Generational Curses
- May 22
- 35 min read
Updated: May 28
Pastor Stan Mons
Sermon Transcription:
We're going into another teaching tonight here at Friday Discipleship, another part of the discipleship essentials that we are teaching this year. It's going to be turned into a book that will be hopefully released next year. And it is a teaching series, and it will be a book that is designed to really leave you with the bare necessities to properly run as a Christian. If you have to leave everything else that is interesting that we can learn in the word of God for some reason behind, these are the things that you have to have clear all the days of your life as you walk with Jesus. To the best of my ability, I've put these teachings together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit as the teachings that I would need for the rest of my life to keep running the race and not slow down, not grow weary, and not fall into lukewarmness or into disrepair because of sin or into backsliding like Jonah once did, and so many others. These are the things that God, by His Spirit and His word, has taught me, and I treat them as such. These are the things that the Holy Spirit brought into my life, helped me understand, because I need the word. I need to be led. I cannot be in charge of my own life. Amen? Amen.
You better say that in the mirror a couple of times: I cannot be in charge of my own life. We've tried that. We only needed to try that once. That got me set on a really bad track. I don't—you don't—God, you do not have to. I do not. That one I learned in one time. One lifetime was enough. I learned that lesson. I can never be in charge of my own life. Bad things happen.
Amen? Amen. If you don't know that yet, you will be big, big doo-doo. You'll find out sooner than later. Today's essential discipleship teaching is titled "Generational Curses." Now, generational curses is one of these topics that has haunted me ever since the day that I got saved. And I say haunted, but it's not necessarily in a negative way. But when I got saved, there were very clear voices in my life. There were very, very few. I never set out to get to know preachers. I never went scrolling online to try and find interesting preachers or teachers or people in apologetics, all of that interesting stuff. That is all very interesting to me.
I love to learn, but I never set out to gather for myself teachers that, in that moment, want to teach me what my itchy ears want to hear. That sounds too much like a scripture to me that I don't want to fall right into. So, I've always been very careful, very hesitant to accept teaching and preaching voices into my life. I always let the God who I put in charge of my life, because I've proven that I cannot and should not be in charge of my life, I've always let that God that led me out of sin, I've always let that God bring the right voices into my life. And it would be of no surprise to you, and that is biblical. You can see it in everybody's life in the Bible. There's very few voices that God will bring into your life. Now, God and the Holy Spirit is not the interweb. Amen? You go scrolling there all you want. You can find everything your fleshly spiritual life desires, every interesting thing, every educational thing, so that you can sound a little bit smarter than your neighbor, everything, every topic. You can find it all, but there's very few things you need. And I learned that very early on in my walk.
The people that are closer to me, that I have had the privilege of personally discipling, know there's only four or five preachers or teachers combined together, maybe four or five, that I know God brought into my life. Some of them I do not know personally. I have only listened to their teaching or preaching through the internet. However, I know for a fact, I can tell you the testimony. I can tell you the story. I know God told me to listen to them, to learn from them, or to take on their example as something to be desired. Very few in 15 years. But on the sidelines of what God was asking me to dive into, which has always been His gospel, that's always been the center of what I want to know better every day because it is so simple that I can hardly understand it at times. And the Lord has always sent me teachers and preachers that focus in on Jesus and the gospel and the power of the cross.
But on the sidelines, a lot of Christianese sounds will come into your life, and not all of it is sent by God. Remember what the Bible says about the devil: he appears as an angel of light. No wonder that his workers appear likewise. So, we are to expect that there are going to come voices into our life that look like they came from God, that look like light, that sound like light. That doesn't mean God has sent them. We have to test it. We have to be very slow to embrace that. I remember when I first met Pastor Carter Conlon, who to very many is just trusted by the fact of his name. In all reality, even though Pastor David Wilkerson had sat under his preaching, called Pastor Carter his own pastor, beside all of that, it took me six months of sitting under Pastor Carter's leadership before I decided this man actually lives what he preaches. I actually would be willing to put my wife or my kids under his preaching. I'm now going to decide to trust him. And we would all do really, really well to make sure that if we're going to take example from someone in our life, or we're going to follow teaching and preaching in our life—in other words, we're going to let somebody else go and study, somebody else go and seek the Lord, and we're just going to drink it in from their mouth, it's the spiritual fast-food way—if we're going to do that, and we're allowed, we shouldn't only do it, but if we're going to do that, we better make sure this person knows how to make a dish and not burn it or undercook it. Amen? Amen. And so, in order for us to accept teaching into our life, we got to be very, very wise.
