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, Live Free Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas, but the Live Free 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 want to 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. So if you're watching this, I want to invite you to join us for church online. 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 pig. Let's kick this pig. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Arasso, 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. I didn't say a word. The three of us, it was so great. I was a little stiff, you know, like, you know, just a little. Yeah, man, a little intimidating. 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, diehard Disney fans. Yeah. It's a little cultish, if I'm honest. And so do you know this song? Do you know this song? It's by Nickelback. It's not. Stop. All right. I think I've heard it. But yeah, it was great. We had fun, man. It was good. Did your 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. One thing I will say, there is, 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 corn dog or hot dog was. Did you say, did you ask your favorite photo of me? Is that what you said? It's one of my favorite pictures of you. Well, that's funny because. Oh, 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, Trinity. You got it. Wait. Hold on. So first of all, let me, let me, I cropped it because I want to make sure that we. Major under majors here. Oh, Jana would have loved to be in this picture. Oh, okay. 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. Bro, what are you wearing? All right, dude. So here's the 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 shoes. Okay. 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 is, this has become 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. Wow. So, and then we may rank them. Oh. I did not know that part. So we'll see. We'll see. But we're definitely going to, so this is, this is going to be interesting. It's going to be fun. So wait, I do want to explain that picture real quick. Okay. Go ahead. And then, hey, then you got to explain your camping picture. Oh, no. So we were in, dang it, what city was that in England? We were in York, maybe? Okay. Wherever the Jane Austen Museum is. And Jana could not miss the Jane Austen Museum. And then when you're done, they, you know, you can dress up as the characters and Jana really wanted to dress up and get a picture. And as a sacrificial, loving husband. Wow. I look at that. What an example. Ephesians 5. 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. I'm happy to share it. Hey, if you are part of the Live Free Nation, if you're ever in the DFW area and you want to come hang out and come visit us. If you want to come visit us in person, please do come say hi and find us in 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. Dude, 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 2000 comments. That's not true. Pastor Paul, how do we get a hat? You text hat to 20411. Oh, okay. Is that the right guess? Yeah. That's right. That's it, man. That's it. We were trying to make it easy. You put me on such a spot. I was afraid to get it wrong. Or go to livefree.shop to get a hat. Also, oh, man, I was going to get a flag. We're going to get a live free flag at some point. Live free workout. The live free 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 Royce City campus, which is coming up. Oh, by the way, shout out Royce City. Royce 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 Royce City building. When we get into the Royce City building, live 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 live 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 Store. By the way, if you're on YouTube and you have not yet subscribed. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. You need to do that right now because we're literally like 50,000 subscribers away from hitting 1 million subscribers. That's crazy. 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, yes. Two hats. Two hats. Two hats. Signed by Paul Cunningham. That's bad for a mid-tier, middle-of-the-road podcast, man. Just not too bad at all. I'm sorry. That was for you. That's hilarious. That was for you. 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. Hey, 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 blurred it. So we keep getting this accusation that somehow this is what I won't read the whole, actually I'll just, 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 Faith by Works LLC, list Lake Point Church in Rockwall, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. Yeah. The minute you had Allie Beth on, it was clear. I'm sorry. I'm being a teenage girl. Yeah, you're good, man. Keep going, keep going. For someone new to Christianity, blah, blah, blah, you have become exactly what you preached and warned about. You are a huge disappointment. How could you do this to people who trust you? And this is like, we keep getting this. So here's what this, what we keep getting accused of is, is receiving $7,000. This is the accusation that Lake Point 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 Faith or something like that, that they unbeknownst to churches, they had developed some plan to try to like, to, they actually were going to try to geofence the, you know, certain churches, that kind of thing and, 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, 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. Yeah. Put some extra zeros on that thing. So anyway, this is just me publicly pleading with you. That's a public service announcement. That's amazing, man. I'm getting a phone call right now. It's probably, it's probably somebody from the government of Israel. It's the prime minister right now. Hey, I want to, I want to celebrate this last weekend. and we had 267 graduates this week in celebration. Nothing like it. We believe discipleship is not just a marathon, but a relay race. That's right, man. So, man, we're cheering them on. Also, this weekend, we have a special guest coming in to preach. Bishop Jonathan Bacuda. Jonathan Bacuda, the tall man. I listen to him during workouts. He's taller than people think. He's taller than me, man. I'm shorter than people think. We're excited for that. It's going to be a special week. So, Pastor Mike Burrell crushed it this last weekend. He did crush. 