This document is written to obedient believers, who want to obey God’s will and command to heal the sick.
I used to think that the disciples asked a stupid question: It’s like they were assuming that either him or his parents sinned. I had no idea where they got this idea because I had yet to read their Bible.
Exodus 20
The Ten Commandments
1 And God spoke all these words:
2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of
3 "You shall have no other gods before [1]
me.
4 "You shall not make for
yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth
beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them
or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the
fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6
but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my
commandments.
This generational curse was never an issue of eternal judgment upon death. That has always been an individual issue.
Deuteronomy
24:16
Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put
to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.
(Whole Chapter: Deuteronomy
24 In context: Deuteronomy
24:15-17)
However, a generational curse can affect one’s quality of life.
From the days of our forefathers until now, our guilt has been great.
Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been
subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hand of
foreign kings, as it is today.
(Whole Chapter: In
context: )
In at least one case that I know of, these generational curses are known to cause physical sickness:
2 Samuel 3
28 Later, when David heard about this, he said, "I and my
kingdom are forever innocent before the LORD concerning the blood of Abner son
of Ner. 29 May his blood fall upon the head of Joab and upon all his
father's house! May Joab's house never be without someone who has a running
sore or leprosy [1]
or who leans on a crutch or who falls by the sword or who lacks food."
30 (Joab and his brother Abishai murdered Abner because he had
killed their brother Asahel in the battle at Gibeon.)
Original/Adamic Sin is traced through your ancestors, so it becomes difficult to know exactly whose sin had caused what generational curse. Some might say that a generational curse can come through as a genetic illness or predisposition toward an illness. This may be true. However, 2 Samuel 3 lists leprosy, a bacterial non-congenital (or genetically transferred) disease as a result of a generation curse that David pronounced. 2 Samuel 3 shows a curse taking the shape of poverty, disease, cripple conditions (caused by accidents?), and getting killed. shows that it can manifest itself politically.
The most definitive passage on this issue is perhaps Leviticus 26:
Punishment for
Disobedience
14 " 'But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.
18 " 'If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. 19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21 " 'If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. 22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.
23 " 'If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25 And I will bring the sword upon you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.
27 " 'If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, 28 then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. 31 I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. 32 I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. 34 Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35 All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.
36 " 'As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. 37 They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies. 38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. 39 Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their fathers' sins they will waste away.
40 " 'But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their fathers-their
treachery against me and their hostility toward me, 41 which made me
hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies-then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay
for their sin, 42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and
my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the
land. 43 For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its
sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins
because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. 44 Yet in
spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject
them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with
them. I am the LORD their God. 45 But for their sake I will remember
the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of
46 These are the decrees, the
laws and the regulations that the LORD established on
The two phrases in red (in verse 40 and 41) are God’s conditions for restoring the broken relationship/covenant with Him.
1.
Confess your
sins to God: Verse 40 also says to
confess the sins of your fathers. Let’s be
honest, as we age, we realize that we have many of the same stupid sins that we
saw our parents do. Be aware of these
tendencies so as to guard against future idolatry. One way to do this is to ask others body of Christ to let you know when
they see you going down that familiar path.
James 5 The
Prayer of Faith
13Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let
him sing songs of praise. 14Is any one of you sick? He should call
the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name
of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick
person well; the Lord will raise him up.
If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and
pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
17Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would
not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18Again
he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. 19My
brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring
him back, 20remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of
his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
2.
Pay for your sins- They owed God Sabbath
time. God exacted it. The land got its rest before it became
fruitful again. They went hungry in the
meanwhile, even after they repented.
James
Some sinners have the idea that they can procrastinate responding to the Gospel. By the time they get saved (if they do), they may have caused more problems for themselves by their extended time of sinning.
Nehemiah 1:5-7 (New International Version) 5 Then I said: "O LORD , God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, 6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you. 7 We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.
Confessing your father’s sin can be important. For example, let’s suppose that your father is greedy. You may be 15, and not old enough to do the same. But you claim that there is nothing wrong with it. You are sharing in his sin and are also greedy.
Romans 1
32Although they
know God's righteous decree that those
who do such things deserve death, they not only continue
to do these very things but also approve
of those who practice them.
In approving of wickedness, you are rejecting
the law, and consequently Christ’s fulfillment of it. You are rejecting Christ by believing in lawlessness. Romans
Isa 5:20
20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. (NIV)
You need to renew your mind with God’s word, allowing His law to tell you right from wrong. You need to be raised by your heavenly father; reading his words and obeying them. Then the following promise will apply to you:
Psalm 103:2-4
2 Praise the LORD , O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-
3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
Forgiving your sins, healing your diseases, and redeeming you from the pit are predicated upon your willingness to be redeemed from the pit of your own idolatry.
Notice that these generational curses are mentioned in the context of idolatry.
Exodus 20
The Ten Commandments
1 And God spoke all these words:
2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of
3 "You shall have no other gods before [1]
me.
4 "You shall not make for
yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath
or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or
worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and
fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a
thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Deuteronomy 4
11 You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it
blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. 12
Then the LORD spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but
saw no form; there was only a voice. 13 He declared to you his
covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he commanded you to follow and then wrote
them on two stone tablets. 14 And the LORD directed me at that time
to teach you the decrees and laws you are to follow in the land that you are
crossing the Jordan to possess.
