm going to list some things. He practiced sorcery, divination, mediums, spiritists. Listen to this. He built a pagan temple to a demonic false god inside of the temple of the one true god. So, like, he's defiling every holy thing God has. The Bible says he shed innocent blood until Jerusalem was, quote, filled with it. And then to top it all off, he sacrificed his own sons in the fire. He burned alive some of his own children in worship of demonic false gods. So, that's Josiah's granddad. Now, who's Josiah's dad? You tell, what about generational curses? Okay, who's Josiah's dad? His dad was this dude named Amon. Amon, the Bible says, quote, continued in the sins of his father, worshiped and sacrificed to pay him gods, forsook the god of his ancestors, and then the Bible says he, quote, increased the guilt. So, as bad as Manessa was, this guy made it worse. I love this so much. But then Josiah comes along. He just opens up the word of God. He chooses to believe it. But dude, here's the deep cut, dude. So, what Josiah could have done is he could have opened his Bible. And here's my warning to people who overplay the generational curse thing. He could have opened his Bible and read all of it, and been, you know, man, that's great. But I got a generational curse because of Manessa and because of Amon. But then it says, I love this so much. All right, check this out. Listen close. Second Chronicles 343. In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the god of his father, David. David was not his dad. Amon was his dad, and Manessa was his dad. And then 2 Kings 22, 2 says this. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father, David. Not turning to the right of the left. Now, bro, here's what's going on here. What apparently Josiah did is he opens the Bible and he realizes my dad and my grandpa were demonic wicked men. But then he went, I don't got to be who my dad or my grandpa were. He goes back up in his family tree and he finds a godly man, and he goes, I choose to make that man my spiritual heritage. I don't got to be who my dad was because my heavenly father is my dad. And he was in my grandfather, great grandfather, whatever, David. I can be, and he claims the spiritual heritage of David. Now, listen, you want to talk about that. You want to talk about things affecting generations. So here's the deep cut. That wouldn't be the deep cut. Here's the deep cut. So a few years ago, I'm reading, I'm studying for the preaching series through the book at Daniel. So then, when you read Daniel, do you know where I'm going with this? Bro, I'm gonna blow your mind. I'm gonna blow your mind. So when you read Daniel, they take all these little kids into Babylon, and then they get in there, it's Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And all we know, we don't know much about them at all, all we know is that they were, quote, royal kids that were raised in the power. That's all we know. They go to Babylon, this demonic, you know, thing. Bro, these kids stinking, lay it down. You get in there, and, you know, they're there and they hold the line. They're in the most powerful palace in the world, this demonic palace. They refused about before Golden Idols. They're like, you know, the king is like, I'm actually gonna burn you alive, and they're like, that's fine. But that's fine, you do that, man. But what we're not gonna do is betray God. They threaten Daniel's life, quit praying. And he's like, man, you do what you want. You throw me in that thing. I'm not gonna quit praying to my God. So then you start asking the question like, bro, where did these kids, kids, where'd they get this spiritual backbone? Okay, let's check this out. Daniel 921, while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, this is Daniel, the man I had seen earlier in the vision, so you wanna talk about spiritual influences, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice. Now, if I got this from John Tyson, now, you start noticing, you start going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you talking about evening sacrifice? You're in Babylon. What are you talking about evening sacrifice? Because evening sacrifice is referring to the temple schedule from ancient Jerusalem. Okay, so here's where it starts to connect. All we know about these dudes is they were quote of royal, descent, and nobility. Now, all right, you start doing some genealogical math, and what you realize is Daniel, Shadrach, Bishak, and Abednego, they were in the royal palace when Josiah opens up the Book of the Law and leads a national revival in Israel, and these four teenagers have the discipleship they need to walk up into Babylon and resist an entire demonic power, because one teenager made a decision many years ago to go, I'm not my granddad, and I'm not my dad. That's my heavenly father, and I got a new spiritual heritage now. And it changes the course of the whole Old Testament. That's right. Wow. Can I share a personal story with this? Come on, do it. I mean, just being open and vulnerable. You mentioned earlier, your genogram. I've actually drawn mine for people