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. Yeah, so here's what I 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, Caesarea Maritima. What he does in Acts 25 and 26, he testifies before a guy named—you just see it 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 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. It's Mary and Herod, because there's a million Marys and there's a million Herods. So the big deal on this guy is he's one of four Herods mentioned in your New Testament. They're all related. So it's the Herodian—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 of 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, bookmark that in 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, he's the guy that sends people to kill, to slaughter all the kids two years old and under in Jesus' hometown to try to kill Jesus. So bookmark that 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 his mistress, the girl that dances, Salome or whatever it is. Oh, yes. It's like daughter-in-law. Daughter-in-law. Something like that. She does the shady 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 asked 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's dad. Good little, there you go. This is the guy who's mentioned in Acts 12. He's the guy that has the apostle James beheaded. So he's the first, James is the first apostle that's a martyr. Yes, James is the first apostle that's a martyr. 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. 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 this guy knows that Paul knows that. And Paul's on trial in front of this guy. And think about this, dude. Testifying to the guy. 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 judge the quick and the dead. So, bro, you want to talk about courage. That's Joby Martin's little thing of, hey, man, God wants you to be saved. He doesn't want you to be soft. Like Paul, man. Spine of steel. And he just goes, hey, man, I cannot defy my conscience. Here's who Jesus is. And he even just says, I want you on team Jesus. Yeah. It's crazy if you think about it. All these Herods, in some sense, they all were exposed to the gospel by, you know, again, they had Jesus in front of them, Paul, the apostles, the wise men, and every single one of them responded in the same way with a hardened heart. That's one. And then two, this is literally, like you said, multiple generations of Herods that are actively and demonically opposing. That's right. The gospel and the word of God. And so my question, Pastor Josh, is, are generational curses real? Okay. Let's talk about this. Now, let me just say, pre-podcast, we may disagree. Because we rolled into the podcast with like a, why? I put it a little different. So let me, I'll tell you how I view it. We need to have more debates here. We do. It's a little more fun. We have a little debates. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Let's talk about this real quick. So 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 together. 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 fill in 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, no, generational influence is yes. Say that one more time. What I would say, how the language I'm most comfortable using is generational curses, no, generational influence is 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 reformers. Reform guys say that because of the actions of a father, it can give covenantal permission for sins or spiritual influences to happen in your family. But what I would say is generational. You're smiling. I love it. Generational curses, no, generational influence, yes. Here's why I say that. That's great. 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 Herods here. Here's what we 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. You remember that passage, Moses is like, hey, can I see your glory? And God's like, hey, man, I'm really sorry. I would love to do this for you, but no man shall see me in life. And then God takes him, and he puts him in the cleft of the rock. And then it's, I had to memorize in college, one of my favorite passages of the Old Testament. The Bible says that God, quote, turned his hind parts to Moses, and he passes in front of Moses in the mountain, verbally declaring his character. And God says, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God. By the way, before I quote this, if I understand correctly, this passage is the most quoted passage in the Bible by the rest of the Bible. Have you ever heard 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 version of the Bible. I'd need to fact check that. So God passed 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. 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 what I'm going to say. The reason I want 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. So here's Ezekiel 18. By the way, this passage, I think, if you want to just 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 Ezekiel 18, God is rebuking. Israel, and here's what he says. Listen real close. He says, the word of the Lord came to me, Ezekiel 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, bro, all of a sudden, this starts to sound like 21st century America. All the kids were going, do you know my life's so messed up? Because my dad did. Man, you know, is this, you know, you know why all the problems in my life, do you know where it comes from? My family of origin. So that's what it means when it's, that's an ancient Israelite way of saying, all my problems were from my family of origin. They were saying the parents eat sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. God rebukes it. 