What some of the sounds on the sidelines of my Christian journey were about were generational curses, and they were very loud voices, and by some people greatly revered voices. If I would name some of the teachers, I can promise you hands are going to go up here if I ask you if you know them. But in all reality, even though in the flesh these seemed interesting topics, because I wanted to be free and I wanted to walk as close to Jesus as I possibly could, in my spirit there was always a little cautionary note, feeling, you name it. It was the smallest thing, but I was aware of it very clearly. And so, I just kept those things on the sidelines. And as I began to learn the scriptures better and better, and as I got to know the Lord better and better, I was very, very fortunate for the Lord to begin to teach me on this topic, particularly generational curses, and to help you learn together with me how simple and how biblical these things really are and can be resolved.
The problem with generational curses is that they are real. And so because of that, teachers that zone in on this, and this kind of becomes their shtick, what they are known for, in many people's lives becomes this unending cycle of discovering something that has been wrong in the past by some uncle's cousin that causes me to still have a little bit of a temper issue today. I'm making a joke out of that, but I have heard the most extravagant stories, mazes of the past that had to be discovered or else the root cannot be removed. That kind of thinking will get you, as a believer, really in a place where you actually begin to believe that you cannot fully be free unless this gets figured out. And unfortunately, a lot of the teaching that goes around on this topic agrees with that—that you have to figure this out. And when we can hit the mark in prayer, lay some hands, do some deliverance, then the freedom will come—to then leave an incredible amount of people that has pursued and done everything, attended every seminar they knew to find, to leave them high and dry, still stuck in all kinds of things they don't like about themselves, and they've tried everything.
Generational curses. Let's define them today. When we hear the term "generational curse," it's in your notes. It's the first fill in the blank. Generational curse: we can define it as the following. Any form of tragedy or calamity that continues to be present from generation to generation. So, it's that kind of weird accident, that kind of weird coincidence that is really no coincidence at all. And you kind of feel it's not a coincidence. And you see that thing in you that you also saw in your mom, and you didn't like it in your mom, and you really don't like it in yourself either, but it's there. And you're fighting against it, trying to suppress it, trying to keep it under wraps, but it takes a lot of effort, and it doesn't really go away even though you prayed about it. It can be illness. It can be as simple as stress, daily pressure, negative behaviors, things that you're not proud of in your behaviors. I'm not talking about random accidents. I'm talking about consistent behaviors or even reoccurring events that are an outside influence there. I have met people that—and they would have said it this way—that they have chronic bad luck. And we all chuckle because we may not have that. But I met a man, and I knew this man personally, and this was before I got saved. I've thought so much about him ever since I got saved.
But this man—you would not believe the stories. It could have been a cartoon for kids, and it was absolutely unbelievable. He couldn't turn left or right, up or down. He couldn't purchase anything. It didn't matter what he did. There would be an incredibly, to me, funny story connected to it, but it always blew up in his face. I remember one time—this is a true story—he purchased a brand-new Volvo V70 off the lot. He drove it off the lot to his business to show it to his wife. The moment he pulled up, no word of a lie, somebody was painting a windowsill right above him, and the pot of paint just dropped down straight at the middle of the car—dent in it, paint all over it, unfixable to bring it back to its original state. This was just a random Tuesday in the guy's life. This was normal. And you wouldn't believe the stories. He would purchase new equipment and put it into a barn or some kind of storage facility over the weekend because they had to clean up everything at the job to go and install it over the weekend. The barn would burn down. Every single time he did anything, it was bad luck all over it—unbelievable situations like that.
Reoccurring, consistent stuff that just keeps showing up. It's not in everybody's life, but in your life it just keeps showing up. Reoccurring events that really—you don't seem to do anything for it—it just keeps finding you. Remember, you've heard people say about others, "Oh, trouble always finds him." And there's people—and you may be one of them—trouble always finds you, or fear always finds you, or worry always finds you. That's not normal. If you're not doing anything and yet you always end up in a reoccurring event, that's worth noting. A generational curse—we define it this way: any form of tragedy or calamity that continues to be present from generation to generation. Now, before we go any deeper, I want to talk to you—and it's in your notes—about nature versus nurture. I want you to understand that concept because there's two sides to generational curses as we find them described in the Bible. Nature versus nurture is the study of separating what comes natural to you and what was taught to you. So, whatever comes natural to you, separating that from the things that we can actually trace back to somebody or a situation or an event or your own efforts teaching this to you.
That's what we're referring to when we say nature versus nurture. First, nature. Nature refers to what we call unconditioned stimulus, or in a simpler way, automatic response. This is your automatic response. There's people—they're not saved—things go bad, they automatically just take a day off, go chill, it'll all work out. They automatically don't stress. That doesn't mean they don't struggle with fear. That doesn't mean that they're immune, but they're automatic, their first response is like, "It'll work out, whatever." And then there's people—if maybe, possibly, it could go wrong, they're thinking about it all night. That can be their automatic response. That can be nature. Nobody taught you that. Nobody happened to you that instantly made you that way before that moment. You were never like that. This could be your nature. You could be a thinker or a doer: just let's get it done and then go home and never think of it again. Or you're a thinker. You overthink everything, and it's hard for you to get anything done because you're always in your head. That can be your nature. It can be your behavioral tendency. This is how you kind of are. It's your personality.