before. Really? Yeah, and if I were to draw it for you, I'd be cross-eyed. It's pretty messed up. I've shared in here before every divorce to my family. Literally every immediate family member, extended family member, except for, I believe, one has had a divorce. And I mean, and it's a lot of brokenness. I think I'm one of the first positive positive positive you guys have shared. I mean, after, and I emphasize, after my parents got married, my mom's dad had an affair with my dad's mom. I'll say it one more time. After my parents got married, my mom's dad had an affair with my dad's mom. I had a divorce to my mom's dad, married my dad's mom. That hurts at Thanksgiving. Yeah, I mean, yeah. By God's grace, there's been redemption. But I'm just saying that that, it's about generational strongholds. If you want to use curses, whatever things you want to say. Man, that's there. And by the way, I would be a fool to look at that and not take that seriously. I'd be a fool to look at that and say, oh, I'm good. No, there does seem to be some kind of a special attack. The enemy is given my family in every direction on this. On the other hand, to your point, I can't look at that and say, well, I guess I'm cursed. I guess I'm just going to get divorced. So maybe I shouldn't get married or if I do, it's just going to happen. I just got to prepare myself for it. No, instead, it's a both-and-wriest. Hey, there seems to be a special attack on the enemy. And man, because I'm going to call on every means I can of prayer and the prayer of others so that in my generation with me it stops. By the grace of God, the cycle was broken. That's right. I didn't think about that word stronghold. If you think about it in a war, in a battle, if there's a stronghold, usually we have to have a both-and-of-a-ground war and an air war. You can't just do it by the ground war. You've got to have air support. So I'm going to call in air support through prayer and the prayer of others to try to beat that in my marriage. But then also, I've got to know that if this is history, it is on me to take responsibility. So I'm also going to do everything on my end to fight the ground war and beat it. So that if my marriage is struggling, I can't say, well, I guess I'm just cursed. But I'm going to say, it's on me to have a healthy marriage. It's a both-and. I've got to take it seriously and realize the stakes and realize I'm going to need supernatural help and I've got to realize I've got to do everything within my power to break the cycle. So it's a both-and for me. I take it really seriously. Here's why this is so important. I think we're all on the same page on this. Here's why this is so important. Because, honestly, man, we know who listens to podcasts. Honestly, it's a bunch of dudes that don't have a spiritual background. And the reason I'm real nervous about some of the language that surrounds the generational curse thing is it puts this thing in a guy's head that, like, I can't because my dad did. Exactly. And here's what I want to point out, and we're all going to be on the same page on this. To double-click on what you just said, what I want to point out, you go back to that XS34 passage. When God describes this character, listen really close. This is so fascinating. Listen really close to the numeric values attached to the different actions of God. So God says, if you're a listener, listen really close to the nut. There's going to be two numbers that I say when I quote this verse. I hope I remember it from memory. So God says, A thousand generations. A thousand generations. A thousand generations. So what you're getting is, here's what you're getting, is that the grace of God is more powerful than the power of sin. And dude, I don't care who you are, I don't care what you did, I definitely don't care what your dad did, I don't care what your granddad did. In Christ, you don't got to do the things you used to do, and you don't got to do the things that your dad or your granddad did, and that's the question that says, man I can't because my dad did, we would say you can because the son of God, Jesus died for you and disarmed the powers and authorities and he made a public spectacle of them, triumph over them by the cross and him you are new, and that is good news. Amen. And again, I just want to keep saying, amen, you have a different dad now. You got a different dad now. So along those lines, you get this lot. So honestly, I'll give a little bit of a curve ball answer, and then let's do every Christian to a nomination in 20 minutes. We're going to have some fun with this. That's great. It's a lot of faith. You're a man of faith. Yeah, we're just going to go awesome. Can a Christian be possessed by David? Now I want to give a shout out to Pastor Mark Driscoll. These are some really helpful categories I heard. It depends how you define the word possessed. So I want to do this. So let's go Oxford Dictionary. Let's go to the answer to this. Number one, have as belonging to one or own. Okay, now, so belong to one or own. That's definition one. If you mean can a Christian own, can a demon own a Christian? The