and then you add to this a burden that can really I think put people into bondage because especially with the way that this is often taught is it's not just a onetime thing you have to keep going back for deliverance uh you know when when you maybe commit a sin or maybe God shows you quote unquote something else that happened in your and bloodline and something like that and there's just no biblical warrant for it [Music] well hey everyone welcome to the show I'm Alisa Childers this is the Alisa Childers podcast and as always it's our goal to help equip Christians to identify the core beliefs of historic Christianity discern its counterfeits and proclaim the gospel with Clarity kindness and truth and we hope to do that today as we continue our series on Deliverance Ministry so this is episode four we have already talked about so many topics that relate to Deliverance Ministry basically what we're doing is just asking the question should Christians practice Deliverance Ministry is this something that the Bible models for us is it something it mandates for us and instructs us to do as Christians and so we've covered tons of topics already and we are now going to be talking about generational curses so maybe you've heard that if you if you're a Christian there could have been somebody maybe in your ancestry in your family line who committed witchcraft or some other type of sin and therefore it's your responsibility to figure out what that is maybe ask the Holy Spirit to reveal that to you and then you need to name that and then you need to verbally renounce that and break this curse that is over you in your bloodline today we're going to go to scripture is this what scripture teaches we're going to go to some passages that are often used to support the idea of generational curses and ask the question is this what that passage is teaching and so we're going to dive into that with my guests in just a moment Dr Doug git and Dr Richard how um but I hope that you have gotten to come along with us so far of course on Sunday we had episode three with Simon brace trying to figure out if there's a different protocol that is required for other countries and uh versus what is going on here in America is there really more demonic activity going on in other countries he grew up and lives in uh South Africa so we're dealing with it from that perspective and going to scripture again but I hope you get a lot out of this episode today and without any further Ado let's get into it is generational curses something that the Bible teaches if anyone is joining us for the first time again just encourage you guys to go back and listen to episodes one and two where we talk about this whole issue of demonization we talk about uh binding demons we talk about does the devil have legal rights some of these teachings that are very common in Deliverance Ministries and today we're going to be talking about the concept of generational curses which it seems is maybe the one of the teachings that's the most common across the spectrum of Deliverance Ministries almost every Deliverance Minister that I have read and looked at that in my research teaches some version of the idea of generational curses and so we'll get to that in just a moment but I thought maybe each of us could just take a few minutes and share some introductory thoughts about what you're thinking on this topic and and as we've kind of come now to episode three uh I I'll start by saying some random thoughts that might not fit into a very particular you know framework or topic that we're going to be discussing just a couple of thoughts that I've had uh as this Series has gone around is you know I've been looking at some of these Deliverance ministers online the more the YouTube ones the ones that are maybe on the more extreme end of the of the spectrum there and I found this event called uh Mass Dallas Mass deliverance and this is something that apparently happened maybe in 2023 or I guess there's been three of them and then there's another one going to happen in just a few days on June 1st in Dallas and it's called Dallas Mass Deliverance where I don't know how many thousands of people gathered together made Deliverance ministers from all over the country go there and I guess perform uh Deliverance here's what it says uh on the description of this one Minister it says God is on schedule to release another wave of real Deliverance in Dallas Texas demons are real oppression is real ignoring the devil is inviting him to operate Jesus is ready to break you free from demonic oppression thousands will be eternally impacted by the Holy Spirit and then there's a link uh where you can reserve your seat and come and receive deliverance and as I saw this one of the thoughts that really occurred to me in my mind mind and I went and I looked at every instance in the gospels where that word diamondi is used that many Deliverance ministers inter uh translate as demonized which and again I pointed this out last time in the lexicons and in most of the Bible translations it's it's in uh translated as a demon possessed and that's typically how that word has been viewed but I looked at all 13 times this is used in the New Testament and there is not one time that a a demon-possessed person D Dam dimite I always have trouble saying it came to Jesus of their own accord to receive deliverance and the one that somebody might bring up might be the uh when Jesus heals what is called Legion and it says that he went Jesus went over to where this person was and the person in in Matthew and this is also recorded in Mark where he saw Jesus from afar he ran and fell down before him and crying out with the loud voice he says what have you to do with me Jesus Son of the most high God do not please do not torment me so basically this wasn't an instance of somebody falling down before Jesus saying oh please heal me please deliver me it was the demon addressing Jesus just basically asking to not be tormented and so that's the closest you might be able to come to somebody but it's not that's not what's happening and in every other case it's people bringing those uh who are possessed by demons it's people coming to Jesus on behalf of someone else to receive Deliverance for someone else but you never I just thought that was an interesting point is that you don't have a case of somebody who is Diamond idmi Coming to Jesus saying I I need to be set free I want to be delivered and so um people can just think about that and maybe take that uh as they will but the other thought that I had that was very interesting for me was when the Bible talks about works of the flesh as I read through the Epistles I see so many times I'm I've told my audience I'm memorizing I'm trying to memorize the whole book of First Peter and continually it's telling you abstain from the lust of the flesh put away all works of the Flesh and in Galatians 5:19 it says what the works of the flesh are now works of the flesh would be your sins sins that are flowing out of your sinful nature it says the works of the flesh are evident sexual immorality impurity sensuality idolatry sorcery emnity Strife jealousy fits of anger rivalries dissensions divisions Envy drunkenness ories and things like like these I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God it's very interesting to me that even sorceries some translations say witchcraft is listed in this new testament context as a work of the flesh it's actually a sin from your heart and there's not like a special category that's made for that where you'd have to do this different kind of Deliverance protocol but the answer for all of these things would be repentance and so I thought that was just kind of an interesting thing that that um came out in my study this week so with that said that's kind of a couple thoughts I had Richard what are you thinking as we go into episode three here so one of the things I'm very interested in what we'll discover in our discussion about generational curses is the fact that that my maternal grandfather was actually bald so maybe there's something there that I can I can learn about generational curses well you know kenth Copeland well Kenneth Copeland actually had his whole audience you just you missed the meeting you should have been there that's right I I saw that I I need to go back and look at that video and stuff so back in my day if you um got interested in buying a new car let's say and you got interested in a particular red car then you began to notice almost everywhere you looked you saw red cars that you never noticed before they seem to be everywhere now the modern version of that which we have a more causal explanation for is once this subject came on directly on my radar screen we started having these discussions I was I was amazed at how much there actually was out there in social media regarding Deliverance Ministries and uh maybe because of the way I was doing the searches most of what I found were Enthusiast about Deliverance Ministries here's how to know like for example I saw recently where how you could know that you were called to do Deliverance Ministries and out of about the seven signs that you were called six of them would be true hopefully of every Christian you have a love for your fellow man you have a love for God's word you know these you say well yeah that's all kind of true for everybody but it was amazing to me how much there is out there on on uh Deliverance Ministries one of the things that's that's come to the four recently and I think this is something we'll find occasion to talk about even in this episode is the I don't want to be too uncharitable in my characterization but almost a carelessness with which some Christians treat their scriptures and ignore context and I don't I don't mean necessarily the verses before and after the one verse you're quoting which that's important for sure but even a broad context of the entire scriptures where people can pluck out verses having to do with the nation Israel and then just uh conveniently appli them to their own lives and I think that'll come out in some of our analyses of some of the apologetic that's given for Deliverance Ministries that is a strategic uh ignoring of certain types