Now, for those that don't know this, your personality can be changed by Jesus. So, your personality is no excuse for bad behavior. Amen? Amen. Some of you are like, "Ooh, shoot."
I didn't come here to learn that your personality is never an excuse for bad behavior. But we will get into the biblical side of your nature being changed just later in this teaching. Let's define nurture. Nurture refers to what we call conditioned stimulus, or learned response. You learned to respond like this—learned response. This can be learned behavior through parenting, education, or experiencing. It's your own personal behavioral development. And it can be as simple as somebody in life always gave you compliments when you built something out of Legos or you built something with your hands, and so you learned that you are pretty good at working with your hands, and it gets you compliments, and it makes you feel valuable. So, you actually learned to like working with your hands. That can be a learned response that was nurtured into you, maybe encouraged into you by a parent or a mentor or someone that poured into your life.
Living for the greater good is nurtured into people. Nobody is born and likes to share. I have four kids. I don't claim that they cover the entirety of humanity, but by now I would be severely surprised at a baby that looks to share before they look for their own food. They have to be taught to share. That's nurtured into a baby. And you can teach them incredibly young, but you have to teach them to share and to live for the greater good. You have to teach them to be patient. You have to teach them to give the best away to others and keep the lesser thing for themselves. That is nurtured into a character. Character is built. Character doesn't happen to you. Character is built. And living for the greater good is nurtured into you, or it is not nurtured into you. And then you have some homework to do because you can correct that in your adult life. But living for the greater good, not for your own life, is nurtured. Pride—a good sense of pride, taking pride in doing a good job, taking pride in doing excellence—those are things that are taught. And forgiveness is nurtured.
Not liking to forgive people quickly and easily is nurtured into a person's life. Hospitality, for example, is nurtured into a person's life. Parents that find it bothersome to have someone come and live with them, or parents that find it bothersome to care for others or to show hospitality to strangers as the Bible calls us to do—parents that find that difficult to do or find that burdensome to do—kids are nurtured to protect their own space and not become hospitable. It's nurtured. It's learned behavior. We say it many times, right? "Monkey see, monkey do." You don't have to teach it all. You don't have to sit your kids down and say, "In this house, we do not do hospitality, and we surely don't easily forgive people—only if they say sorry." We don't have to actually say this to our kids. They watch us. They see us every hour of the day. It almost feels like they see us while they're asleep. There is nothing you can hide from those kids. They will watch, they will study, and they will make decisions based on what they saw in their home. Nurture: learned response. Nature: automatic response.
Let's go a little deeper now that we understand those two concepts into generational curses. Are they even biblical? Most of the basis for generational curses is found in Exodus 20:5. But we're going to look at many, many places in the scripture today to really see what does the Bible say about generational curses, and how and what does God want with them in my life.
Exodus 20:5: "You shall not bow down to them," other gods. "You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me." And somebody goes, "Well, I don't know anybody in my family that hates God." Well, when we look into the text, that word "hate" at that time in that culture meant "to love less," to put in second place, is what it means. So when we understand that and we read this, what it really says is, "I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who put Me in second place." All of a sudden, I can think of some people in my lineage. Amen?
I don't even have to go four generations away. But we're going to look at four generational curses that men will experience, that mankind will experience. First of all, Genesis 3:17: "Then to Adam He said, 'Because you have heeded the voice of your wife...'" Everybody said, "Amen." Why? "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life." "Cursed is the ground for your sake." There's a curse we experience because of disobedience to God. And that's what we all experience. And that is a nature problem. It's in your notes: cursed in disobedience to God. That is a nature problem.
Initially, in the moment for Adam and Eve—Eve first, then Adam—it seemed like it was just an action. It should have been a learned-response thing. But it changed the nature of mankind from being perfectly good, made in the likeness of God, to now being corrupted while still being made in the likeness of God. There was a nature change from that moment on. And part of how that nature change is experienced is that God said, "For your sake now, the ground is cursed. It's going to be hard for you to make ends meet. It's going to be hard for you to work all the days of your life."
Now, when a man or a woman is experiencing this generational curse in nature—our nature—these are the red flags. The red flags that I'm going to name for you, I purposefully took out of your notes. Here's why I did that: I want you to listen, and if there are ones that you think you recognize in your own life, then write them down. At the end of this study, then you can go back to them and pray through them. Cursed in disobedience to God. Red flags that that is reality for your life are these: repetitive negative feelings towards people. And it starts often with your family. If you have negative feelings towards mom, dad, sister, brother—Cain and Abel, very early on—cursed is the ground for your sake. And very early on, the first big family fight ending in a murder. Cursed generationally in nature. Negative feelings towards people—they become the focal point of that. Second one: emotional distance between parents and children. Emotional distance between parents and children. And you may have children yourself, and you find it hard to connect to your own little one. And you don't even feel it's the little one's problem. You feel you cannot really properly connect to that little one.
