Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and in this episode we are going to get into the topic of generational curses. Now, this is a biblical theology podcast, so my interest is in what the Bible has to say about generational curses.
However, because this is one of those topics that has kind of run rampant in culture in some places, I'm going to be responding from the framework of biblical theology to some of what we see in culture, talking about generational curses. Specifically, I am going to be referring a lot in this episode to a book called Free At Last, Breaking Generational Curses by Larry Huch .
I actually looked on YouTube to make sure [00:01:00] I could pronounce his name and I'm pretty sure this is his book. But when you look on Amazon, the name Benny Hinn is also attached to this book. I don't think he had anything to do with the writing. I don't even think he wrote a forward for it. Huch just seems to have talked to him about it and he seems to be on board with it, I guess? I dunno. So anyway, we're going to be looking at this book Free at Last, and we're gonna be looking at it from the perspective of biblical theology, which is honestly how we should be interpreting the Bible. So here we go.
All right, so in our last episode about cursing, I tried to give a lot of the ancient Near Eastern context of what a curse was, what a curse did, how a curse had power. , and this is also related to blessing, but you know, we tend to think, oh, curses are much more interesting because they have some sort of aura of mystery. And I don't know, blessing is boring compared to that. I, I dunno, I, I'd rather be [00:02:00] blessed than cursed. But, you know, we have this kind of morbid draw , towards these kinds of things.
So we're gonna talk about cursing and we could just as well talk about blessing in this. It's a, it's gonna be a little bit of a different framework in that case, but they're kind of functionally the same... kind of two opposites of the coin, although not entirely. But anyway, what I said in the last episode about what a curses is, we have several different definitions of a curse.
We have either the request of evil or misfortune or harm to come upon someone, or a curse can be the actual evil or misfortune or harm that comes upon someone as a result of being cursed. And occasionally it can be the source or cause of the evil as well. But that last definition is not what we're gonna be talking about today.
Now, remember also that there were reasons that people would curse. Frequently, it was a form of [00:03:00] defense, or it was a form of punishment, or trying to instill a consequence on someone who has done you harm or who has broken some law or a covenant, you know, that kind of a thing. So a curse was something like, it was a consequence, it was a punishment, or it was something bad that was supposed to happen to someone because you wanted that bad thing to happen to them for some reason.
Now, if that's what a curse is, then why would we have generational curses? That's, I think, the big question, and it's a fair question because that doesn't seem fair. Why would the consequences of a sin fall upon later generations? That that doesn't seem fair. That doesn't seem right.
We have this idea today, especially of the punishment and the consequences should fit the crime, right? If you do something wrong, then you should be punished according to that. At least that's one form of justice that we have in our [00:04:00] society today. One thing that we need to acknowledge in that is that our society is very different from theirs. We have a very individualistic society. If you do something, you suffer the consequences. Nobody else should. However, when you live in an honor shame society that is tribal and that is communal, and where your identity is wrapped up in the identity of your family and of your people, it's not really so strange to see this idea that we have consequences that fall upon not just you, but everyone else that you're associated with, intimately... meaning your children and your children's children, because you as the head of that line of people, you have responsibility for them, and so your actions are going to affect them. That's the ancient Near Eastern context of what we're looking at in regards to generational curses.
So do we see generational curses in the Bible? Is that [00:05:00] something that is visible? It is. And I think that this is also one of those things that actually makes the Bible stand out from other ancient literature of the time. Because the Bible, unlike many other texts that we see in the past, the Bible is not obsessed with curses. It is not obsessed with making sure that a punishment necessarily follows through an entire people group. Now, there are exceptions. There are major exceptions to that, and we'll get to that. But in general, this is just not something that we see a lot of.
We see it, but there's ways that we can also see how it's mitigated, which is interesting and very important when we understand how the Bible is so vastly different from other ancient literature. All right, so let's look at some examples of generational cursing in the Bible. First of all, of [00:06:00] course, we can turn to Genesis three, where the serpent and the ground are both cursed as a consequence of what happened with the serpent and Eve and Adam.
There is the possibility of death there being a curse, but that's something we're still going to be addressing in a different episode. The next curse we see is from Cain, and once again, the ground is being cursed. Doesn't say Cain is cursed. It says the ground is cursed. The text doesn't give us a sense of whether or not that is generational, really. The next cursing we see is in Genesis nine with the cursing of Canaan, and this does seem to be generational. It doesn't say any words about, "this is a generational curse," but that weird thing happened with Noah and his sons and Ham. And Ham was the one who acted, and yet his son Canaan is the one who seems to receive the [00:07:00] consequences of that.
There's lots more to say about that one. I mean, because of course we have Canaan who is the father of the people group, the Canaanites, who were Israel's enemies when they went into the Promised Land. So considering the fact that Genesis was written slash edited well after the fact of what Ham did and and Canaan being born, the people who were writing and reading the Bible knew who the Canaanites were and so this is going to factor into why they were evil, why they were Israel's enemies and all of that kind of thing. So there's a real sense in... If you are an evil people group, if you are doing wicked terrible things, then that started way back in the day with an earlier patriarch of your tribe or your people group.
So even though I think we could [00:08:00] pretty safely say this is a generational curse, it might actually be better to see this as a pattern of behavior that starts in a place and that just continues on because it never gets corrected. There's a major theme of escalation of sin in the Bible, especially for people who are not God's chosen people.