of promises or certain types of warnings that might acre to Israel in the context of their Covenant with God through the law of Moses versus the Christian who uh has a totally different if you will New Covenant with God not according to the law of Moses so I think uh not surprisingly a lot of these things are going to stand or fall in terms of the arguments as to how careful we are with our hermeneutic and don't treat the Bible as if it's a stack of Hallmark cards where we can just pluck one out and read it and it's heartwarming and maybe even uh encouraging in some respects but we completely ignore whether or not who was being promised or who was being warned even has anything to do with us as Christians today so be an occasion for some careful treatment of the word of God I think yeah that's a good word and I'm going to come to you uh Doug in just a second but just to comment on what you're saying there Richard for many years I was one of those Christians that claimed Jeremiah 29:11 I was one of those Christians that claimed you know if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray I will hear from heaven and he forgive or forgive them and hear their land and I would claim that as a promise and even versus like you know you'll be blessed in the city you'll be blessed in the field and then when I realized that there that I was doing what you're describing almost taking the Bible like a stack of Hallmark cards and then you realize that there's also a curse associated with each one of those blessings that if you don't do it you're going to be cursed in the city you're going to be cursed in the field so we're actually as New Testament Christians should be glad that we are in a New Covenant now and and so what that means though is that we can't always claim promises that were made to specific people for specific purposes in time um now I always like to encourage people that you know for anyone out there that claims Jeremiah 2911 which um I know the plans I have for you says the Lord to prosper you and and that sort of thing um you know in the New Testament it says God works together all things for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose and he's going to even take your sufferings and work those for your good but it doesn't mean you're going to be healthy wealthy and you know all that stuff that people tend to use those verses to claim so I appreciate you saying that as I'm one of those people who had to you would have pried Jeremiah 29:11 out of my cold dead hand at one point in my life and thankfully Southern Evangelical Seminary helped me understand and they did pry it out of my living hand and now I I have a much better way of understanding the Bible so I for anyone on the is listening on audio as I said that Richard took a big sip out of his Southern Evangelical Seminary Coffee Mug there so that's why we were laughing but yeah I I was so thankful to learn proper hermeneutics that there is a correct way to interpret the Bible and you can't just read an Old Testament verse and then whatever kind of comes to your heart and mind in whatever situation you're in you can use that to apply to that it doesn't it just doesn't work that way and so I just just to kind of make it this just came to mind we're not suggesting that if in every instance that someone was using a verse out of context we're not always suggesting that the conclusion they were trying to prove is false right I mean if I read in the newspaper and the account of the doctors commenting on the surgery of a famous first lady let's say and that they were optimistic that she would have a full recovery from her knee surgery let's say uh it doesn't mean that if if I read that in the newspaper and took that to mean that my mom's knee surgery they were all confident of that doesn't mean my mom's knee surgery won't have a full recovery either it just means that that's not what that passage and that newspaper is talking about and that's an important principle that even if the conclusion is right if we get used used to careless hermeneutics eventually we'll come to conclusions that aren't right because we weren't guarded in the way we were treating verses of scripture in context yeah very good Doug any thoughts as we go into episode three here yeah well I concur with what's been shared and uh I would say uh just thinking about what we've talked about so far and the further uh reflection I've been doing uh since our last episode about the topic um what's really noteworthy to me is how recent Deliverance Ministry is as a movement within the church uh really it's it's less than a hundred years since it took root and uh became a thing and and began to grow in virgent to the point where it is today and I think that's that's worth noting for two reasons one is that you don't see it through the whole history of the church reflected with it to the same degree of magnitude that you do today and uh that I think we should give us pause at least to ask well now what happened mid 20th century uh what was going on then that might have brought us to this point where we were searching for answers that uh people were not particularly concerned uh with prior to that now I don't mean that there weren't anteed I read a really good book recently by John nevus who was a late 19th century missionary uh to China uh who was quite interested in understanding better uh how demons are involved uh in the lives of people especially those who are within animist cultures like he was at the time and he he wrote a really amazing Treatise on this topic which does not um endorse Deliverance min Myster of the sort that we've been talking about today and yet his eyes were open to the reality of demons just as ours are but uh it hadn't led him to the conclusions that so many have reached today that's really interesting to me so that even though he had lots of experiential data to contend with he sought to be absolutely biblical in his conclusions about practice and didn't come to the conclusions that so many in Deliverance Ministry do now and yet many will refer back to his work because it's such strong evidence that on the mission field uh people do encounter manifestations of demonic activity that are not as familiar to people in the west though that has been changing and uh so there's that another thought I have is that uh the Paradigm itself that I've called the Paradigm of Deliverance Ministry which is reflected in different models um you know it has a certain texture to it that is novel and it's that concern that sticks with me here and I noticed that uh many people have uh developed their models around experiences they've had rather than around scripture and it's easy to illustrate this I mean let's just take for example the ministry of Jesus where he practiced uh Deliverance by casting out demons we know that this was something he did with some frequency because there are some general summary statements to that effect in the various gospels but we know of five individual instances that involve specific individuals that are recounted by one or the other or more than one gospel writer we have four gospels for this but only five actual accounts of Deliverance by casting out demons and if uh you ask people what is requ ired for Deliverance Ministry what practices should we engage in uh often times they'll say at the very beginning you have to start with repentance repentance from sin and whatever it was that gave place to to the devil in the life of the person uh and then beyond that you you need to um maybe cancel uh a debt that you owe to Satan or a right that you have given over to him we discussed that last time uh and then you need to move on with deliverance and casting out demons well news flash in none of the five instances that we have where Jesus cast out demons does repentance get recorded in no single case do we have repentance on the part of the individual uh that includes the Gathering it includes the woman who was bent over it includes the young boy and the young girl who from very young in life were tormented by demons and so on so uh why is it then that Deliverance ministers insist on following the practices of Jesus but see no we see no evidence of repentance even for sin uh in any of the five cases that are detailed for us or at least told to us in some detail even if it's a concise statement of it and not only that but uh Deliverance Ministries in in the various models and various forms of them um presume to uh know and need to know what caused the demons to be there in the first place and usually they will say it's sin in the life of the person or it's by means of some sort of transference as we'll be discussing today from ancestors past generations of their own sins or their engagement in occultic or demonic practices well again that's absent in all of the five cases of Jesus own example uh we don't know what caused the demoniac uh the gatherin or the garene to be demonized we have no idea what that is the text doesn't tell us it tells us symptoms it tells us consequences and it tells us what Jesus did about it but it doesn't say why he was demonized it doesn't say that about any of the five cases clear cases where casting out demons is included and yet uh Deliverance ministers today will say that they're learning how to do this and practice their Deliverance uh techniques from the example of Jesus and I've just given two examples of things that they do that cannot be found in the practice of Jesus now this isn't to say that Jesus uh didn't concern himself with their sins and the need for repentance but think about this even when he uh healed individuals like the paralytic and there's no indication that this was caused by Demons by the way but he is lowered through the roof of a home where Jesus is preaching and the first thing he does is he says that the man's sins are forgiven so he deals with the man's sin condition first and then he heals him he heals him not by casting out demons but by restoring his limbs so that he can stand up and walk and yet when he's dealing with demons people who who must have demons Cast Away and cast aside we don't have the same emphasis on freedom from sin first that's just amazing to me yeah uh yet it is always