Maybe you're sitting here and you say, "Yo, my parents are from a different planet. They don't get it. I don't trust them. I can't talk to them about anything. I can't relate to them in any way."
You're experiencing some of that curse that God said has now come upon the earth for your sake. The third one: constant—constant being the key word. Constant disagreements—cannot properly get along with really anybody. Always arguments. Always, "I know it better." Always an answer back. Never really being teachable. Really struggling with constant disagreements. This is a big one. Dislike in your work. Dislike in having to work hard and sometimes very long days. A dislike in work is a direct derivative of this curse. If you don't like to work, you don't like to have to get things done, you don't like the responsibility, you almost feel like it is unfair and it shouldn't be happening to you. And then the last one of the red flags on cursed in disobedience to God is feeling far from God or feeling guilty.
Feeling far from God, as if He is not right here in the hearing of your voice, ready to clearly and powerfully whisper to your heart. He feels further from you than you think He's from others, or you feel like you are not perfectly clean in His sight. You still feel somewhat guilty. That is a sign of that curse in the disobedience of God. You saw it in Adam and Eve's life. What happened? They began walking in that disobedience, and they had to leave the garden. They had to be separated from the tree of life. They didn't walk the same with God ever since that moment. Even though they still believed in Him, they had promises from Him, but there was now a distance that had to be mended by the second Adam, Christ Jesus, who would come to restore that relationship back to wholeness. Amen? Amen. The second one we derive from Genesis 9:25, and this is talking about Noah. Then he said—that's Noah speaking—then he said, "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants he shall be to his brethren." The next curse, number two, based on this scripture, is cursed by men.
This includes things that were spoken over you. Things maybe that parents constantly repeated: "Well, you're no good," or "You're not the smartest, you're not the brightest in the family." Those are curses spoken over your life. And when they are spoken consistently by someone that actually has impact on you, it begins to form how you think, how you feel, how you make decisions, and it can follow you for a long time, in some cases all of your life. In the same way, parents can bless us, or grandparents or mentors can bless us and say, "Whatever you decide, I'm going to get behind you because I believe that you are going to become a great guy or a great woman." They can speak blessing, or they can speak curses. They can curse somebody and say, "Unless you do it this and this way, I don't give you my blessing." And in cursing, they do the same thing that happened in the garden. They remove themselves. They break up the relationship. And now they create, by that curse, a distance in relationship that no matter what you do, you can't fix it until they lift that curse. But they put themselves out of your life.
The nearness is now broken through that curse. This curse—cursed by man—has these red flags. If someone is struggling under a curse by man, there's often a lack of success or an experience of a lack of favor. You know, "I'm putting in the work. I'm putting in the effort. In other people's lives, that would have become a success by now. In my life, it just doesn't really work out." Lack of success, lack of favor. The next red flag is this: not able to finish what you start. You would love to finish what you start. You look up to people that finish what they start. You've prayed to finish what you start. But you just find yourself, time and time again, getting stuck, giving up on things, and left. All right? You end up in a place where you don't finish what you start.
Frustration is the third red flag. Big one. Dealing with frustrations. Feeling stuck. Feeling unable to do anything about things in your life. Even though you're trying way harder than other people do in your life, it's just not that easy. Frustration. And then the fourth one, no surprise: emotional aggravation. This is where you become inclined to easily take offense and possibly even will develop a victim mentality. Feeling like people are always out to get you. People are easily against you. People think things against you. You get all of these thoughts and feelings even though you don't even know. They haven't said it. But in your mind, you are now struggling with always thinking what others think about you.
That easily offended feeling where you're easily wounded, easily hurt way easier than other people. That doesn't mean you're not hurting, but there's a reason you're hurting that quickly.
You've seen it in children. You may have been the child. There's the kids that—they're running, they're playing with all the kids, and they go down, and you're watching it as a parent, and they get up and they wipe off the dirt and they just keep going. And you're like, "Whoa, I thought that was going to end really different." And then there's a kid—they tap their little toe so lightly and the day is over, right? But adults are no different. Sometimes people—you've thought they faked it—they tap their little toe so lightly and they get so offended, and there's just nothing you can do to fix it. And then there's people—they've really been properly wronged—and they get up and they say, "Usually happens on a Monday," and move on.