As far as Genesis goes, there are more mentions of curses, but they're not necessarily generational. In Genesis 12, it is promised to Abraham that God will bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him. That's not necessarily generational, but it does say in Abraham, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So that seems to be kind of a bit of a generational idea. Like there's this group identity that follows along with cursing and blessing.
All right. You know, you know what? I have a massive stack of note cards for this episode. And do you know how many I've gotten [00:09:00] through? I've gotten through one card. Actually, I haven't even gotten through that card yet. For whatever reason, I didn't really expect , this topic to be this big of a topic, but sure is. So, hey, I mean, and it makes sense because this is kind of a subtle thing and it's something that has kind of taken on a life of its own, especially today.
But I want to point out again that when we see Adam and Eve being cursed in Genesis three... which maybe these are the clearest examples of a generational curse in the Bible.... it's the ground and it's childbearing and it's the idea of offspring that are all involved in that curse, targeting the fruitfulness of the land, the fruitfulness of people. And we could maybe loop death into that and say that death also attacks the divine mandate to be fruitful and to multiply. So all of these things are, are [00:10:00] very connected. And also remember that a lot of what we see in the Bible is accommodating the culture and it's correcting the culture as well. It's not always outright correcting to the point of eliminating false things in the Bible or potentially false things, but it gets it into a better direction nonetheless, , and usually it's focused not on, these are the correct facts.
But knowing God and who he is and understanding God's character, , it's not about facts and it's not about data, and it's not about science, and it's not about, this is how the world is set up precisely. It's about seeing the character of God in its correct light and seeing the relationship of humanity with God as well. Polemics are not about facts, but it's about correctly understanding who God is and how he's interacting with the world.
All right, so let's get [00:11:00] into some of this more modern context. In his book, Free at Last, Larry Huch looks at the idea that we are freed by Christ, and he asks, why are we still in bondage?
Being in bondage to him seems to mean anything negative in life at all. He starts out his book by talking about a story from his earlier years in life and he talks about how he had a spirit of anger, and this is how he talks about all these things. Spirit of anger. There's a spirit of insecurity, there's a spirit of drugs, there's a spirit of alcohol, there's a spirit of poverty.
But all of these things are things that keep Christians in bondage, which means of course, that we're not living the free life that Christ has given us. Does that sound like prosperity gospel to you? Well, [00:12:00] I'll let you think about that. I heard an interview once with Dr. Michael Heiser who mentioned how Christians like to talk about a spirit of this and a spirit of that, and he asked, does that mean that there's a spirit of bad theology?
Talk about keeping Christians in bondage... Anyway. Does the Bible promise the kind of freedom being talked about in the book Free at Last? Does the Bible promise that we will no longer struggle with anger, that we won't struggle with addictions, that we won't struggle with poverty? Is that what the Bible says? Does the Bible anywhere show these things to be generational curses? Does the Bible suggest that we should not expect struggles, that we should not expect trials and temptations? That we should no [00:13:00] longer sin? Why is Paul writing all of those letters? Does the Bible promise that we'll have healings and promises of power?
Actually, what's interesting to me is that Huch, he doesn't really focus too much on the idea of being healed. He mentions it, but to be honest, most of what he's talking about, it's not curses, it's sin. The fact that we still have to deal with sin. The book doesn't really admit that. It kind of hints at it sometimes, but the vast majority of the book is talking about curses and how these are passed down generationally.
Like so sin, the temptations of sin are literally passed down generationally. Now, there's things we can say about that, and it's a fair question to ask. Could the framework of generational cursing still be helpful to view our lives as Christians in some way, even if [00:14:00] this isn't really cursing. I mean, I think we all need to take seriously the fact that there is kind of this contradiction or better tension that the Bible talks about with God's promises and faithfulness, and yet we still struggle.
We're free from sin, and yet we still struggle with sin, and does it make sense that Christians still suffer so badly when we have the victory in Christ? If we have the spirit within us, then why can't we just combat our sin and problems and make them all vanish? Why are they even a thing anymore? It does seem like an easy answer to all of that is, oh, we are cursed.
The problem with that framework, however, is that if we're cursed, then doesn't it make sense that we need to do something to release that curse, to counteract it? And then if we do that, hey, [00:15:00] no more curse. We no longer have to struggle with the problem that we were struggling with before. The other appeal for talking about this in terms of cursing is that we individualistic westerners don't understand why we have to suffer from generational connections.
That doesn't make sense to us because we only want to be responsible for our own issues, not for anybody else's. We understand, oh yeah, I'm struggling still because I am doing something wrong and I need to fix that, but I shouldn't have to struggle because my great-great, great grandpa had a problem with alcohol and every adult within the family since has had a problem with alcohol. That's not fair! We must be cursed! That's the easiest explanation for that. Now, I will admit that there are generational connections. There are patterns of behavior that happen through [00:16:00] families. How do we explain that? Even if we don't call them curses, there is still a thing going on there. There are very real patterns that we see.
And another thing that Huch brings up is the idea that spiritual forces are behind some of the things that we're going through. His idea is that it is the spiritual forces that are cursing us. Now, there are biblical problems with what he is saying in that, but I do affirm that there are spiritual forces at work in our lives and at work in the world in some forms. So good on him for bringing that up to everyone, I guess.