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 sinned, that's going to be his problem. If you sinned, that's going to be your problem. Okay. 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 it. 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. And God goes, verse 20, here's why. Because the one who sins is the one who will die. 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 in this. Like a little mind blowing. Actually, I want to see if you guys have ever heard this before. The other one I'd say, I think, so 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 that's got the, 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 just say this to our dads. Hey, dads, we got, 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, the third and fourth generation. It's good. 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 might as well. 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 described something that sounds like what a lot of people would describe as a generational curse, right? And so I think you defined it as, and I'm like, 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 like, you know, as Christians, we don't believe that. Like you, 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. Okay. As far as generational influences, I do think, dude, let's just be honest, man. So it's really interesting. We got, we got therapy terms for things that had theological origins and therapy just doesn't have the theological background. So they're like grasping for language that the Bible already described. Like, 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. Oh, what about his? 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. Hey, what about, what about great grandpa? Did he have, and dude, when people start filling up those genograms, what you're going to, 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 down or divorce. That's right. I mean like stuff like that. So again, generational influences, a hundred percent of real things. So again, when people say generational curses, people think different things. Honestly, that's what I think. What we just described. Again, there's a, there's a, a sin that has been consistent over multiple generations and somebody at some point, and I know, cause you know, for me, I've seen this, especially coming from a more Latin American background, Pentecostal, we'll talk about this in just a second, you know, and then they go through some sort of experience where somebody prays for them and they, after that, it seems to, it just breaks that pattern that they saw their whole family go through, but now they're free and they start a new, a new legacy. Again, you see this in scripture. I 100% believe in that. So it seems like we agree. It's, it's more so how do we call it? Uh, uh, again, Here's what I do not believe. And maybe let's, let's define our terms. This is what you want to do. Every time there's potential agreement, define your terms, disagree, define your terms. What I don't believe is that you can have a generational curse in terms of you can have a Christian person that's really important, a Christian person that has been redeemed by Jesus Christ that is helpless to get free. And that's what we're talking about. - Yeah. 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, 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 like 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, we need to, you know, I need to find my new identity in Christ. And any generational curses is done in Christ. Okay. So the point of agreement that I want to highlight, though, is the helplessness part. That's right. 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 person. So, you know, I'm not going to go into too much detail on that, but I'm going to go into a little bit more detail on that. So, you know, I'm not going to go into a little bit more detail on that, but I'm going to go into a little bit more detail on that. And then he put all things under his feet and gave him his head for all things to who? The church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all, which is a cool little thing. In Colossians, it talks about how Christ is the fullness of deity. The word there is pleroma. Same word here. Christ is the fullness of deity. Somehow the church is the fullness of Christ. So 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 what's 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 go, they would have wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. 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 wilderness, 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 just the idea of, it was punishment that they had to experience. Same thing. How is that not a generational curse? Sounds like there is a consequence because of something that somebody else in your family did and they're in some ways experiencing. That's why I just prefer the word. It's a punishment. Or a consequence. We might disagree on what we call it. That's the semantics. Yeah, and that's the thing, because I'm like, 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, from the outside. This is about just the consequences of someone else's sin. But you do though, I mean, not, not that you can't, you can't be delivered. That's the only part in that sentence that I would disagree, but everything else is true. Here's what I say to push back on is that the way some people think of generational curses, let's get really specific. I think it's easier for you to use specific examples. 