When you are struggling under the curse by man for you, you're easily inclined to take offense, to think that people think negatively about you or that they mean things negatively. It's easy for you to take on a victim mentality. Number three: Exodus 20:2 and verse 3. Let me read it to you: "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." "You shall have no other gods before Me." Number three is cursed by idolatry. And that's often self-invoked. Nobody really helped you with that. And that's nurture. That's learned behavior. Cursed by men, including the things that were spoken over you growing up, that's also nurture. Cursed by idolatry, also nurture. And you could also nurture that into your own life just by believing lies and accepting them and repeating them. You can teach your own spirit, just like David did, and encourage his own soul.
Nurture red flags are these: no ability to have a consistent prayer life. Again, not a person that doesn't want to pray. It's not like they wouldn't like to have a prayer life. It just doesn't come easy. It's not like God is helping them. It's not like the Holy Spirit is just giving a prayer life to them. No, it's almost impossible, or there seems to be no ability, no heavenly strength, to have a consistent prayer life, to talk to the Lord deeply with all of your heart on a daily basis. No ability—red flag. Number two: struggling to have faith. Easily being swayed from left to right. Doubting if you're saved, doubting if you're forgiven, doubting if you're called, doubting if you can make a difference, doubting if God will answer your prayers, doubting if God still heals, doubting if God will give you His Holy Spirit. A hard time struggling to have faith. Red flag number three. Big one. Overspending on the things of this world. That is a red flag of the curse of idolatry. Having other gods. What's another god? Whatever you believe will satisfy your heart, make your heart happy.
Whatever you believe will give you peace and trust. Finances are very often a very big idol in people's lives that love Jesus. They just have such a hard time following Him, and they don't know why. And I always like to propose: if you feel more at peace when you have $10,000 in your savings compared to having perfectly zero in your account, then finances is your idol. Where does your peace come from? Does it come from your provider, or does it come from your money? You can look at almost anything like that in life. Does this give me—do I believe that if I have this, I will have peace, I will have rest, I will sleep good at night? Or do I have all of that because I have God? Overspending on the things of this world. Fourth red flag is a big one. I've heard many people say this to a tee. If it's hard for you to concentrate when partaking in spiritual exercises, it's spiritual work. Prayer, reading, and church. That's our spiritual disciplines: prayer, reading, and church.
There's people—they wouldn't fall asleep on the job, not if their life depended on it. And the moment worship is over and they sit down, it literally falls on them. It's a spiritual condition. It literally falls on them, and it's keeping them from entering into the word and allowing the word to enter into them and enter into the deeper parts of the heart, that by the word they may be transformed, they may be renewed, they may be built up by the word. If it is hard for you to concentrate when partaking in spiritual exercises, that is a huge red flag of the curse of idolatry. Number four, Galatians 6:7: "Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, he will also reap." And that is the last one we will call by name: the cursed harvest.
The cursed harvest. Stuff is beginning to sprout up in your life now. There's no stopping it anymore. You're harvesting that one. The cursed harvest, again, self-invoked.
This is again a nurture one—learned behavior to the third and the fourth generation. Now, I do want to remind you that does mean that if you have someone in your lineage four generations ago that did this, that you're stuck with it. That is exactly what the Bible teaches, and that should make you want to run to Jesus. Here are the red flags of dealing with a cursed harvest.
Laziness. Laziness. Knowing what should be done, and you just as easily put it off to tomorrow as anything else. Knowing what should be done and just being able to put it off. Laziness. The second red flag is gluttony. Gluttony. Abusing food not for nourishment, but for comfort and enjoyment. Gluttony. Huge red flag. Third one: twisted morals. Twisted morals simply means you're able to judge somebody for something they're doing, and you're not even seeing what you're doing wrong. It's that age-old biblical story of not seeing the beam in your own eye while you try to point out that splinter in somebody else's eye, and you know exactly what they should change in their life. Twisted morals—able to judge someone in something small while you're not even seeing how far along you should have grown in Christ by now, how much you should have overcome by now. But you can really see in other people's lives what's wrong.
Twisted morals. Reluctance to seek forgiveness. Next one. That's the fourth: reluctance to seek forgiveness. I have the incredible privilege of having a lot of Slavic people in my life. And the Lord knows exactly what to put in your life to teach you. Amen. Orderly steps. And you may be the prime specimen of a Slavic example, but I have met a few, to say the least, that have a really hard time seeking forgiveness. That have a really hard time saying, "I realized I did that wrong. That's why I'm ringing your doorbell, and I'm bringing it into the light. I'm acknowledging that I have done it. I shouldn't have done it. I apologize." You think that one's nurture or nature? Nurture. Being taught to seek forgiveness. Being taught to openly talk about it when you do something wrong. Being taught to openly acknowledge it. When you ran late because you decided to not prioritize somebody else's time—you cared way more about your own and had no problem making someone else wait.