Some of us might read this book and think, oh, his ideas are just too good to be true. We can't just get rid of all of this sin and all of these problems in our lives by doing a few simple steps. Well, I mean, not entirely, but I am a believer that our problems can be overcome [00:17:00] functionally immediately to some degree, through the work that God does in our lives. Through the act of surrendering ourselves over to God, fully. Through the change of heart that the Spirit gives us. Through the change of circumstances that can happen through prayer. through the impact that the body of Christ and the image of God has in our lives. We can have physical healings, we can have miracles. And studying the word of God can also produce in us real change and real effectiveness in our lives. I believe those things are true, but it's so dangerous to faith and discipleship to suggest that we can just declare or lay claim to healing or prosperity or the removal of these curses. There's nothing in the Bible that suggests particular blessings that will come upon every single believer whenever we lay claim to [00:18:00] them.
Why was the church to still take care of widows and orphans if people could just remove the spirit of poverty from their lives? Why did the church suffer so badly? Why were there martyrs? This doesn't make sense of all of church history, including just about everything in the New Testament.
Anyway, let's get into some of the scriptural context that Huch uses to defend his premises. He talks about Exodus 20, verse five, which says,
Quote,
you shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.
But he doesn't go on to read till verse six, which says, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.[00:19:00]
Do you notice the contrast there? Third and fourth generation versus thousands? That's kind of a difference, right? I mean, people would be expecting the iniquity to be continuing on in the family line. It seems like maybe third and fourth generation is actually cutting it off kind of quickly. Also, does it say they're cursed?
No, it uses the word inequity. Huch genuinely equates the word inequity with the word curse. And those are separate words. They're separate terms. They don't mean the same thing. A curse can happen because of inequity, but conflating the thing that happens with the other thing that happens.... that's not how we do words.
So what does the word inequity mean? Inequity can mean sin or wrongdoing, and it can mean guilt and it can mean punishment. So I [00:20:00] think I see where he's getting confused because if a curse happens in response to a sin and is part of punishment, then you, you can kind of conflate those two. But they're not the same thing.
Exodus 20 verse five doesn't say that God is cursing all of the people to the third and fourth generation. It's saying he's visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children. So either God is visiting sin-- which that's not what God does, so that's not the definition of inequity we're looking at here-- or he's visiting the guilt of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. So the context would be punishment. So it seems like even though we might not see this as fair, God claims the right to punish generations after a sin occurs.
Under the word inequity, the Lexham Theological Word book says
quote,
inequities are said to have serious [00:21:00] detrimental effects on the individual or community
end quote.
This is just something that was normal. , it didn't have to be a part of a curse. Huch also quotes. Exodus 34 7, which says,
quote,
keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving inequity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the inequity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation
end quote.
But that's the only part of this passage that Huch talks about. He really should have gone up one more verse to talk about what this context is. In verse six, it says,
quote,
the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord. The Lord, a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving inequity and transgression and sin, [00:22:00] but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the inequity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation
end quote.
So this is about God's faithfulness and mercy and steadfast love, and how those things do not mean that the guilty do not suffer and in the context of the ancient Near East, sorry, but you're going to be suffering for the sins of your parents. That's just the way it went. It unfortunately might still be the way it goes because we do see consequences that go from one generation to the other.
Now, shouldn't Christ have dealt with that? Shouldn't that all be done? We shouldn't have to be under these things anymore. Well, yes, Christ has the ultimate victory, but we need to understand that in the context of the world at large and history and how all of that apparently works, sin is done away with. We are a new creation. That doesn't mean that right here and right now we are perfect. There is obviously some sort of [00:23:00] process that's going on as we are being conformed to the image of the Son. As we are being conformed to the image of Christ, things change. This is a discipleship walk and a sanctification process that is happening in us.
So perhaps it is the case that the reversal of all of these generational issues also is a process that needs to be dealt with in our lives. So in the sense that that is what Huch is talking about then, okay. And he has some good advice in his book and I, I'm going to try and hit on that a bit later, but there's still this overwhelming message in the text that it's just so easy to do this, that we can just follow these steps and boom, we are free at last.
No more suffering. Yay. The verse that Huch uses in order to talk about our freedom in Christ is John 8 36, which says
quote,
so if the son sets you free, [00:24:00] you will be free indeed.
End quote.
Okay. So if you're reading a popular level book, this is my suggestion. Every time, every time, every time they quote a passage, go to that passage in your own Bible and back up a few verses and see what that passage is actually talking about.
So with that advice in mind, we are going to read John 8 34 through 36, where it says
quote,
Jesus answered them. Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever. The Son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you'll be free indeed.
End quote .
So what's the context? Being a slave to sin. So the question [00:25:00] of why Christians still struggle with sin is a sensible one, but this isn't the perspective of charismatics and other people like Huch, who write books like Free At Last. While Huch does talk quite a bit about personal responsibility as well, so kudos to him for that, mostly he's placing the blame on all of our struggles on previous generations, and he's not even framing it in the context of sin to begin with. It's like this secret curse that the devil is putting on you instead.
But we'll get to that again in a second. What does it mean, first of all, to be a slave to sin, as John 8 34 to 36 says? Does it mean being free of the ability to sin? Practical experience says, no, that's not the case. Does it mean being free from the consequences of sin? Well, apparently not all of them.