a major feature of Deliverance Ministry my general Point here is just simply this observation that whereas uh I might be criticized for not following example of Jesus in casting out demons for deliverance uh and and people who object to my understanding of what was going on there say but we're following the example of Jesus I say well you're not following it very closely if you're insisting on uh methodologies that we don't see Illustrated in the ministry of Jesus among the demonized so um that's a those people need to give an account for why uh they're adding to what we know from Jesus own example when they teach about Deliverance today so those are a few of my own uh sort of summary thoughts of of uh you know in recent days quick break to tell you about seven weeks coffee America's pro-life coffee company they are on a mission to fund the pro-life movement one cup of coffee at a time they're called 7 weeks coffee because at 7 weeks a baby is the size of a coffee bean and it's the same time a heartbeat is clearly detected on an ultrasound and that's why they donate 10% of every sale to support Pregnancy Care Centers all across the country to date they've raised over $800,000 for these centers and they've saved thousands of lives I love the coffee it's really high quality it's uh mold free pesticide free shade grown low acid truly organically farmed it checks all the boxes and right now when you subscribe to 7 weeks Cofe you receive a free limited edition lent tote this is designed to be a daily reminder to pray and fast so go to 7weeks coffee.com and you're going to save 15% forever when you subscribe but if you use my code Alisa you're going to get an additional 10% off your first order so that's 25% total savings on your first order plus your free gift again go to 7weeks coffee.com use my code Alisa yeah and I think to your point it just further shows how so much of what's practiced in Deliverance Ministry is speculative and extra biblical people are coming up with all sorts of protocols and ways of interacting and casting out and doing all these things that are not instructed or modeled in scripture and we see that a lot and and as we've talked about in previous episodes just the how much the models can vary due to the fact and and you know one thing I was thinking about too is there are very clear instructions even on things that Christians might disagree about like baptism we disagree about how to go about baptizing people right baptis and Presbyterians have different views on this but nobody's arguing that that baptism is optional like bapt we are commanded to be baptized right that's part of the command of of the instructions we have whereas there's no command to go through Deliverance as a Christian there's nothing instructive about it in scripture there's nothing even modeled in scripture of a Christian doing Deliverance on another Christian and I think that's the thing I I want us to keep our eyes on as as people listen to us is a lot of people will go maybe to the gospels or or times when Jesus has done that or given authority to the 12 or the 70 but we're we're talking about what what is mandated in scripture for us and we don't see it it's not even a part like I was just looking at uh different verses about the Christian Life and where it says here even bless those who persecute you bless them and do not curse them this is from uh where am I here this is Romans 12 uh it says Rejoice with those who Rejoice weep with those who weep live in harmony with one another don't be hottie uh associate with the lowly never be wise in your own sight don't repay evil for evil but uh give thought to what you do is is Honorable in the sight of all if you go down it sayso not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good I mean what a perfect opportunity for the Bible to say don't be overcome by evil go to your deliverance Minister and do your deliverance right it doesn't it doesn't say that and so um I I think that even in Colossians I think this is such a beautiful passage uh that says see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition according to to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ that is such a powerful verse that is so applicable here because what we see people practicing so often and again not everybody but just in our assessment of these movements you see so much stuff that is just according to human tradition and and people are practicing this and they're being um taken captive by this idea that I've got to keep doing Deliverance Ministry and if I commit a sin I've got to go back to the Deliverance Minister and then I've got to do Deliverance maintenance to make sure I haven't picked up any other demons and and it says right here this is don't be taken captive by things that are according to human tradition there's nothing in Scripture that would indicate that that's the case that you need to be doing that and then if you if you go down to uh the end of that passage it says and you were dead in your trespasses and and the uncircumcision of your flesh God Made Alive together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands this he set aside nailing it to the Cross he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing triumphing over them in you and that's the model that we have is we know that Jesus has defeated Satan greater is he that is in us than he that's in the world so when we're saying by the way that you know there's no protocol of Deliverance Ministry in the Bible it's not an argument from Silence the Bible has quite a bit to say and and we're going to be doing a whole episode on what the Bible actually does have to say on these things but uh just in reflecting on these things it's just I I think I'm more sure than e ever that this is something that is maybe even more Insidious than I thought when we started this this whole EP uh Series so with that said we're going to get into deliver uh Deliverance Ministry teaching about generational curses ancestral sins sometimes it's called and what I'd like to do is just give a an example of where this is taught uh again like we've noted before there can be different ways this is brought about but I found one that I think is pretty common in fact many people will be familiar with Neil Anderson and his book bondage breaker this is something that is practiced not just in charismatic churches but this bondage breaker curriculum and and um book is celebrated by Christians of all denominations that I I'm aware of and uh Neil Anderson does teach generational curses and here's how he lays it out and this is a a quote the Bible declares that the iniquities of one generation can be visited onto the third and fourth generations of those who hate God but God's blessings will be poured out on thousands of generations of those who love and Obey him and that's from Exodus 20: 4-6 he continues the iniquities of one generation can adversely affect future ones unless those sins are renounced and your new spiritual Heritage in Christ is claimed this cycle of abuse and all negative influences can be stopped through genuine repentance you are not guilty of your ancestor sins but because of their sins you have been affected by their influence Jesus said that after we have been fully trained we will be like teachers Luke 6:40 and Peter wrote that you were redeemed from your feudal way of life inherited from your forefathers 1 Peter 1:18 ask the Lord to reveal your ancestral sins then renounce them as follows and he gives a sample prayer which goes like this dear heavenly father please reveal to my mind all the sins of my ancestors that have been passed down through Family Lines as a new creation in Christ I want to experience my freedom from those influences and to walk in my new identity as a child of God in Jesus name I pray amen he goes on listen carefully to what the Holy Spirit May reveal and list anything that comes to your mind God May reveal a cultic uh sorry God May reveal cultic and occultic religious practices of your ancestors practices that you were not aware of also every family has instances of mental illness sickness divorce sexual sin anger depression fear violence abuse Etc when nothing else comes to mind conclude with this Lord I renounce and then name all the family sins that God brings to your mind and that's an end quote there so then he continues with declaration prayers in which the reader is to quote reject and disown all the sins of my ancestors I declare myself to be free from those harmful influ harmful influences and quote I renounce any and all satanic attacks and assignments directed against me and my Ministry so I'll give a couple of thoughts uh on that and then we'll we'll kind of see what you guys have to see about it as well but it's interesting that he invokes 1 Peter 1:18 here because that is a passage again I've been memorizing and in its full context what it is talking about here is that if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's Deeds conduct yourself with fear throughout the time of your Exile knowing you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers not with perishable things such as silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ like a lamb without blemish or spot so if you're in Christ you were already ransomed from these things and there's nothing in the context of this that would indicate it's talking about demons or ultic practices it's sin it's talking about Sin and again as I said in the opening one of the works of the flesh is things like Witchcraft and sorcery and and right here there's no indication that you are supposed to go back and do some protocol of renouncing and asking God to show you if there's somebody in your past who has done something like this uh it's all really quite simple and people tend to try to make it complicated I think when they uh are in the context of Deliverance Ministry now the passage that he primarily refers to here is Exodus 20: 4-5 I'll read that and then I'll throw it over to you guys for your thoughts it says here you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the Earth You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my Commandments of course there's other times in scripture where