When you have been taught, you don't get stuck. But with the cursed harvest, what does the word say? You reap what you sow. And so whatever you are sowing, you begin to reap into your own life. And the reluctance to seek forgiveness is a part of that. It is what you begin to reap when you are not sowing good into others, when you are not giving away that best thing. When, as a kid, you had never been taught to take the biggest of two candies and hand that one to your friend. When you are not sowing richly around you in life, then you're going to reap what you sow. And there's going to be a lot of things withheld from you. And you may even get upset about it. And even reluctance to seek forgiveness. Seeking forgiveness is sowing into relationship. It is sowing into the feelings and the hurts of others, that they will have an easier way to heal, an easier way to restore relationship, because you didn't wait. You went to seek forgiveness. You didn't wait for them to come to you and say, "Hey, I forgive you," and then you said, "For what?" No, you acknowledged what you did and you went to seek forgiveness.
A red flag under the cursed harvest is you don't really do that much. And I promise you, if you don't do it much, you're doing this. You are reluctant to seek forgiveness because we all fail miserably all the time. And if you have not decided to seek forgiveness for those things, I'm not even talking about forgiveness from Jesus. You may have that forgiveness, and you may never have to ask for it again. But along the way, we wronged some people. We overlooked some people unintentionally. We may have hurt some people. Maybe sometimes it was even intentional. But especially when it's not and you find out, what do you do? Do you make it a priority to right away go and seek forgiveness because you hate that you wronged or hurt or made someone feel negative feelings? You hate that. No. Here, a red flag is the reluctance to seek forgiveness. The next one is unable to follow through with changes in daily life. You say you're going to change stuff, and you're just never able to really actually consistently do it.
If you do it for two and a half weeks, and you do it vigorously and you're passionate and you're excited and you're kind of telling everybody about it—January is great for gym memberships—but that's really kind of what your life is like. You start that new thing and you're excited about it, and two and a half weeks later it's like you've literally kind of forgotten it. Like somebody comes, "Hey, how is it going at the gym?" and you're like, "Gym? Oh, right. Yeah. No, no. Yeah, yeah." When that is consistent in your life—starting things and you don't really have the ability to follow through with the changes in your life—red flag. And the last one on the cursed harvest: always one step forward and two steps back feelings. When you feel very often that you take one step forward and then something happens and it's like you're taking two steps back. When you feel that regularly and consistently, major red flag. Not everybody feels that way. Not everybody experiences that. And here is the big kicker: "I did nothing wrong." That's how you feel. "I didn't really do anything wrong." And it's so unclear as to what caused this. "I don't deserve this. I didn't do anything wrong. I don't know how this happened."
Here's a great point: generational curses bring consequences of sins, not always guilt. It's right there in your notes, so fill in the blank. Generational curses bring consequences of sins, not always guilt. So you may actually feel, "I did nothing wrong, but here I am kind of dealing with stuff." And that's what makes generational curses so confusing because they are real. They can touch your life, but you may not have the guilt of the sin that technically caused it. Ezekiel 18:20. I'll read it to you: "The soul who sins shall die." Here it comes: "The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." In other words, nothing that your dad does can make you righteous before God, and nothing your dad does can make you go to hell. However, there are consequences of sins of other people that most definitely touch our lives and come upon our lives.
Consequences, but not the guilt of the sin. The word makes it very, very clear. The guilt for sin does not pass on from generation to generation. However, the influence, and in some cases the consequences, do pass on. Right there—your fill in the blank. Guilt for sin does not pass on. However, the influence, and in some cases consequences, do pass on. Now, here we're going to have a fun one. What does science say? What does science say? Science uses the term generational trauma instead of generational curses. Generational trauma states that the calamities and tragedies in a parent's life can, as it were, push itself onto the life of the child and consequently cause more tragedy and more trauma. Here I will give you some extraordinary numbers that really make you quiet in your soul. Research shows that the child of an addicted parent is 45 to 79% more likely to end up in addiction. Think about that one for a moment. The child of an addicted parent is 45 to 79% more likely to end up in addiction.
Now, let's look at the good stuff: God's solution for generational curses. Up until this moment, all I've been trying to have you see is that these things are actually in the word. The word says that the Lord will visit those iniquities of the fathers to the third and the fourth generation, which is a terrible, horrendous reality of how our actions, or the lack of our actions, are going to ruin, for certain, our children's lives for generations to come. But God did not leave it at that.
And so we're going to look at those two aspects, the nurture and the nature. How does God fix it? How are unconditioned nature curses broken? How are unconditioned nature curses broken?
So, this is the personality stuff, the nature stuff, the things you don't like about your personality, the way that you do things a little sinful or a little selfish or a little self-centered, the same way I saw my mom do. I hated it while I saw it growing up. Now I'm here beginning to turn out the same way. How in the world is this happening to me? It's almost like I have no control over it. It's almost like it's actually being done to me. Nature. How are nature curses broken? Galatians 3:13 and 14. Incredible. Read this with me. "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."