Idolatry Forbidden
15 You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at
Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, 16
so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, 17
or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, 18 or
like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below.
Protestants chastise Catholics for fashioning crucifixes and figurines of Mary. But then they wear crosses, and have fashioned little fish emblems for the luxury cars that they speed in. That seems like hypocrisy to me.
I personally avoid engraven images. I also would ask someone if they do the same before I commit to fasting for their healing. I would hate to lose 30 lbs over something as silly as a little piece of jewelry. I could have been praying about something else, instead of pushing real hard on a blockade for a month – to no avail.
(Exo 20:4
GNB) "Do not make for yourselves images of anything in heaven or on
earth or in the water under the earth.
1
Samuel 15:22
But Samuel replied: "Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD ? To obey is better
than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
(Whole Chapter: 1
Samuel 15 In context: 1
Samuel 15:21-23)
Ezekiel 14
Idolaters Condemned
1 Some of the elders of
6 "Therefore say to the house of
7 " 'When any Israelite or any alien living in Israel separates
himself from me and sets up idols in his heart and puts a wicked stumbling
block before his face and then goes to a prophet to inquire of me, I the LORD
will answer him myself. 8 I will set my face against that man and
make him an example and a byword. I will cut him off from my people. Then you
will know that I am the LORD .
9 " 'And if the prophet is enticed to utter a prophecy, I the
LORD have enticed that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and
destroy him from among my people
So, yeah, I would not prophecy or pray much more for their healing until I tell them this: “Repent! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices!”
As you continue to read this long passage of scripture, ask yourself this: When God said he “will answer him myself in keeping with his great idolatry” what did God mean?
[passage continued from above]
Judgment Inescapable
12 The word of the LORD came to me: 13 "Son of man,
if a country sins against me by being unfaithful and I stretch out my hand
against it to cut off its food supply and send famine upon it and kill its men
and their animals, 14 even if these three men-Noah, Daniel [1]
and Job-were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness,
declares the Sovereign LORD .
15 "Or if I send wild beasts through that country and they
leave it childless and it becomes desolate so that no one can pass through it
because of the beasts, 16 as surely as I live, declares the
Sovereign LORD , even if these three men were in it, they could not save their
own sons or daughters. They alone would be saved, but the land would be
desolate.
17 "Or if I bring a sword against that country and say, 'Let
the sword pass throughout the land,' and I kill its men and their animals, 18
as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD , even if these three men were
in it, they could not save their own sons or daughters. They alone would be
saved.
19 "Or if I send a
plague into that land and pour out my wrath upon it through bloodshed,
killing its men and their animals, 20 as surely as I live, declares
the Sovereign LORD , even if Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, they could save
neither son nor daughter. They would save
only themselves by their righteousness.
21 "For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: How much worse
will it be when I send against Jerusalem my four dreadful judgments-sword and
famine and wild beasts and plague-to kill its men and their animals! 22
Yet there will be some survivors-sons and daughters who will be brought out of
it. They will come to you, and when you see their conduct and their actions,
you will be consoled regarding the disaster I have brought upon Jerusalem-every
disaster I have brought upon it. 23 You will be consoled when you
see their conduct and their actions, for you will know that I have done nothing
in it without cause, declares the Sovereign LORD ."
He meant that He would, among other things, “send a.. plague-to kill its men”. This seems to throw a wrench in the “Healing is always God’s will” theology that we Pentecostals push. That is why I do not emphasize healing ministry in exclusion to the other 2 main aspects of a word for “healed”: SOZO—to save, heal, and deliver.
You see the word “save” above in verse 19? How can they yet save themselves from the impending curse of sickness that they have brought upon themselves through idolatry?
1
Timothy 4:16
Watch your life and doctrine
closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself
and your hearers.
(Whole Chapter: 1
Timothy 4 In context: 1
Timothy 4:15-17)
Acts 2
39The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far
off--for all whom the Lord our God will call."
40With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them,
"Save yourselves from this
corrupt generation." 41Those who accepted his message were
baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
They can save themselves from the curse of sickness through their righteousness in Christ. That is God’s will. This is the main point of this document. Peter made this point well, and perhaps now it is easier to understand in light of all the associated scriptures you have read.
1Peter 2
But if you suffer for doing good
and you endure it, this is commendable before God. 21To this you
were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you
should follow in his steps.
22"He committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his
mouth."[5]
23When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when
he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who
judges justly. 24He himself
bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live
for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. 25For
you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and
Overseer of your souls.
Hebrews 12
10Our fathers
disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us
for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11No discipline
seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a
harvest of righteousness and peace
for those who have been trained by it.
12Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13"Make level paths for your feet,"[2]
so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
Yes, God sent a curse in judgment—as He had promised and warned. However, His will is for the people to repent and turn to Him, saving themselves from the curse, or impending judgment. Peter himself explains this elsewhere:
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
What promise is He not slack in fulfilling? His promise to punish disobedience:
2 Peter 3
7By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for
fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
8But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day
is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise,
as some understand slowness. He is
patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to
repentance.
10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will
disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth
and everything in it will be laid bare.[1]
11Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of
people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12as
you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.[2]
That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the
elements will melt in the heat. 13But in keeping with his promise we
are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.
This
document is an important part of the document on Blockades to God’s will and command in healing the sick.
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