it says things like that in numbers 141 17 and 18 it says the Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love forgiving iniquity and transgression but he will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation uh please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now Richard let's let's go to you what are your general thoughts about how he's handling scripture here with that Exodus 20 verse and even trying to tie it to Luke 640 1 Peter 1:18 and if that does warrant a a protocol of saying these very specific prayers of of renouncing certain things and uh being made aware of things that have happened in your family line I don't think there's a clear example of the principle we've already touched on and we can unpack even more of uh how a failed hermeneutic can really lead to bad theology so here we got a passage that I would argue in the context is part of the Covenant that Israel has with God through Moses which is distinguished even from the Covenant through Abraham which was unilateral the Covenant with Moses was bilateral and God made promises to the nation in terms of flourishing them and he made warning wargs to them what would happen if they turned away from him and the bad things that would happen to the nation would fall out for Generations so that even if the generation uh that that actually turned away from the Lord has perished had already died the the the deleterious effects of Israel turning away from God would still fall out for a number of generations this had nothing to do with us today as far as my grandmother dabbling with a Ouija board is somehow going to impinge on my quality of life and I have to somehow go find that out and by the way the the the things that the nation would do that would result in God's cursing if you can use that word or judgment I think could' be better those things weren't Mysteries they weren't things that had you just go they had to go and sort of figure out what they were doing they're explicitly laid out in terms of false false Idols for example that you just read so it's very clear what the obligations of the nation were and the promises the nation to flourish them and the promises to the nation to judge them were made explicit to the nation they didn't even necessarily fall out to each individual Israelite for example you have the promise that God made to the nation to flourish them if they followed him and he unpacks in the law of Moses what to do uh for the poor and you go well I thought you were going to flourish the nation why would we need laws in terms of how we treat the poor why would there be poor in a nation that's flourishing well because because the the principles applied to the nation as a whole not necessarily to each individual Israel Israelite and and that's why you could have the third and fourth Generations suffering the consequences of the idolatry of their ancestors because it fell out to the nation and it was going to have these sort of Ripple effects for generations to come uh so you know again it gets back to sound principles of hermeneutics not even to say that there might be truth that we can obviously glean from the Old Testament for example it's just that it isn't without further argument any given doctrine that one wants to construct out of these passages it's not that they just follow seamlessly without further arguments to that end and I think Neil Anderson uh is just way off based there's another thing too that that is subtle here this came up in our first episode I think or I brought it up memory serves and that is that that there's a at least in this instance maybe a subtle kind of of uh accepting of an occult view of reality in order to manage the mindfield of the Demonic for example well later on when when Neil talks about hey how many people in the audience have awakened for no reason at 3 o'clock in the morning and you know he's like all these PE hands go up well that's because Satanist they they they conjure up demons between 3 and 5 or no midnight and 3 whatever the time frame was and so you have this Pol eration of demons out there at the behest of the Satanist I go the very fact that you think Satanist or anybody else for that matter can can call up demonic entities as if you were calling a pack of dogs and letting them out of the fence to go chase a marauder or whatever the very fact that you could do that is an occult view of reality that's not even a Christian view of the nature of reality in the spirit realm satanists don't have any power over demons any more than anybody else would so that that that idea then there he's inculcating these subtle and sometimes not so subtle principles of a false view of reality in order to set up protocol According to which then we have to navigate this uh this landscape of all these demonic influences so it's really wrong on on two counts bad hermeneutics lead to bad Theology and and and bad uh reasoning leads to bad uh views about the nature of reality itself quick break to tell you about our next sponsor and that is foundation worldview have you had the talk with your child yet you know we are living in a world of sexual confusion and we as Christian parents need to be more proactive than ever in equipping our children with a Biblical understanding of sexuality before the world bombards them with its lies you know I was thinking about when I grew up in youth group a lot of the attention about sexuality was on what you can't do and all the Nos and that's why it's so important for Christian parents today to show our kids the beauty of God's design for sex and sometimes I think we feel like we don't have the language to maybe communicate this this is where Foundation World viws The Talk Made Easy series is going to help you its three videos designed to walk you step by step through talking with your child about God's good design for gender sex and reproduction this is for kids between the ages of four and seven so go to Foundation worldview. use my code Alisa to get this whole series for $14 again Foundation worldview. use my code Alisa so I'm glad glad you brought up uh the the case of Neil Anderson because his case is very interesting uh in his practice in Deliverance Ministry because uh it's less Sensational in certain ways than what you find in a lot of other Deliverance Ministry practices uh for example um he uh is very shy about uh engaging demons in direct encounters and he he is critical of what he calls power encounters with the Demonic and I would be too and so I I commend him for that but so many other things that he teaches I just scratch my head and wonder uh where is you know what about the sensibility let me just put it that way and uh he's not alone in this at all by any means uh I think it's Clint Arnold in his book um three questions about spiritual warfare three crucial questions about spiritual warfare who says that uh practically all Deliverance ministers at least it's it's dominant within the DM Paradigm what I'm calling the Deliverance Ministry Paradigm he's not using that language but he's saying most uh do believe this they believe that much uh demonization is caused by generational sins that bring about generational curses and uh some would say uh then lead to the demonization of persons by generational Spirits so uh this is a very common feature you haven't you're not cherry-picking here Alisa by any means when you give an example of Neil Anderson or somebody else so he's in Good Company in the sense that many fellow practitioners of Deliverance Ministry believe this and so there are lots of places we can turn for expositions and arguments in support of this and all of them start with Exodus chap 20 uh vers 4 through six as you quoted here uh including Neil Anderson so my my first observation is that it's common within the Paradigm across models models differ but the Paradigm uh is widely influenced by this view a second observation is that some would say that most of the cas cases they've encountered are cases where demonization was caused by generational sin uh it was a little surprising to for me to see this in a book by uh Fred Dickerson for example that was published in the 1980s it's a book called demon possession and the Christian uh A New Perspective well that goes back to what I was saying earlier about you know how novel some of this stuff is but but in there he says that the 400 people that he had counseled that he concluded were demonized or were under occult subject subjectivity sorry they were uh uh under occult subjugation terminology that I think he got from Kurt cotch who was a German who wrote about these things in the in the mid to late 20th uh century and uh he says that out of 400 cases where he concluded that a person a Believer was demonized uh 90 some perc of them had been caused to be demonized because of generational sin sins by their ancestors all right so not only do we find uh most Deliverance Ministries practicing this but many will say that the majority of their cases are at least a high percentage of their cases are due to this causal Factor now this is striking to me because we're talking about people who may not know anything about their ancestors they may not know any of their grandparents you know I I grew up in a home where with the last name git nobody not my father not my uncles his brothers uh no one knew what the ethnic background was for our our our last name and I discovered it just a few years ago and it's German and it's it's it's obvious that it is uh in the research that I've done but nobody knew my grandfather never told his own sons that his grandfather was a German who immigrated in the mid 19th century to the United States now I've discovered relatives uh through my my grandfather's Brothers all of them from my generation did know that their their ancestors were from Germany so why did my grandfather of all of the brothers not pass that information along now that was a that's a minor secret and yet it would have a lot to do with so many things that might bear on heredity or uh genetics or what have you not known in the spiritual realm I would say I know almost nothing about my grandparents and their parents to say nothing of further back regarding even their profession of Faith