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, 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 relates to sins. By the way, for the, uh, it's going to take a pair of scissors to get the concept of the spiritual stronghold out of the Bible. That's straight out of Ephesians and Colossians. A hundred percent. You do see that. But what you also see in scripture is that again, the strongholds don't have to persist is you have Saul, who is an evil king. One point a good king with them 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, let me get my favorite one here. Cause I've, I've been waiting for the moment for this. So dude, here's the, here's my. Here's the best example of like, if you want to say break in a generational curse, you're going to say break in the 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. This like it, it, it, I didn't recognize I've been reading the Bible 30 years. I never seen this until two years ago. All right. Josiah. Let's talk about Josiah. Where are you going to 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 just, 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 Manasseh. Let me read to you. What Manasseh did is nasty. He rebuilt the high places, which was just spiritual, nasty strongholds, demonic. He built a 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 blood. And he built a temple to a demonic false God inside of the temple of the one true God. 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 pagan gods, forsook the God of his ancestors. And then the Bible says, quote, continued in the sins of his father, And then the Bible says, quote, continued in the sins of his father, says he, quote, increased the guilt. So as bad as Manasseh 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 what, man, that's great. But I got a generational curse because of Manasseh and because of Amon. But then it says, I love this so much. All right, check this out. Listen close. Second Chronicles 34.3. In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father. His father, David. David was not his dad. Amon was his dad. And Manasseh was his dad. And then Second 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 or 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. 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. OK, 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 to the book of Daniel. So then when you read Daniel, do you know where I'm going with this? I don't know. I don't know where you're going. I'm going to blow your mind. The Bible's amazing. 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 him at all. All we know is that they were. Quote, royal kids that were raised in the palace. That's all we know. They go to Babylon. It's 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 to bow before golden idols. They're like, you know, the. King is like, I'm actually going to burn you alive. And they're like, that's fine. That's fine. You do that, man. But what we're not going to do is betray God. They threatened Daniel's life. Quit praying. And he's like, man, you do what you want. You throw me in that thing. I'm not going to quit praying to my God. So like they hold it. They're teenagers. 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 want to 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. What are you talking about evening sacrifice? You're in Babylon. 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 Rome. 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. And they 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. That's right. And I'm not my dad. That's my heavenly father. And I got a new spiritual heritage now. That's right. Boom. Wow. Wow. Can I share a personal stuff with this? Come on, do it. I mean, just being open and vulnerable. You mentioned earlier, genogram. I've actually drawn mine for people before. Really? Yeah. I mean, if I were to draw it for y'all, you'd be cross-eyed. It's pretty messed up. I think I've shared anywhere. I've shared in here before a little massive long history of divorce in 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 pods I jumped on with you guys. I shared, I mean, after, and I emphasize after my parents got married, my mom's dad had an affair with my dad's mom. Well, I said, weren't you? After my parents got married, my mom's dad had an affair with my dad's mom. Both couples divorced, and my mom's dad married my dad's mom. That hurts at Thanksgiving. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And I mean, it's, 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. Like, no. It does seem to be some kind of a special attack. The enemy has 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 where I say, hey, there seems to be a special attack on the enemy. And then because of that, 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. And if you even think about that word stronghold, if you think about it in a war and a battle, if there's a stronghold, usually we have to have a both end of a ground war and an air war. That's right. You can't just do it by the ground where 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 and say, no, 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. It's their fault. It's my dad's fault. It's my wife's fault. It's my granddad's fault or whoever's fault. It's on me to have a healthy marriage. It's a both end. 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 end for me. I take it really seriously. Here's why this is so important. And I think we're all on the same page on this. Here's why it's so important. Because honestly, man, you know, we know who listens to podcasts. Honestly, it's a bunch of dudes that don't have a spiritual background. Yeah. And the reason. I'm real nervous about some of the language that surrounds the generational cursing is it puts this thing in a guy's head that like I can't because my dad did. And do what. 