You know what? Let's go ahead and jump even a [00:26:00] few more verses back in this chapter in John to verses 21 through 24, which say
quote.
So he said to them Again, I am going away and you will seek me and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come. So the Jew said, will he kill himself? Since he says, where am I going? You cannot come. He said to them, you are from below. I am from above. You are from this world. I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.
End quote.
Then also in verses 31 and 32, it says,
quote,
so Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
End quote.
What is the truth that sets them free? Following Christ, believing in him. What are the consequences that we don't have to deal with in regards to sin? [00:27:00] It's death. That's the only consequence it's talking about. It says nothing about you won't have to suffer. In fact, there's quite a few verses I could bring up in response to that claim. Christians are, I'm afraid, called to suffer. That is a hard truth. Not all suffering is the same, and that's something that's also hard , for us to realize. There is apparently such a thing as redemptive suffering, and of course there is suffering because of a consequence of something you've done.
Here's an interesting verse that Huch brings up. He quotes Hosea four six, which says,
quote,
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
End [00:28:00] quote.
So here we have a connection with the generational cursing in some form it seems, but the question is, were the children innocent?
What kind of knowledge is this even talking about? Well, remember, we are supposed to go back up a few verses and see what we're talking about here. So let's do that. Chapter four of Hosea begins with,
quote,
hear the Word of the Lord. Oh, children of Israel. For the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love and no knowledge of God in the land. There is swearing, lying, murder, stealing and committing adultery. They break all bounds and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore, the land mourns and all who dwell in it languish and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away. Yet let no one contend and let none accuse for with you is [00:29:00] my contention. Oh, priest, you shall stumble by day. The prophet also shall stumble with you by night, and I will destroy your mother. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me, and since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
End quote.
The people aren't being destroyed because they lack knowledge, just because they didn't know something. No, they're being destroyed because their teachers, who ought to be teaching them, are not teaching them. And the priests who ought to be teaching them are getting a consequence and their children are also going to get a consequence.
Does this mean, oh, poor, innocent children? Probably not. Because if the priests aren't teaching the people, they're not teaching their children either, which means that their children are also going to be doing wickedness. This isn't a, oh no poor, innocent children. This is a look teachers, what you are [00:30:00] doing to yourselves and to subsequent generations, this is your fault because you are not teaching properly because the people do not know God.
It's kind of a shame that Huch didn't just write a book about sin and how we still are struggling with it and we still need to deal with it, but that would not sound as pleasant and as easy to manage as a book about getting rid of curses. And you know, maybe it's just the circles he's in. A quote from earlier in his book says,
quote,
most of us think that when we receive Jesus as our savior, we are automatically going to be perfect.
End quote.
I don't know a whole lot of people that think that, but probably some do. And the reason that they think that is because they have been sold a watered down gospel. If the truth sets us free, well, they haven't been told the [00:31:00] truth. And I'm going to be fair here. I think you can read the Bible, start to finish in English without special teachers, just on your own, , and you can grasp the story of the Bible, you can understand the message of salvation and how we find that in Jesus. But you're also gonna cherry pick ideas out of that, and it's really hard to avoid. Because most people aren't reading entire sections together. They're not looking at the contrast of how the Old Testament authors put things and how the New Testament authors put things and how this author puts things in that one. And to be honest, most people aren't reading big enough sections of Scripture together. If you don't do that, you don't know what the author's talking about. You can't see the, the basic story. I went to a class this last week with a group, and I, I'm not gonna call them out because I, I don't think there's anything wrong necessarily with what they're doing, but it was a class supposedly designed to help people share the gospel more [00:32:00] effectively. It was very watered down, very basic, very fluffy. And I kind of get that because they want the most people possible to be able to tell this story that we should be sharing with people. One of the bits of advice was, if you're reading the Bible, you need to slow down. You can't read Scripture unless you slow down in reading it.
Well, when people hear that, what are they gonna do? They're gonna read tiny little sections, a few verses at a time, maybe, maybe not even a full chapter. And I'll tell you what, it's really hard to keep everything in mind if that's what you're doing. You lose the plot of what the author is saying real fast if all you're doing is a few verses a day. It's really easy to not understand Scripture that way. It's really easy to cherry pick things and to say, oh, I see what that means. I can see how this applies to my life. Rather than taking application from a broad section of Scripture and from [00:33:00] the intent of the author, we're just picking out these verses that sound really good. And then we get confused when this verse seems to be promising things that I don't see in my life. What the heck? And then we have this verse over here that seems to talk about something entirely opposite. What do I do with that? Well, you're not understanding it because you're not reading it in in its fullness.
And if everything that Huch talks about is a curse-- from anger to drugs, to poverty, to obesity, to divorce-- then curses are absolutely ubiquitous in all of our lives. This seems like a problem to me in general, especially in light of what the Old Testament says about curses and in light of the work of Christ.
And I think there are far better ways of framing what we should do about these problems in our lives and how we tackle them and how we should even look at them. The idea of generational [00:34:00] curses is: oh, we're gonna blame everyone else before us for all of this. It's not my fault. It's not something that's just inside me. It's a thing that has been here for generations and no wonder I'm struggling so bad it's, it's not really my fault that I can't deal with it. My anger is more serious than other people's anger. Because it's generational. There becomes the sense that, oh, it's so much harder to take care of. I need more steps in order to accomplish the radical elimination of this in my life.