to be honest with you I mean my grandparents sure but beyond that I couldn't tell you much at all and yet if I listen to these people talk about generational sin and how common it is and how many Christians they've delivered from uh the Demonic uh strongholds in their lives through casting out demons because of generational sin I think I'm going to be like a lot of other people wondering how many problems I have in my own life whether it's their spiritual or physical having to do with my health that might be due to generational sin and I'll never know unless I pray and ask God to reveal this to me and as soon as I do that following Neil Anderson's advice all sorts of um psychological possibilities arise that could lead to um something equivalent or analogous to uh false memory syndrome where I just start getting a sense of things or impressions of things that simply have no uh no basis in reality whatsoever so my concern is that you could have now many people wondering what's in their background that they'll never know unless God reveals it to them and then there are all sorts of problems with how they will know for sure that it is God that's revealing this to them but if I have you know some difficulties in my life uh maybe some emotional problems or physical ailments that could be caused by demons due to generational sins and I don't know anything about the history of my family that would tell me that then I I might think well then I should be trying to follow Neil Anderson's advice here and praying and asking God to show me what my answer ancestors did that I need to renounce or cancel somehow and apart from the fact that none of this is described in scripture whatsoever there are all sorts of psychological explanations for how people recover or you know take take uh you know false memory syndrome for example they recover these memories that turn out to be false and they think that they were prompted by the holy spirit of God well this is opening up the same can of worms where you're asking God to show you things about the his historical facts from the individual lives of people in your ancestry to help you know why it is that you're dealing with depression right now or why you have such difficulty with a certain sinful habit or or why it is that you can't get out of bed in the morning because your joints are always in pain or aching or whatever and these are things that people sometimes do often do and are encouraged to uh take to be evidence of demonic influence they are the things that plague our lives on a daily basis emotionally spiritually and physically and then there's the possibility of conjuring up Fabrications of our own personal history through our family history because we're so desperate to find a solution to this uh difficulty that we would like to be free of so that's a very big concern of mine and so far having said all that we haven't even talked about how Neil Anderson and others are using this passage of scripture out of context I say we I haven't though I concur with what uh the two of you have already said but if I may I'd like to add uh a little bit to that and I would emphasize this point when Neil Anderson says here's where you find this taught and he takes you to Exodus chap 20 verses 5 or 4 through six then uh he goes on immediately following that to say so this is how uh the transference of demons from a past family member to yourself has happened that's not in the passage right there isn't the mest mention of demons in the passage so where do they get the idea that demons are implicated well they get it because uh God through Moses is warning them about leaving a proper and true worship of God as the called out nation of Israel and whoring after other gods and going after the gods of the Nations surrounding them not just in those days but in future generations and it's a warning that if they do that it's going to have consequences for the Next Generation the next several generations of Israelites and so the the reason why some expositors like Neil Anderson and Fred Dickerson and others will say that this is to do with demons is because anytime you worship another God or its idolatry it's always demonic well that's not to say that it always involves the inhabitation of demons uh in the in the person who affiliates with an animist religion or with uh false ideology it's all idolatry and I don't think any of these people believe that in every instance where idolatry is your whatever your substitute for div worship of the true God is is going to lead to demonization so you can't really get demonization directly out of this passage and that's fundamental then he goes on to say here's what we have to do about it you have to identify it you have to know specifically that it happened in your own family you've got to you don't have to repent of it as if you sinned but you need to renounce it you need to do so very explicitly and and and uh um in specific detail concerning the sin in question absolutely none of that is in the text it's not there in Exodus 20 and it's not anywhere else in the whole Bible and so I think that what a person needs to do when they encounter someone like Neil Anderson or someone who has been trained through his ministry uh is to say can you show me from scripture where it says that I'm to do those things that's what we all need to do when it comes to being biblical about Deliverance Ministry before you lay hands on me before you cast out demons would you please tell me what you intend to do and and show me from scripture exactly where it is that teaches that this is what you do I think I honestly believe that a lot of Del Deliverance Ministry would simply evaporate into thin air if Christians as a whole began to insist on those kinds of criteria because these people that do these Ministries they use certain um Clues from scripture to ground their convictions but they have to go beyond scripture in their Deliverance practices and if you're comfortable with that then I guess all I can say to you is I would warn you about it encourage you not to be comfortable with that and encourage you to challenge them to justify their uh practices from the clear teaching of scripture and then to steer clear of it if they can't do that that would be my honest advice to the people people that are watching what we're talking about here today you know by the end of my show another family farm will close its doors forever but this spring we can turn that around it's time to spring into action and stand with the hardworking families who rais the food we trust this is one of the reasons I trust goodranchers.com all their products are born raised and harvested in the USA and when you buy from them you're supporting the American farmers and ranchers who have fed this country for Generations now I absolutely love their steak I love their chicken we get our grass-fed beef and better than organic chicken from goodranchers.com every single month it's on dry ice ready to be put in the freezer it makes planning dinners so much easier and right now as a part of their spring into action special when you subscribe to any good ranchers box you're going to get to choose either free bacon ground beef seed oil free chicken nuggets or salmon in every box for a whole year plus $40 off with my code Alisa this is like the best offer ever that I've seen them do so go to good ranchers.com use my code Alisa to get that free add-on for a year plus $40 off goodranchers.com use my code Alisa oh excuse me Alisa I can't help but be reminded of something we talked about in the previous episode and then and Alisa Revisited it in this episode The principle of of taking a descriptive uh account this just actually happen and then try to make a prescription or a normative because I know the first thing some of these uh Deliverance ministers would probably do I've seen them doing in their videos is if you said show me in scripture they'll just give you what they see to be just an actual event let's say in the gospels well Jesus did acts therefore we ought to do acts sometimes that might follow sometimes it might not Jesus prayed in the morning doesn't mean we all have to pray only in the morning or the one that Lis has reminded us of is when Jesus tells the disciples to loose the donkey as silly as that sounds for us today to think you have loose a donkey somehow so this idea of prescription derived illicitly from description I think is something that plagues these Ministries and others as well yeah and in my stud in this case we don't even have description uh they're getting prescription from something that's not even described now they might say well we see a description of Jesus Deliverance by casting out demons and then they want to prescribe that we do it too but here they're going to a passage of scripture where there isn't even the mest description of the things that they are talking about and then they're making them making it normative so it's a it's a double uh slippage I would say in that case yeah and even in the context of this of course not having really anything to do with demons even in the context of sin it says visiting the iniquity to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me right so this is talking about generations of people who are rebelling against God it's not it doesn't have to do with like some poor kid being punished morally for the sins of his father in fact we know from Ezekiel 18:20 uh it says the person who sins will die the child will not share the guilt of the parent nor will the parent share the guilt of the child but even within that Old Testament context we are New Testament Believers and we know it's all over Romans that through one man sin entered the world and uh through uh one man death and sin death spread to all men because all sinned but we also know that in Romans 6 20 it says uh you but now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end eternal life so in the New Testament perspective no matter what's going on in that verse we have individual responsibility before God and um there's a commentary here uh who am I reading here it's it's talking about the third and fourth Generations even in the Old Testament it says it illustrates the concept of