Here we literally read in the word that He became a curse for us so that blessing instead may come upon every single one of us, that we may be the kind of people that actually receive the promise of God's Spirit through faith. See, Jesus came into this world to redeem a cursed man and a cursed woman. And the way He did it was by taking the curse upon Himself and dying even a cursed death. But He died in your place, so there is no cursed death for you to live anymore. He took on the curse while He was still alive, so there is no curse to live for you anymore. He became a curse for us. And this is how God turns the curse around: through the cross of Jesus Christ. For it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree." I want you to understand that Jesus let the curse take its full effect. Think on that for just a second. Jesus let the curse take its full effect all the way unto death, separated from God. Remember in the garden—separated from God. What did Jesus cry out on the cross? "Father, Father, why have You forsaken Me?" Why am I cursed, separated from You?
Jesus chose to let the curse that was upon every single one of us have its full effect so that that curse can fully be fulfilled and run out of its strength. "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree." God has a solution to any curse a man or a woman may find themselves stuck in, and it is always found at the cross of Jesus Christ. Now, you may be online or you may be sitting here, and in your heart you say, "Pastor, well, I kind of already knew that. But there seems to be stuff in my life, even though I already know this cross story. I know Jesus became the curse on my behalf. I know I'm supposed to be free from all this curse stuff. But when you look at those red flags, I wrote down quite a few." Well, let's look at the conditioned ones. Your nature has been redeemed, been made a new creation in Christ Jesus. What about your nurture? How are conditioned curses broken? The learned responses, the nurture in your life, how are they broken? Psalm 32:8 and Matthew 4:19 and 20. First Psalm 32:8: I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with my eye. Matthew 4:19 and 20: Then He said to them, “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.” Another translation says, “I will make you become fishers of men.” They immediately left their nets and followed Him.
Church, becoming a disciple of Jesus means you are now learning from Him. And who learns from Him becomes more and more like Him. Here is your fill-in-the-blank: Conditioned curses are broken through disciplehip. Conditioned curses are broken through disciplehip. Your learned responses to life, to coping with life, to dealing with life, to dealing with people, they are broken the moment you give away control and you gift away your trust and you start following someone else’s example. Now He has the opportunity to learn, to teach you. Now He can learn from Him. Discipleship leads into a life free from conditioned curses. You’ve heard it testified, church so many times by me, by others, that instantly when I came to Christ Jesus. You’ve heard so many people say it. Instantly when I came to Christ Jesus, all kinds of stuff was instantly changed. But then, oh boy, was there a lot of stuff that I had to grow out of, that had to get figured out along the way that nature instantly changed.
Nurture, I’m going to have to now start to learn from Jesus. And as I walk with Him and grow with Him, more and more of that stuff, more and more of those learned responses in life begin to fall off. Discipleship leads into a life free from conditioned curses. Now, here’s the big question. How do we enter into disciplehip? How can I become a true disciple of Jesus Christ? I’m going to give you three scriptures in the Word that tell you exactly. First one, John 13:35.
By this all will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another. If you have love for one another, if you desire for the poorest example of a Christian in your life to do just absolutely great, you’re not offended with having to support them.
You’re not inconvenienced by them coming into your life. You’re not inconvenienced by having to help them back up and support them and encourage them. I mean, we’ve had—can I just pick on you for a minute—we’ve had Vika live with us for two years. That there wasn’t always the easiest days. And what we learned by choosing discipleship for her and choosing hospitality towards her, the Lord has led us into that. But to consistently continue—because in the first, I think, half a year she wasn’t having any of it. She wanted to stay but not the discipleship. And Jesus began to teach our heart as we continue to lock in to His heart of hospitality. Jesus began to teach us His heart of care and kindness and patience and love towards someone who is worth it. And when we begin to learn from Jesus how to love one another, we can by loving somebody even help them overcome their own obstacles. That’s how Jesus leads us. That’s how Jesus teaches us. And that all started in our life. It started with saying, “Our home is never our own.”
Our home is never our own. Lord, You want to send anyone into this home. This home belongs to You. This home belongs to Your call, Your purpose, Your kingdom, what You seek to do in our generation. Lord God, go ahead. You use this home and by, oh my word, has He? He’s used it and He’s caused it to bear fruit beyond what we could ever imagine. Love doesn’t have to be easy, but it is a choice. And that is how we become disciples of Jesus. We choose love when it hurts, when it’s inconvenient, when it doesn’t work for my life or for my good or for my happiness or for my convenience, for my privacy. By this all will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another. Second scripture, John 8:31. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.” They wanted to abide in the Ten Commandments, they wanted to abide in the rules and regulations and the temple made with the hands of man.