You're looking to blame people for the fact that you aren't experiencing all of these blessings that you think God should be giving you. Now what's quite interesting is that Huch Goes through the Old Testament and shows us all of these places about generational curses and how God uses generational curses on people for his own purposes.
But suddenly, when it comes to generational curses on us, it's [00:35:00] not God who's doing that. It's the devil. It's Satan who is cursing us because God wouldn't do that to us. Now that we are followers of Christ and and it doesn't lay this out, it doesn't say that there's this difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament, but that's what it's saying. It's saying that God cursed people in the Old Testament, but he now no longer curses people. So the source of all of these problems and these curses is Satan. Huch says, God does not condemn us for our past. The devil does. Now I remain confused because if it's not God condemning us, then why is he using Old Testament Scripture to show God punishing people generationally to equate to this idea that we are now being cursed by Satan.
I, I'm not seeing the connection there, dude. And again, it's not like, I don't think that the dark powers have influence over us because I absolutely think that they do. [00:36:00] But the dumbing down of it, of its only Satan, and he has all of this amazing power to curse our lives for generations. Yeah. I'm gonna take a little bit of opposition to that.
Huch goes to Ephesians six 12 as defense for this, the Armor of God passage, Ephesians six 12 says,
quote,
for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness. Against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly Places.
End quote.
Again, I do think that those things are referencing spiritual evil and real spiritual beings that we have to battle against, but it's a gross simplification to say it's only Satan. And also why was Paul asking for prayer? He wasn't asking to be released from his chains. He was asking for help to [00:37:00] declare the gospel. It's almost like it was expected or not a bad thing to suffer for the sake of the gospel.
Now, remember that a lot of what Huch is talking about are just sins or negative life choices. And remember we've talked about the kinds of consequences that come from somebody cursing you. It's usually sickness or an attack on your fruitfulness, your children, or your crops or your animals. Sometimes it leads to death. But curses weren't seen as, I'm going to cause you to sin. You might be experiencing a bad consequence because your ancestor had sinned. But again, Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary had a list of six categories that curses fell under. These were defeat, disease, desolation, deprivation, deportation, and death.
Now, I'm not saying that all curses have to fit under these [00:38:00] categories, but, by and large, that's what we see in the ancient world, and these are tough life situations. It makes living really hard when these kinds of things are going on. But again, but does that sound like the spirit of anger or the spirit of divorce or the spirit of obesity or the spirit of poverty?
I mean, sure poverty is connected to all of those, but it's because everything around you is cursed, not because something inside of you is cursed and there's something inside of you that needs to be fixed. If there's an external problem to yourself, that's not just: I need to have more faith and more positivity in my life in order to reverse the curse.
If spiritual forces were the cause of our curses in this sense, they were the cause of our sin, then what's up with our sin anyway? No doubt, spiritual forces do wish harm upon us, and they do try and influence us, but [00:39:00] tempting is not cursing and tempting is not the sin itself. Curses are things like death, crops failing, sickness, death, lack of fertility, death, sickness. You see my point here. Having a tendency to being angry is not the result of a curse.
Another passage that Huch uses is Matthew 1128, which says,
quote,
come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,
end quote.
So, does that mean we don't have any struggles? We don't suffer? We don't have trouble?
Verse 29 goes on to say that we are to take Jesus' yoke upon us. And guess what? Jesus definitely had trouble. Jesus' yoke wasn't nothing. It wasn't worldly success. It wasn't prosperity, it wasn't lack of trouble. It wasn't any of those things. [00:40:00] Let's look at another verse. Let's look at Philippians one, six.
This says
quote,
and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
End quote
Again, what does it say in the next verse? Verse seven says,
quote,
it is right for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense, and confirmation of the gospel.
End quote.
The chapter goes on to talk about God's love abounding in us, knowledge and discernment, being pure and blameless, being filled with the fruit of righteousness.
Okay, I want to get into this idea of the evil spirits influencing us from the perspective of Huch. This is in fact where we can intimately connect with our imaging series as a whole.
I'm gonna read a quote from the [00:41:00] book Free at Last about this.
quote,
When we worship an idol, we are allowing something other than him [God] to rule us, to make us bow down and serve it. When we do that, the spirit that operates through that idol will come into our lives and not only make us bow down to it again and again, but it will pass from us to our children.
End quote.
On the surface level, it sounds like there's stuff here that I can really agree with, but the question is how does Huch actually mean it? He does have some sort of understanding of what an idol was or is, and I do think that people worship false gods, but I think that Huch is really using this a little more metaphorically than the ancient Near Eastern context of idolatry. Because Satan is his only evil bad guy, these spirits that inhabit these idols are really just vague conceptions of sin, [00:42:00] and this is really why we ought to have a biblical understanding of what an idol even is. Yes, it's bad and we need to take that seriously. But being Allegiant to Christ breaks previous or existing bonds to other deities.
This is why it's important to understand believing loyalty, and why I so highly recommend the work of Matthew Bates regarding the topic of allegiance and the gospel. In fact, he's got a new book coming out and I can't recommend it more. Everyone should read this book. It's called Why the Gospel, and it's very practical, very good for Christians to read, and I'm sure I'll be talking about it more specifically in another episode.