corporate responsibility in addition to the individual being accountable the community is responsible for the behavior and sin of its members this passage does not suggest that future innocence will be held morally accountable for the sins of ancestors but refers to the mutual consequences of sin and I think this is something we see in a practical way in a family where maybe alcoholism runs in a family well there are there are real consequences of an alcoholic parent that's going to have on uh their child and perhaps that child from observing the behavior of their parent or being in that environment or whatever particular things they've gone through might have more of a propensity to become an alcoholic like their parent but that's not suggesting that there's any sort of a demonic stronghold or any sort of a um an attachment from a demon there's nothing in Scripture that would seem to indicate that in fact everything which is all over the New Testament is you've been set free from the blood of Jesus if you're in Christ you're a child of God you are not under um God's Wrath but you are now adopted into his family and there's just nothing in Scripture that would suggest that we have to go through all of this rigor to try to figure out what somebody did Generations ago and I I'll give you a practical story about this I had some friends who had a a child a young adult child going through some really sophisticatedly complicated like mental illness issues there was they were suspecting some demonic stuff going on they they didn't really know what was going on so they sent this uh their their son to counseling and the counselor happened to be I think a little bit more in the Deliverance Ministry side of things and told them well the Lord has told me that there was an ancestor of yours that committed Witchcraft and now you have to renounce that and do all these things and and and my friends were so confused and this is the the emotional I think this is what really actually kind of angers me that can happen to people is they were in a very vulnerable place because there was a lot going on with their son that was very uh hard to figure out uh lots of there were even I think maybe some drugs involved there's just a lot that they were trying to figure out how to help their son and now they had this added burden of oh goodness well now we have to figure out do we have to figure out what happened in our bloodline that maybe is causing some of this when in reality perhaps I don't know the specific situation of of how that ended up resolving but maybe it was something going on in the body chemistry and maybe it was something else and then you add to this a burden that can really I think put people into bondage because especially with the way that this is often taught is it's not just a one-time thing you have to keep going back Deliverance uh you know when when you maybe commit a sin or maybe God shows you quote unquote something else that happened in your and bloodline and something like that and there's just no biblical warrant for it but um I yeah I I don't know I just I thought maybe that example might help people because a lot of people find themselves in situations and I think that's when um the Deliverance ministers kind of swoop in is when you're at your most vulnerable when there is something really intense going on and they're going to promise the answer but in many cases by many testimonials again this is anecdotal but by the testimony of many people it's only made it worse and and that's even just by what we can Jud judge subjectively so that's even more of a reason to have scripture be our standard for how faith and practice and scripture is sufficient I think that's the test for Christians right now is scripture sufficient for you for Faith and practice of course scripture isn't going to solve eals MC s for us I mean it's not exhaustive in what it reveals but it's everything we need to know about life and godliness and that's a good challenge to our audience is do you believe that do you believe that scripture is sufficient for life and godliness because if you do believe that then you don't need extra bells and whistles that are not in there and so that that was my soapbox moment anything to add there no I think that's good we have to give examples like this and anecdotal evidence is is important especially when so much of the case for Deliverance Ministry is built up on a mountain of anecdotal evidence and uh it's well look um it seems like it's working for people so if it's working for people how can you fault it and I've said before in this series I think it was towards the end of the second episode that um our experience needs to come under the submission of scripture itself because we don't we we're not great interpreters of the evidence of experience especially when it's we're talking about the results of things that we do and if uh we aren't practicing a Biblical method that we can demonstrate from scripture then it's possible that our working theology doesn't work as well as we think it does despite the evidence to the contrary so that um we should be getting uh you know we should be better me uh uh confident of the results we're getting if we were really truly conf confident that our methodology was was rooted in scripture and I think that one of the one of the problems and maybe we need a whole episode where we talk about some of the ways in which bondage is um inculcated through Deliverance Ministry as you mentioned a moment ago is just have a whole episode where we can talk about some of the downside of Deliverance practice but one simply is that under the appearance of seeming biblical because of proof texting certain things when going Beyond experience it actually shows a lack of confidence in the sufficiency of scripture which implies a deficiency of scripture in dealing with the problems that we face at the most fundamental level of our spiritual lives the very point that the scriptures uh serve uh most fundamentally is to help us with our spiritual lives so uh this is a concern of mine and I think it's shown in Spades in the in the passage that you quoted from uh Neil Anderson's book The Bondage breaker uh where so much of what he says following his quotation of Exodus chapter 20 is something that cannot be established not only from that passage but any other passage um so that that would be an example and I think you're very right to note that use of the word hate those who hate God uh in The Exodus 20 passage verses 4-6 there are subsequent Generations who have come to despise the Lord and look I say this about another passage that's often used by people inappropriately from the Gospel of John just Chapter 14 verse 12 where Jesus Promised his disciples that uh they would do his works and even greater Works than these he said and this was to all those who would believe and not just his disciples and so many people say well the works of Jesus were Miracles they were to produce Miracles and greater Miracles even than Jesus did and since that was for all who believe that includes you and me and so we should be producing Miracles like Jesus did of the same sort and of even greater quality in some sense of of some you know greater in some sense but my view is look to the acts for the facts of the Fulfillment of his promise to the disciples because that's where we see their Ministry and what works they performed and then we can match that up with the life of Jesus and see what was greater and what was not and in what sense was it Greater and it's not miracles to be honest with you they don't perform a single greater Miracle than Jesus did whatsoever no themselves from the dead right nobody did that that's to be sure and raising people from the dead was not such a common thing but Jesus did it and it's hard to improve on that so I don't believe that Jesus was talking about miracles or at least not especially about miracles though Bill Johnson says that's all it was about was Miracles and people who follow in his footsteps make that mistake but you got to look at the record of Acts to test the claim now let's look at the record of the Hebrew scriptures generations of Israelites following the um giving of the law by Moses right including the law of Exodus 20 and do we see what God warned of happening to the nation of Israel and the answer is yes now in the only cases where individuals paid a price for their father's sins usually the cases that are described are those who the sons of Kings of Israel uh they were committing the same sins that their fathers did and so it wasn't just because their fathers sinned that they were now under some kind of sieg by demons that needed to be uh you know they needed to be freed from they had sinned after the fashion of their fathers the other thing though that we find happening in fulfillment of this war warning right if you if you go after other gods having served me you go after other gods your G your your children will pay a price is on the national level we see it constantly throughout the history of Israel and we see it especially clearly in the case of Jeremiah who recalled these words from Exodus and warn the people that they were going to now be uh punished because this has been a problem with the nation for such a long time that God now has to uh send them into captivity and they went into captivity even during the lifetime of Jeremiah and his contemporaries so as we see the book of Acts providing us with a lens for understanding the significance of Jesus words to his discip disciples in John 14:12 we have the whole of the prophetic tradition in the history of Israel leading up to uh prior to the time of Christ as a lens for understanding not only the significance but the Fulfillment of what is warned about in Exodus chapter 20 and it's not individuals who haven't sinned after the fashion of their fathers going now to suffer the consequences of the sin of their fathers now one other thing to notice here is that Ezekiel I'll give you the chapter in a moment we have a clear indication of the flip side of this and that is explicit um teaching that if an individual lived a righteous life despite the wickedness of his parents uh he would not be held