answer is no. No, he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. So I just want to say this to you, man, I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I admit I The Bible says this, salvation belongs to the Lord. So the question isn't whether a Christian can lose their salvation, but whether God can lose a Christian. The answer is no. Nothing can separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus our Lord. So on definition number one, if by that you mean can a demon own a Christian? No, okay. Definition number two, Oxford Dictionary, have possession of as distinct from ownership. So if that's your hat and I borrow it, but it still belongs to you, I have possession of it, but it doesn't belong to me. I actually think in one, I would qualify some language around this in one sense, I would say yes. So here's the analogy that sometimes would be used. And what I would do on this, if I'm pointing to a passage, is I would go to two things. Number one, when you read the word demon possessed in the New Testament, the Greek is literally just one word. Paul knows this, it's just one word. It just is demonized. That's it. So think about the word fossilized. It's very, very similar, fossilized. In other words, over time, a person lent themselves to this demonic activity, a sense, something like that. And over time, there's this thing that starts to crystallize or form in you. The analogy that I would give is if you think of your life, like a house, okay? You're the legal resident of your home. Nobody else has the right to move in. Watch, this is really important. Without your permission. This is really important. Without your permission. This is why Jesus, and again, I'm stretching an analogy, there's more I wanna say. When Jesus talks about how he came to bind the strong man, and he specifically is talking about, he's talking about a home and a strong man, I gotta bind the strong man so I can plunder his goods. He's talking about, hey man, I'm the strong man. I came to, Jesus came to bind the strong man. That's, you know, in quote unquote possession of the home. Here's what I would say. What you can do, even if you own a home, is you can invite a bunch of people in. Hey man, let me open my door to you. Why, come on in, that kind of thing. And then they can decide to stay, and they can make your life predag miserable. We call them squatters. So they possess no legal right to be there. But they are very willing to squat, watch this, until you exercise your legal authority to evict them. Do I would say in one sense, I think, on rare occasions when Christians give themselves over to habitual sin, radical forms of unbelief, dark addiction, I honestly dude, listen, I'm gonna keep saying this, some people laugh at me, mock me, tin foil, I had the thing. Occult activity, all the Ouija boards and sorcery, and healing crystals and all this stuff. Like, hey bro, get rid of that stuff. People ask, is that stuff real? Yes, it's really demonic. What I would say is Christians can, through those things, they can potentially, I might use this imperfect language, they can open a door to internal demonic influence that has no legal authority to be there, and it can be immediately evicted in Jesus' name. Yeah. That's two. Three, let me do one last one, let me put a bow on it. If you define possession, Oxford dictionary definition number three, and ability, quality, or characteristic. And ability, quality, or characteristic. Okay. If you're gonna define possess like that, that's another one, I would say yes. I'll go back to the New Testament, the Greek terminology for demon possession is very frequently demonized, fossilized. And what it's saying is, in the same way that if something fossilizes, it takes on the characteristics of stone. In the same way, man, you can do things, and you can manifest demonic character, or say things that have a demonic origin. Dude, I think you're gonna have to, it's gonna take a pair of scissors to get out of the Bible that sometimes a Christian can do that. Here's my analogy, and y'all disagree with me, that's fine, let's, we can fight about it. When Jesus says to Peter, so Jesus goes, okay man, here's what I'm gonna do, and here's my plan of redemption, and Peter's like, never Lord, we're never gonna let that happen. And Jesus looks at him, he says, get behind me, you say it, get behind me. Satan. When he does that, he's not talking to Peter, he's not talking to the person, he's talking to the spirit behind the person. Jesus is, he knows, hey man, I came out of your mouth, but it came from the Father of lies. It came through you, but it came from him. So in that sense, yeah, I would say, so in those second two senses, I think you might say yes. In the first sense, let me just say this, definitively no, and here's how I'd put a bow on it. If you're a Christian, you can be oppressed by a demon, but you can never be possessed by a demon, why? Because you are a bloodbought possession of the living God. Amen. There it is. Agree, disagree, additional comments. You got it. Well, I was gonna defer to you on this one. I, go ahead. You're the