But back to Huch, add his concept of idols and the spirits that reside within those idols. I'm going to read another quote about this
quote.
So this spirit of iniquity becomes a force on the inside that causes us [00:43:00] and generations after us to bow or bend to its destructive nature.
end quote.
Then he goes on and says
quote.
A spirit of iniquity could be in your life because of something you did, or it could also be something that has landed on you because of something a member of your family did years before you were born.
End quote.
He talks about things like anger and he talks about divorce and says, look at how these things keep showing up in different families, drugs and poverty and eating disorders and suicide and having children out of wedlock.
And he just has this massive list of things that are almost entirely just sins. Sins that people deal with. Sins are not curses, they're just not. Huch is talking about things we do. These are not the types of consequences that come out when we see somebody [00:44:00] cursing another person. I don't deny that there are consequences that follow when we sin. And these consequences even can be passed down. The harder thing is when we see the judgment and punishment for sin that is passed down, or at least this seems to be pretty obvious to us, that that's what's going on, right? But we don't like that, and that's one reason I believe that we have the concept in some Christian circles of original sin.
My episode about this is probably not out, but I am working on a q and a that addresses the question of original sin. So I'm not gonna get into it too deeply here, but we usually look at Romans five for that. And I will say that the point in Romans five seems quite a bit less "every human being in every circumstance" and more, "Hey Gentiles, you have a problem and you have need for Christ too, even without having been [00:45:00] given the law." that seems to be the point in Romans five. Not some mysterious sin nature or guilt that is passed on. Like literal guilt. Yes, punishment and consequences can span time and even generations. That's different than saying that there's a sin nature and that's different than saying that you are literally cursed.
Passing on of things seems to be a part of the natural order of things. It seems that rather than us losing a perfect nature, that bad things happen even without us doing anything. I mean, just read Job. Not even the book of Job has an answer for why there is suffering. When we read Scripture and we look into our lives, it feels like maybe it's something we ought to be sitting with in the sense of dialoguing with God. After all, Job still did. The Psalms still focus on asking God for deliverance and expecting it, so it's not that we [00:46:00] can't expect God to do things and that we can't request good things in our lives and that we can't work towards that and try and promote that in our lives. Of course we can. Of course we should do those things, but Huch ends up treading some very terribly dangerous ground in his book, I think.
I'm trying to ignore the fact that he literally claimed to have revelation in his book because you know how much I love that, but the way he defends the fact that it's Satan who's doing this and it's not God, is from the verse, John 10 10, which says,
quote,
the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
End quote.
Were you waiting to hear something about Satan in there? Yeah, me too. All it says is "the thief." You have to assume that that means Satan. And what, exactly, [00:47:00] were we supposed to do with the verses when we read them? Oh, yeah. We were supposed to read earlier in the passage and see if we can figure out what it's talking about.
Hey, look at that in verse one of chapter 10, it says,
truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheep fold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.
Now this is contrasting the true shepherd, who is Jesus, with someone else. So we might kind of naturally say that he's talking about Satan, but let's keep reading later in the chapter, starting in verse 11, it says,
quote,
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
Okay, I'm gonna stop [00:48:00] there. My question is, why isn't Satan the wolf? Why is he the thief? I don't know.
If you keep reading the chapter, guess who Jesus is poking his stick at? He's poking it at the Jewish leaders. They're the thieves, they're the wolves. Another verse that Huch uses is the second verse of third John, which says,
quote,
beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health as it goes well with your soul
end quote.
Maybe you're a bit confused after I read that, because that doesn't really sound like it should defend anything that he's talking about. However, let's read it in the King James version, which says,
quote,
beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in help even as thy soul Prospereth
end quote.
That does sound a little bit more like there's this [00:49:00] assumption that things are just going well with people.
but hitting back on that John 10 10 verse, what does it mean to have life abundantly? What does that mean? It would be really nice if we could just think that that meant this nice pleasing life, that we don't have to worry about money, that we don't have to worry about the struggles we have, that we don't need to worry about sinning anymore, that we don't need to worry about any of the problems that we have in our lives.
Those things are all just a matter of somebody did something wrong at some point in time. Now we're cursed with this burden and we're in bondage to these things. We're in bondage to the dark spiritual forces because of the sins. Look, there's real things going on in all of that that we need to take seriously and that we should do something about, but it's not some eight step, guaranteed program to get you everything that you want. And in case you're wondering, yes, he does quote Jeremiah 29 11. [00:50:00]
Anyway, let's take a moment and talk about what Huch should be talking about, which is temptation. He does quote first Corinthians 10 13, which says,
quote,
no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
End quote.
Quite predictably, Huch focuses on two things in this verse. he focuses on the fact that we will not be tempted beyond some level that we think we can handle and also that we can escape it. However, you have to look at this verse and say, oh, we're also supposed to endure it. It doesn't just go away. It doesn't just vanish.
Okay, so we have several things going on. We have sinning, we have cursing, we have punishment, we have [00:51:00] temptation. We could throw trials in there as well. All of those things go on in our lives, and we want to simplify it all down to this little equation that we can just go through these steps and we don't have to worry about those things anymore.
But cursing is something that someone else tries to do to you. Temptation is also something that someone else might try to do to you, but temptation doesn't have to lead to sin. Sin is not preordained and set just because we are tempted by it, or just because we are faced with a trial that lights our particular sinful fires underneath us.