They did not want to abide in what Jesus was bringing into their life. They did not want to abide in the word. They did not want to abide in what the scriptures were really pointing towards. They did not want to abide in the revealed word of God. And He told them, “If you now believe Me, if you now begin to abide in My word, not just put your trust in those commandments, not just put your trust in the things you want to pick and choose from the word. If you give yourself completely to My word, all of it is about you. All of it you’re going to have to live out. All of it is going to come to pass in your life if you believe and trust Me. Never settle for less. If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.” And then Luke 20:14–27. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. A warning. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. And I know for a fact there’s many people here. You have seen people that broke free from the curse in their nature. And boy, have they been struggling ever since with all kinds of stuff. And it makes no sense because they had such a powerful testimony. And I’ve said this before when I did a teaching on backsliding.
The only people in the Bible and in my human experience, the only people I have ever seen backsliding from where they came are people that limited Jesus in what He was allowed to tell them to do or to tell them to leave behind or tell them where to go. This is the kind of people that said, “God, I’m going to follow You with all my heart, but You’re not going to call me out of my church. God, I’m going to follow You with all of my heart, but You’re not calling me out of my country. God, I’m gonna follow You with all of my heart, but I’m not giving up my secular job. God, I’m gonna follow You with all of my heart, but You know who I want to marry. And that’s already said in my heart, I’mma pursue the girl. I’mma pursue the guy. I'mma have my man. I'mmahave my woman. I’m going to pick who I’m going to pick. It’s always been the person that took something and said, “God, this one I have already decided on.” And people do it in their heart. They don’t actually have this conversation. It’s a condition of the heart.
But Jesus says, “Whoever does not bear his cross, whoever does not say, I am dead to this life, a lot I wanted, I just didn’t get to do it. I died an untimely death. I’m going to bear my cross.” Whoever doesn’t do it, He says, cannot be My disciple. You’re not going to walk in that level of freedom, that level of change that is absolutely possible for anyone and everyone that comes to Him. Here’s the fill-in-the-blank in your note: The curse in your nature broken off of you as Christ went on the cross. The curse in your nurture broken off as you go through the cross.
The curse in your nature broken off of you as Christ went on the cross and became a curse for us. The curse in your nurture, your behaviors broken off of you as you go through the cross.
Christ went on the cross to pay for your sins. For the sins of your father, for the sins of your grandfather. He paid for the sins of the world. Paid for the sin of Adam and Eve. All those sins paid for.
But you and I need to follow Jesus and go through the cross to walk into the new life that He has for us and become free from all those old behaviors, those old learned things of how we used to do life before we had a new nature. Now, here’s the incredible promise. Here’s the incredible promise of God to every single one of us. Anyone who believes on the cross of Christ and follows Him through that cross picks up their cross and follows Him. Here’s the promise: You’ll never again walk under a curse. Never. But here’s maybe even for some of us the biggest point: And you will never again cause a curse. You will never again cause a curse in those who come after you. That’s the message of the cross of Jesus Christ. He became a curse for us so that you would never again have to live under a curse. That’s hard for you to accept. Repent of your unbelief. Believe that the cross of Jesus covers the fulfillment of any curse that was ever caused upon your life, ever carried or spoken over your life. He broke that curse. He took it upon Himself. He allowed that curse to have its full effect. But He rose from the dead and broke it. But one that is so dear to me having a past so full of sin.
You will never again cause a curse because there’s no curse to inherit from your life anymore. You’ve become heirs with Christ. That means you are inheriting alongside of Christ. Same inheritance He’s getting, you’re getting. You’re heirs with Christ. And so those who come now after you are greatly favored, greatly blessed. Remember, the righteous receives their righteousness. The sinner receives their sin, the unrighteousness for the unrighteous. Just because you have been made righteous, just because you’ve been made family of God doesn’t mean your kids are automatically saved. But they are highly favored. The Bible calls them holy. The Spirit of God will begin to speak to their heart. They will have to reject God outright. They will have to stand against Him and push Him away from themselves in order to get away from Him. And He will still pursue them because they are in your heart and He seeks to give you the desire of your heart.
You will never again cause a curse in the lives of others. You will bring blessing and you will bring revival and newness of life every place your life touches. That’s the promise. And if you feel you don’t have that, a life free from any curse, any separation from God, any separation from His favor, any separation from His nearness, any separation from His Spirit, if you don’t feel that you are free from every way and every possible curse in the world, or if you are worried that you’re going to bring something into your kid’s life, then this is what you need tonight. You need to never again be under a curse. You need to know that you will never again bring a curse in someone else’s life. To not just be free, but to know that never again will I produce something that puts somebody else in shackles.
-Pastor Stan Mons