accountable for their sins all right so here is Ezekiel 18 starting in verse 19 here it says yet you say why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father when the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to observe all my statutes he shall surely live the soul who sins shall die the son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself do you want me to keep going no that will do I think uh well does did you get through verse 21 21 says but if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right he shall surely live he shall not die so you see uh this passage is uh conveniently neglected uh when you know sort of cherry-picking for verses that will support your view about generational sin and its consequences you go to Exodus 20 which doesn't really support that we've just explained how that's a national concern rather than a one by one individual concern and then we have here the prophet Ezekiel noting and this is just one case where uh an individual is not responsible for the sins of his individual ancestors uh that's important now look after we've said all this one thing that that should be clear is what the new testment teaches right and you mentioned you looked at the context for First Peter chapter 1 and uh sort of abuse of a passage when in context it shows that we're we enjoy much greater freedom from the sins of our fathers than what is implied by those who teach otherwise but let's just take a simple verse like first John 1:9 it's a promise this a promise that I would hope that everybody who's watching now would take to heart and feel the freedom that it reflects and intentionally reflects for all of of us if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins so if we confess our sins not the sins of our fathers but our own sins if we confess our sins he is faithful he is just to forgive us our sins and not only that but to cleanse us from all unrighteousness all unrighteousness now I think that pretty well covers it and I don't think that a demon is going to be allowed to infect my character and and and separate me from the love of Christ with a promise like that that all I need to do is keep close accounts with the Lord regarding my own sin yeah very good anything to add to that Richard so one thing U I appreciated earlier you brought up some several verses including some from Romans unless someone uh forgets uh despite the fact that we've tried to emphasize this now and then as we go through is that we're not trying to imply that nothing that Jesus did or said applies to us today we're not trying to say that at the same time we were saying not everything that he did say or do applies to us we don't want to sound like we're saying nothing that he did or said applies to us but there's an interesting ju deposition towards the ends of Romans between chapter 14 and chapter 16 because chapter 14 you have Paul instructing them to receive but in chapter 16 he instructs them to avoid and it's very interesting to me what the contrast is because he says in chapter 14 receive those who uh uh uh who have who are weak in the faith but not to disputes about doubtful things so he entertains the idea that someone who's weak in the faith thinks they're not allowed to eat meat so they eat only vegetables and he says look you just do it un to the Lord don't don't don't divide over these things you can imagine the kind of uh tensions that might have erupted from the Jews and Gentiles being thrown together into the local church bringing their own uh background to it another thing that he he entertains there in chapter 14 is esteeming one day above another which most clearly is a is a Jew versus Gentile thing where the Gentiles are probably going what do you mean I can't walk to the market on on Saturday kind of thing but then when you get to chapter 16 he says uh note those who cause divisions contrary to the doctrines which you have received from the apostles and avoid them and and so this reemphasizes to me this idea that what where we get our understanding of what Jesus what he's done for us who he is where we get the understanding of that in its fullest is how Jesus used his Apostles to unfold all of that before us in the Epistles and and and so that's where you know I've heard people say well even before there was the Bible Christianity was true because of the Resurrection I say granted but our Fuller understanding of the resurrection and of forgiveness of sins and propitiation and sanctification and second coming and all all of that is unpacked in the Epistles by the apostles and that is just a a long way to saying we've got to ground it back in the scriptures in the New Testament and how we understand these descriptive things and versus prescriptive things even in the life of Jesus versus the life of the Christians are additionally in the life of the Christian we get that understanding from this appeal to that and that TR that applies by the way to the book of Acts as well it's also historical narrative so so one would need to be careful that just because something happened in Acts speaking in tongues chapter 2 or whatever it is that's that can become controversial just because it's a historical event doesn't by itself mean that it's prescriptive for the Christian Life that argument has to be made and I would submit that that argument must consist of what the Epistles tell us about these historical events and and what they mean if we can drive each other back to that and try to be conscientious about principles of biblical interpretation context uh all these kind of things I think we we begin to minimize the likelihood that people would get LED astray by the sensationalism of of a Neil Anderson when he begins to recount these things and just starts importing all of this stuff if someone just stops and asks well where is that exactly in the scriptures more than just even historically even if he did just only stick to that which he didn't yeah but even if he did where is it in the scriptures that these things are taught for the churches uh and that's I think what we we have to be conscientious about yeah and I chose Neil Anderson as an example here because he's viewed as so moderate he's viewed as PE someone who is maybe on the more biblical side of the spectrum because we could be easily accused oh you're just you know of course everybody's against the sensationalistic version that you see on YouTube which I'm not sure everybody is against that but I wanted to find you know the most moderate example we could and obviously his book is being used in all sorts of different kinds of churches now another teacher uh just very quickly as we're as we're closing out I do want to address a couple of passages that Sam sto Sam storms in his view brings up uh to make the case for generational curses is I'm not sure if that's the phrase he uses uh I'll I'll let you correct me on that in a second but he brings up Mark 7 and uh Mark 9 and what's going on in both of these passages is in the mark seven passage you have the Cy phenician woman who was begging Jesus to cast a demon out of her daughter and this is the passage where you know uh he says to her let the children be fed first for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs then she answers him yes Lord yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs and then Jesus tells her you know because of this your demon the the demon has left your daughter and then she went home and the demon was gone and then in Mark 9 it's also the similarity between that is that it's another young person it's a young man in Mark 9 I can quote directly from Sam Storm's book on spiritual warfare uh a comprehensive discussion of this topic um is is uh the idea here he says after looking at Exodus 20: 4-6 the passage that we've been discussing he comes to an interesting conclusion he says my conclusion is that this passage in Exodus cannot be used directly to prove the reality of intergenerational spirits what it does imply however is that the sinful behavior of one generation can have lingering and disastrous consequences on subsequent members of that family ly you cannot be held morally accountable before God for the sins of your father or mother but you can be made involuntarily to suffer from the social economic and spiritual consequences of their sin now I'm less concerned with a difference that I have with him on this point I I do think it is still corporate and National Israel that he's that that the command is for uh but I think the point he's making is true okay and can be uh supported in other ways but the point he's making is not a point on behalf of generational sin and generational spirits that torment a person because of what their ancestors were doing he agrees with us on that uh it appears then he says this well Exodus 20: 4-6 doesn't necessarily provide evidence for generational Spirits other passages doic specifically two cases from the gospel of Mark and they're the two that you just mentioned uh Alisa one in chapter 7 the daughter of the serop phenician woman and the other in chapter nine which is a young boy uh who had very serious uh physical uh consequences visited on him because of demons and uh they were self-destructive and so forth and so he uh Sam storms describes these two cases and then here's what he says in these two cases a serious case of demonization has occurred in someone who was clearly too young to have done anything willfully or unrepentantly to Warrant demonic attack okay so he goes directly to how young they were surely neither was demonized for having spilled his or her milk as if that's all that a young person is capable of doing wrong nevertheless for some reason that is not explicitly stated both the young girl and boy had become demonized then he asked this question how could this have happened are these not two undeniable instances of what we might call involuntary demonization and so we must determine how the demon gained access to their lives now notice this he says so as if this is a consequence of his reflection so far we must determine how the demon gained access to their lives I would stop right there and say really why is that why must we do that and on what how would we do that I don't