If we give Satan the power to actively propagate sin without our real involvement, then that gives Satan a whole lot of power, including determinism, it seems to me.
Huch quotes one John one, nine, which says,
quote,
if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to [00:52:00] forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
End quote.
After quoting that, Hutch says,
quote,
through the power of the blood of Jesus, you can break the chains.
End quote.
Okay, so look. This, I'm not saying he's wrong about proclaiming Jesus as the solution to things, right? Of course I would say that, and I would agree, but it's almost like he's giving lip service to this. He repeats it over and over and over, but I'm not really convinced this is the framework he's coming at this. The problem with these frameworks is that the problem is approached in a very unbiblical way. Some of what he says is great. The work of Christ does have this power in our lives. But once you get into the more practical side of the book, he gets into pop psychology ideas and he passes all of this off as coming from the Bible itself.[00:53:00]
Now, there is nothing wrong with psychology, but if you hide that as biblical wisdom, then that's disingenuous. There is a desire that we have where we want to see everything in the Bible that we need to do because that is our source of truth, right? But the Bible does not need to contain everything that is true and good.
There were a lot of places where I was just hoping beyond hope that he would tell people to go see a counselor or a psychologist and get some professional help if you're struggling with things, because there's nothing wrong with doing that. When we struggle, we shouldn't struggle alone and we should reach out to others to find the help that we need. There's nothing wrong with that. That is a very biblical thing to do. We think it's lesser somehow because it's not within the church. And so we want our pastors and we want our church leaders to sometimes fill those roles and act as a psychologist to us, and they're simply not trained [00:54:00] for it.
There's no reason we can't go to another image of God, another imager to help us with the problems that we have. That's a very biblical idea. It feels like Huch's problem with things is that he can't reconcile the fact of our new creation with the fact that we still struggle. So he wants to have something that we can do to call upon to make these changes actively in our lives so that we no longer struggle or experience the problems that we have.
I can sympathize with that and the answer is the work of Christ and participating in that. But picking and choosing what we want to see in Scripture and in our lives is not a healthy way to face our sins and trials and temptations. We need a holistic and honest view of life following God. We will. We will face trials, we will face temptations.
We are going to struggle and we are going to be affected [00:55:00] by others. And what do we do with that? The impact of the gospel in following Christ is a real change in dismantling the fact that imagers of God do not function as they should and affect us in negative ways. With the spreading of the gospel, the indwelling of the spirit, the act of discipleship and sanctification. ...these all have real world impacts in our lives, and as we are conformed to the image of the Son, the impact of our sins is part of that reclamation. This is one area to see how a right understanding of being the image of God impacts us and the world at large. The effects of sin and brokenness begin to dissipate with the proper functioning of the image. This happens both within us as well as within the body of Christ. The improved functioning of the image also affects, I believe, things like the science of psychology. [00:56:00] Humanity has made great leaps forward in finding ways to help people. It's a common thing in American Christianity to say things like, we just need to pray for something, or We just need to read the Scriptures on our own and, and I'm not denying the power of prayer or that we can get things out of our personal Bible reading, but please realize the body of Christ is generally a collective thing.
We need historical interpretations. We need collective study. We need each other to correct us. We cannot just interpret things in the Spirit. The Spirit's a big deal. And yes, leads us to truth, but not individually. We have to put ourselves in a position where we can be corrected. And teachers, certain types of teachers are just making things up.
Do I sound a bit harsh? Well, maybe, again, I'm not saying that everything he says is bad, but here I'll give you the three steps he has to breaking curses. Number one, be born again by the blood of Jesus Christ. [00:57:00] I'm not gonna argue about that one. Number two, break the curse with spiritual weapons. He quotes second Corinthians 10 four, John 8 32 and Ephesians six, 10 through 13 about this.
But this section is a, a bit wishy-washy. He doesn't really say too much specifics about what that really means aside from when you get up in the morning, you need to pretend to put on the armor of God. You know, that kind of thing.
The third point he has is regain control over the power of your will. Sorry, say again.
He says,
quote,
Through Adam we lost the willpower to say no to sin. When Jesus shed his blood, he brought back our willpower.
End quote.
Yeah, that left me scratching my head for a, a good while. Here's another quote from [00:58:00] him.
Quote,
if you will make up your mind that with God's supernatural power, you will change your course, change your thinking, and change your habits, then there's nothing you can't do.
End quote.
I hope that sounds as terrible to you as it does to me. Look, I agree that our words and our thoughts and our actions, they all affect how we think and what's going on in our lives very directly. And to some extent we can control those things in a positive way, but just thinking positively isn't the answer to everything.
It and the place he goes there. It's really sad to me, and I can see how it could do damage to a lot of people. Let me just show you what he means. After he talks about breaking the curses with these three easy steps, then he talks about reversing the curse, which I assume that that means removing the [00:59:00] impact of it from your life in some sense, and there's some good advice here.
The first step is recognize the enemy, Satan, you already know that I think that's very simplistic, but we'll move on from there. The second step is forgive people who have hurt you. This may be my, one of my favorite parts of the book. Great advice. He has some really good, solid passages there, so that's cool.