local, here's Matt. You're the generational Christian. I'm the representative. You're the genie. That is for free. That is for free. I'm preaching the gospel of freedom. Christus Victor, Jesus King. Hey, hey, hey. I'm not the generational Christian guy. Live free. Live free, that's right. Jesus' name. I'll say to you real fast. And we talked a little bit about this all from when we were talking about, we joke about it about the generational curses thing, which is there is a thing more like in Western countries and modernized civilizations about sin being, oh, it's just personal responsibility, which by the way, imparted it. We hit that earlier, don't have to recap again, but the idea of I've got to take responsibility for my sins and my decisions. But I will say there is much more to men in other parts of the world, the idea of it is that, and there are spiritual forces of darkness that we have to resist that can attach themselves to different sins that we are susceptible to. And so like for example, I did some ministry in Dubai one time and we would do these labor camps at night and we would be ministering to people from all over the world. Wait, you've been to Dubai? Yeah, have you? Have you ever been there? No, I have not. But I was gonna say, I'm gonna celebrate. Every time Paul has been somewhere, I'm gonna celebrate that. I'm saying, I'm just like, I'm gonna celebrate. That's great. You've never been? I've never been to Dubai and I would love to go someday. Have to go someday, go someday. But I'm glad you have, me too. It says about Paul that he made it to the Muslim country before making it to the Muslim country. Oh my God. That's a joke. That's a joke. To share my faith. To share my faith. Oh, oh, oh. Jesus, Jesus. You're out of your shoes. I baptized people in the first couple of months. Not just 20 years. I repent. I repent. Anyways. So yeah, so these would be people from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, really hard places to get to, but that was part of the strategy. They'd come in, they'd work during the day and these, they were camps at night. So we would eventually share the gospel with them. But the first story we would tell them out of scripture was the story of the Dabaniak who was like, they had to chain because he was so possessed by them. And they were just following on every word because there's much more to it. Like this is a real thing. There are demonic forces. And so even when I'd say with believers to your point, while we cannot be possessed, we can be oppressed and we can invite that in. It's not just always, it's usually not against our will. We're inviting them in and they will gladly take whatever an inch in space you can give them. So to your point, I think we need to be more aware that while yes, sin is something we have to take responsibility for in our actions, we can also invite darkness into our lives that will take every inch and lead us into more sin. That'd be the only thing I'd say on that. That's great. The Bible says that sin can be passed on from generation to generation. I think in a similar line, but on an encouraging side is faith can also be passed from generation to generation. That's right, Carlos. And so speaking of passing faith from generation to generation, what we've seen in the history of Christianity is that there's been groups of people that have tried to do that. And what they've tried to do is they've tried to preserve what they believe was important and essential to the faith. We call those denominations today. Ooh. And so I wanna. I wanna. I wanna demon to denomination. There's no connection between those two words, by the way. And so now some people have done that well. Other people, not so much. Some have divided unnecessarily. Others have faithfully contended for what is true until today. And so what I want you guys to do, help me understand every single Christian denomination in the next 20 minutes. Well, hey, Lit Free Nation. Thanks for tuning in today. Hey, today's conversation on generational curses and demon possession went a bit extra long. And so once we got into the conversation, there was too much to unpack. And honestly, we just didn't wanna rush it. So instead of cramming everything together into one episode, we decided to do a bonus episode dropping this Wednesday, May 20th, where we're gonna be breaking down and explaining every major Christian denomination in about 40 minutes. And so we're gonna be talking Catholics, Baptists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, Orthodox, non-denominational churches, and more, what they believe, where they came from, what makes them different, which disagreements are secondary and which ones actually matter. And honestly, this is gonna be really fun. So if you've ever wondered, why are there so many denominations? Are denominations a good thing or a bad thing? What's the difference between all these churches or even how do I know which one to trust? Don't miss Wednesday's bonus episode. Make sure you subscribe, turn on notifications, and we will see you then. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back.