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 Exodus 34 passage. When God describes his 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 in this when I quote this verse, help me remember it from memory. So God says, The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness, forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. He punishes the children and their children to the third and fourth generation for the sins of the fathers. But then he says later, he talks about. How he has his loving kindness last to a thousand, 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, because in Christ, you're not the person you used to be. Amen to the person 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, triumphing over them by the cross. In him, you are new. And that is good news. That's good news, dude. And again, I just want to keep saying, hey, man, you have a different dad now. That's good. You got a different dad now. So along those lines, Pastor Josh, can a Christian be possessed by a demon? Yeah, let me ask. Because it is germane to this question. You get this a lot. So honestly, I'll give a little bit of a curveball answer. And then let's do every Christian denomination in 20 minutes. It's really fun. 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. It's going to go awesome. Okay, can a Christian be possessed by a demon? 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. Oxford Dictionary gives three definitions of the word possessed. Number one, have as belonging to one or own. Now, so belong to one or own. That's definition one. If you mean, 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. Only one person has purchased you. It's Jesus Christ at the cost of his own blood. In fact, I'll just say this. On this note, what some Christians will do is they go, okay, yeah, but God did possess you, but now a demon. A demon possesses you, and I will just gently put this out. We may get into soteriology later. A lot of people from particularly some, not all, Pentecostal backgrounds that have a strong belief in that you can lose your salvation, they'll go, okay, you did belong to Jesus, but now you belong to a demon. So I would just say, somebody goes, hey, Josh, can a Christian lose their salvation? Well, here's what I would say. 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 in 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. So think about it. 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 sin, 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. This is why Jesus, and again, I'm stretching an analogy. There's more I want to 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 got to 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 in quote unquote possession of the home. Here's what I would say. What you can do, even if you don't have the power to do it, you own a home is you can invite a bunch of people in. Hey man, let me open my door to you. I can't come in and that kind of thing. And then they can decide to stay and they can make your life pretty daggum miserable. We call them squatters. So they got, 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. 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, tinfoil hat, the thing. Occult activity, all the Ouija boards and sorcery and healing crystals and all this stuff. I'm like, hey bro, get rid of that stuff. People are like, 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. Open a door to internal demonic influence that has no legal authority to be there and it can be immediately evicted in Jesus' name. Amen. 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, an ability, quality, or characteristic. An ability, quality, or characteristic. Okay. If you're gonna define possessed 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, we can fight about it. When Jesus says to Peter, so Jesus goes, hey 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 him. He's talking to 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'd 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 blood bot, possession of the living God. Amen. There it is. You got it. Well, I was going to defer to you on this one. Go ahead. You're the local charismatic. You're the generational person. You're the demonology expert in the room. I'm preaching the gospel of freedom. Christus Victor, Jesus King. Hey, hey, hey. I'm not the generational curse's guy. Live free. Live free, brother. That's right, in Jesus' name. I'll say to you real fast, we talked a little bit this off here when we were talking about, we joke about it, about the generational curse's 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, in part it is. We hit that earlier. Don't have to recap again, but the idea of I've got to take responsibility for my sin, my decisions. But I will say there is much more attunement 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 acceptable to. And so, for example, I did some ministry in Dubai one time, and we would do these labor camps, 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 going to say, I'm going to celebrate. Every time Paul has been somewhere, I'm going to celebrate that. That's what I'm saying. I'm just like, I'm going to celebrate that. That's great. You've never been? I've never been to Dubai, and I'd love to go someday. Have to go someday. But I'm glad you have. Me too. It says something 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, my God. Jesus. Joe, we took you out of your shoes. That baptized people. Matthew 28. I repent. I repent. Go ahead. Anyways. So, yeah. So, like, 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 labor 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 Deboniac who was like, they had to change because he was so possessed by them. And they were just falling on every word because there's much more 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 inch and 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. And so, I want to. We went from demon to denomination. There you go. 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, Live 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 want to 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 going to be breaking down and explaining every major Christian denomination in about 40 minutes. And so, we're going to 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 going to 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.