Number three is do not treat the symptoms, treat the cause. I don't know why we're treating the cause if we've already broken the curse, but I, I don't know that that, that section didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, except maybe if that's kind of piggybacking off the idea of forgiveness and healing our internal selves, then okay, cool.
The next step is release the Power of love. That just sounds like an eighties love song to me, [01:00:00] but I guess the idea is that we replace our bad habits with good habits. Okay. Step number five is success is no accident. This sounds like he's either a coach or one of those guys in the office who tries to motivate office people.
Yeah. I'm not a fan of this part of the book. To me, it really tanked Here, actually. I'm gonna read a section of this. It says,
quote,
to maintain a positive, godly attitude, we must realize that sometimes our flesh just enjoys feeling bad.
End quote,
I read that and I said, ouch. What about Job? What about the Psalms? What about Ecclesiastes? What about lamentations? Did you notice that "stay positive!" Is not a motivational phrase from Scripture? But really he goes on to say,
quote,
when [01:01:00] I'm facing trials and pressures, I have to choose to stay positive.
And a little bit later,
quote,
if you lose your job, don't go dragging into your house, depressed, angry, negative.
And I'm just like, what? You, you can't freely feel emotions?? You can't express those emotions to other people. How are you supposed to get healing here? Arg! he actually quotes numbers 1426 through 29 and 31 and he says, complainers didn't enter the promised land. Like seriously? That's the reason they didn't enter the promised land, just because they weren't positive enough?? Really? I'm sorry, but that is so sad. It sounds exhausting to always be positive, to continually be repressing your emotions and using your willpower to force yourself to feel or be something you are not [01:02:00] experiencing.
It also ignores a major chunk of Scripture. Do we really think that the only problem with the Israelites is that... they just complained a lot? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? I don't think that's why they, they didn't trust God. That was why. And our individual momentary complaints don't mean that we don't trust God at large. They mean that we have something to say that we want to complain about. And this is what we see all the time in the Psalms. Just go open a random Psalm and you'll almost hit one of these where the psalmist is just complaining, pouring out His his heart to say, why? Why God? At the end, what happens? The psalmist still praises God, even in all of that complaint.
So just because we have some complaint doesn't mean we can't voice it. It doesn't mean we can't feel it. It doesn't mean we can't experience it. It means that we need to do that and then [01:03:00] still take that moment to say, okay, God, it's still in your hands. We understand that, but, but really, can you notice this, please God? That's okay to do. It's okay. It's scriptural. It's biblical.
All right. I know I'm getting a little bit worked up here and I haven't finished how to reverse the curse in case you're really curious as to what these steps are. Number six is align your words with God's words. And I was really hoping that this would just mean read your Scriptures and, and really know the word, but no, it, it just means you better speak positively or else you won't get positive results back. I don't need to say anything else about that. That's just, yeah.
Number seven is he's God our daddy. Okay. The point of that is that God is, is a loving father. Okay. So, alright, step number eight is obedience the path to your promised Land. Okay, well now you know how to reverse [01:04:00] the curse.
It just sounds like such a sad existence to think that we can't lay our troubles on God. He gives this an example in the book that what happens when you say that you're a failure, you're a failure, you're a failure, and then suddenly you say something else. Well, now you're not thinking you're a failure, right? So you've changed things positively. Okay, well, does that mean that those feelings and thoughts of failure are never going to show up again? You just have to keep repeating the same. ...like sometimes that will work, okay? Like if I don't wanna wash the dishes and I'm saying "I don't want to wash the dishes," that's a really bad way to go about washing the dishes. If I just say, "just get the dishes done for crying out loud," then maybe I will go do that and that there's a difference there. That's not the kind of thing he's talking about though.
Let's try another example. What happens when you're upset and you complain to a friend who just sits and hears you?[01:05:00] They don't even need to respond or try to fix anything. Just having that person hearing you makes a massive difference in life. Alternatively, what happens when you repress your negative feelings and pretend to be positive? Do they just go away? No, they don't. Besides that, how can we address doubts, concerns, negative feelings if we just push them aside?
All right, so do you wanna hear what I think? Of course you do because you've listened all this time already. I think that we need to take prayer seriously. We need to take the fact that we are members of the body of Christ seriously, and so we can attain help from others. I think that we can use professional help where necessary, because remember, science is godly and God's imagers are capable of representing God and doing his work.
I [01:06:00] mean, there is so much more that I could say about how we can deal with these things. Like it's not some eight step program. It's a very complex topic and I do think it has answers and that we can be very firm in what we're saying. But I have run over time and I'm not gonna be able to give it the time that it needs right now. So I'm going to continue this in a further episode, and we're gonna talk a lot about what it means to be an imager of God. We're gonna talk about the gospel, we're gonna talk about curses and temptations and sin and death and all of these other, there's so much practicality in what we're studying in the Bible.
And yes, this is a biblical theology podcast. And yes, I'm very grounded in Genesis. And guess what? This is all stemming from there. So we'll kind of get into a lot more of the biblical context of things in the next episode, I think. [01:07:00] So, hold your horses till then. Really appreciate you guys for listening.
Once again, thank you for sharing these episodes, for rating my podcast wherever you listen. Thank you for engaging with me on social media. I am on Facebook and I have my own Facebook group for this podcast. Alternatively, you can email me at
[email protected]. And thanks as always to Wintergatan for the music.
I hope everyone here has a blessed week and we'll see you later.