think we must do that at all in fact we don't even know how that did it happened in the case of a grown man like the gine why do we have to figure out how it happened in this case as well he goes on with regard to the young boy in Mark chapter 9 Clint Arnold uh another a new testament scholar argues that you know he's quoting Arnold the demonization was not the result of the boy's own sin or his choice to give his allegiance to false gods that's inferred from the fact that he's so young continuing with the quote Arnold says the spirits were passed on to him from some other sour Source well I don't know where he comes up with that that the spirits were passed on to him from some other source how could how does he know that the spirits didn't just choose this boy for their own purposes rather than have to uh go from another to himself to to this boy the spirits were passed on to him from some other source the most likely of which would be his family and that's the end of the quote and uh I've looked at the context of uh Clint Arnold's uh the quotation from Clint Arnold here it's from his book that I mentioned earlier today uh three crucial questions about spiritual warfare and I really appreciate Clint Arnold uh for so much support that he's given to Holly my pivik and myself when we've talked about how in the New Apostolic Reformation they make mistakes in their discussion of ter teritorial spirits and he talks about that at at length in this book but here's where I have to part comp company with him on this particular point because I don't think we have much in the way of Good exegetical Grounds for making this leap and so much is built on top of the conclusion that is not warranted by this biblical argument that I think it's a dangerous argument uh we cannot be sure uh in any of the cases of demonization in the gospels what it was that brought the demons into the lives of those people not in the case of these two young children and not in the case of the gatherin or anyone else and uh I mentioned that earlier in this episode and so you'd have to have some prior reason to believe that there was a transference principle at work in general that would justify then the inference that that took place in this particular instance and no argument is being made for that now extent during the time of Jesus there was a Jewish doctrine of demons called demonology as we call it in in uh Christian theology today they had their own demonology much of it was extra biblical based on traditions of Jews who uh Drew their own conclusions now if they believed that uh there was the possibility of transference from one generation to the next by familial Spirits or um ancestral ties or what have you that would not give it biblical warrant and we have no biblical warrant for it whatsoever so a new testament historian would need to be very careful about making an argument by appeal to evidence of that kind if it even existed and so I'm saying that we're not entitled to demand an answer to the question why were these young children demonized nor to LEAP to the conclusion that it must have been because of some kind of generational transference from someone else who had participated in occult practices or engaged in sin that gave special place to the devil and then therefore these kids must have been uh tormented for that reason you teach that sort of thing then you're liable to think that you're if you have children of your own who show some evidence of being tormented by demons then it must be through some transference maybe from yourself or from someone else and in fact Sam storms uh tells a personal story in his own book that I've just quoted from of how his wife for 18 years suffered what she believed was torment by demons and once she was freed from that and this was during the early the first uh oh 18 or so years of their marriage I think this started about the third year of their marriage he tells the story in the book I'm not sharing Secrets here that after about 18 years of this without him knowing of it uh she described it and was liberated and it was shortly after that that one of their own children was visited by what they as a family believe was a demon manifest in the in almost as a physical person in in their living room late one night and uh he clearly believes that this was a generational demon that had uh no place to go and was looking for another place to land after his wife was delivered now I'm I I want to be careful here because I feel always feel sympathy for people that have gone through experiences like this but I thought to myself I wonder if this isn't why he's been motivated to write this book and as soon as I had that thought and continued to read he actually says this is one of the main reasons why I'm writing this book so I can understand that and what I want to point out is that we can take experiences that we've had and then project onto scripture where we see some resemblance of some features in an account like this with these young children and think it's a match but it's not clearly a match and it would not be appropriate whatever you make of your own experience to interpret the passage in light of that experience and I'm afraid that that is what's going on not just in this case but in general with Deliverance Ministry yeah Richard anything to add to that no I mean I think that's a just an acute observation really astute uh but nothing really to add that we haven't already said I think okay so final question can Christians have a generational curse no right I would say first let me give you a short a short really short argument for that the answer is no and the reason for believing that is that if that was possible it would be clearly taught in scripture and it's not yeah so if it would if if it would be unreasonable to have to discern that and discover that in the indirect way that Deliverance ministers have if that's how we had to discover this and learn this that's not very clear teaching from the word on an urgent matter and I and so and I don't believe uh that the scriptures would be silent about such a thing as that and neither do they and that's why they think they find they find it in scripture even though the scriptures do not support it right because it's a big deal excuse me sorry we can't afford to get too far away one can't afford to too too far away from a point that's already been raised and that is the promises that we know explicitly for us as God's children yes nothing can separate us from the love of God if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness those need to be the guiding lights that can that help us manage the exigencies of Life each day rather than trying to navigate a mindfield of beings out there there that we know very little about it even happened to job that Satan was able to wreak havoc in his life with no indication whatso in fact exactly the opposite that uh that there was somehow he deserved it je God even said you've moved me to to to move against job without cause there was nothing that he did that deserved what happened to him as far as Satan's attack well if that can happen to job maybe that can happen to anybody so whether that happens or not when it happened to job that was something in God's Providence and God's prerogative if it happens in our life it may very well be something in God's Providence and his prerogative to do that what he's instructed us to do is what we need to direct ourselves to in terms of our sanctification our obedience to him our love one another these kinds of things and never lose sight of the promises that he's given us if if those were our guiding lights then there wouldn't really be a need for Deliverance Ministries because Christians have already been delivered as has been said already by virtue of our coming to faith in Christ what he's done for us we are delivered irrespective of whether or not that leads to uh a premature beheading as it did Paul or it leads to a life of long long longevity as it did uh many Saints whatever that is is up to the Lord not up to us to somehow try to navigate these things our responsibility is cling to the promises of God and live in light of that right very good and it's you know the thing that I keep coming back to as well is that if we are supposed supposed to be doing Deliverance Ministry with all of these protocols and all of these teachings that's a pretty big part of the Christian Life that's a big deal and you would think there would be some instructions in Scripture that would tell us a to even be doing it and give us instructions on how to do it if it was something Christians were to be doing and in some ways it's sort of like an extension of the um the the Prosperity Gospel it's like I want instant relief from whatever it is that ails me so if I can just kind of assign it to a demon then that will excuse me from my sin struggle um well and and I know that in Deliverance they don't always excuse you from your sin struggle because they think the sin is CA maybe causing the demon to have legal rights or something like that but to blame on a demon what your sinful flesh is uh the cause of is going to misdiagnose what's actually wrong in many many cases and actually keep you from from full and proper repentance well I want to thank my guests um Dr Richard how and Dr Doug git for joining me once again I want to close out with a passage that I opened with because I just want to remind us all as we go out to remember that if you're in Christ it says here that you who were dead in the trespasses and uncircumcision of your flesh God Made Alive together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands so there's no curse on you there's nothing that can uh have power over you in that way and it says this he set aside nailing it to the Cross he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open Shame by triumphing over them so remember that this week as you part par through these things and let's always remember as we pursue Christ to keep a sharp mind a soft heart and a thick skin we'll see you next time for me and I will pray for you no turning right or left will make it through the road that's narrow and the gate that small don't give up it's going to be wor it all