Can My Life Be Plagued by Generational Sins, Hexes, or Curses?

00:00:00.000 | A woman from the United Arab Emirates who wishes to remain anonymous writes in to ask this, "Dear Pastor

00:00:10.540 | John, what does it mean in Exodus 20 verse 5 that God visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children?

00:00:17.220 | Does this refer to generational sins or generational curses?

00:00:22.100 | How does this principle relate to us and to our children under the new covenant?

00:00:27.160 | Will my children somehow be punished for my own sins?"

00:00:31.600 | I suppose we should get the texts, the relevant texts, in front of us,

00:00:38.060 | including the one that she mentioned.

00:00:41.340 | Exodus 25 goes like this, "I the Lord your God am a jealous God,

00:00:47.000 | visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

00:00:53.480 | but showing steadfast love to

00:00:56.180 | thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." And Exodus 34 6,

00:01:00.720 | "The Lord visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation."

00:01:08.260 | Leviticus 26 39,

00:01:11.120 | "Because of their iniquity and also because of the iniquities of their fathers,

00:01:16.260 | they shall rot away like them."

00:01:21.200 | However, there are other texts which are absolutely crucial for sorting out what the Bible means in those first texts.

00:01:29.880 | Deuteronomy 24 16, "Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children,

00:01:36.180 | nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers." Or

00:01:41.220 | 2 Kings 14 6, "Amaziah did not put to death the children of the murderers,

00:01:48.460 | according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses, where the Lord commanded, 'Fathers shall not be put to death

00:01:53.620 | because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers, but each one shall die for his own

00:02:00.940 | sin.'" Or Ezekiel 18 20, "The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father,

00:02:08.780 | nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son." So there you have the two

00:02:14.480 | clusters of texts that are both true, both inspired by God, and both

00:02:21.120 | infallible. How do they fit together? And what can we learn about

00:02:26.040 | so-called generational sins? So here are my observations. Number one, the sins of the fathers are

00:02:33.760 | punished in the children

00:02:36.360 | through becoming the children's own sin.

00:02:42.040 | That's really crucial. So here's the key text. I'll just read Exodus 20 verse 5 again.

00:02:48.080 | "I, the Lord, visit the iniquity of the fathers on

00:02:52.680 | the children to the third and fourth generation of

00:02:56.720 | those who

00:02:59.680 | hate me."

00:03:01.720 | In other words, the hatred of God is the embodiment of

00:03:07.520 | what the father's problem was.

00:03:11.480 | Those who experience the penalty of

00:03:14.880 | the father's sins are those who hate God in that verse.

00:03:20.360 | We are not told how

00:03:23.400 | the father's sins become the children's sins.

00:03:28.160 | That's a mysterious thing left in God's

00:03:32.880 | mind, but they do. What we're told is that when father's sins are

00:03:40.640 | visited on the children, it is because the children have become

00:03:45.520 | sinners like the fathers. The father's sins are the children's sins, and so

00:03:51.720 | no

00:03:53.680 | innocent child has ever been punished for a father's sins. Only

00:03:59.280 | guilty children are punished, and they are guilty with the very sins that their fathers

00:04:06.960 | sinned. That's the first observation.

00:04:10.560 | The second is because of God's grace,

00:04:13.560 | which is, of course, finally secured for us by

00:04:17.560 | Jesus on the cross, the children

00:04:21.400 | can confess their own sins and the sins of their fathers and be forgiven and

00:04:27.720 | accepted by God.

00:04:30.240 | Nobody is trapped. Nobody is trapped in his father's sins or his own sins.

00:04:36.720 | So here's—we already see it in the Old Testament, Leviticus 2640.

00:04:40.640 | If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers,

00:04:47.440 | if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity,

00:04:55.320 | then I will remember my

00:04:58.240 | covenant with Jacob. So nobody in the Old Testament or the New, under the New Covenant, is

00:05:05.160 | trapped or enslaved or in bondage or under an unbreakable curse

00:05:09.280 | because of something the fathers did or something they did.

00:05:13.560 | The precious words of Exodus 34 6 are not nullified by generational

00:05:20.680 | migration of sin. It says, "The Lord, the Lord, a God

00:05:25.840 | merciful and gracious,

00:05:28.600 | slow to anger,

00:05:30.840 | abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands." And then, as if to get the point across,

00:05:37.760 | he gives three words—forgiving iniquity and forgiving transgression and forgiving sin.

00:05:45.000 | I mean, you can't get clearer at the center of the Mosaic Law that from generation to generation,

00:05:51.440 | God forgives the sins of those who repent.

00:05:56.000 | Third observation,

00:05:58.840 | none of this should make anyone feel trapped and without hope because of his parents' sins. Ezekiel

00:06:06.440 | 33 14, "When I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and

00:06:13.320 | he turns from his sin and practices justice and righteousness,

00:06:18.400 | he shall surely live. He shall not die." And the blood of Jesus

00:06:25.560 | conquers all

00:06:28.280 | sin and judgment for those who believe. And you get a beautiful sweeping statement in Acts 10

00:06:36.040 | 43,

00:06:37.880 | "To him,"

00:06:39.480 | Jesus, "all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him

00:06:45.240 | receives

00:06:47.160 | forgiveness of sins through his name." So, nobody is trapped in

00:06:53.760 | anybody's sin—their own or someone else's—because of the cross. The fourth thing I would say is

00:07:00.640 | no one who has a child

00:07:03.120 | who goes bad and

00:07:06.360 | forsakes the way of righteousness

00:07:08.520 | should feel that it's all his fault.

00:07:11.440 | Ezekiel 18 20, in other words, "Well, I guess my sins were just visited on that child."

00:07:18.200 | Ezekiel 18 20 says, "The father will not bear the punishment for the son's

00:07:24.920 | iniquity." In other words, there are real responsibilities in our children's hearts, and

00:07:31.240 | we will not be found

00:07:34.480 | guilty because of our children's guilt, if we deal, of course, with our own sins.

00:07:41.200 | Which means that you can't be paralyzed

00:07:46.040 | by the guilt of thinking, "I guess my children's problems are all owing to me."

00:07:54.200 | And the last thing I would say is,

00:07:56.400 | finally,

00:07:59.120 | when it comes to generational curses,

00:08:01.200 | Christians should lay hold on

00:08:04.080 | Galatians 3 13,

00:08:06.560 | "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law

00:08:09.320 | by becoming a curse for us.

00:08:12.320 | For it is written,

00:08:15.000 | 'Curse it is everyone who's hanged on a tree.'" Christ has paid

00:08:19.600 | every debt and broken every curse.

00:08:23.040 | And the key is to believe that and act on it. The blood of

00:08:29.200 | Christ covers all curses. I remember going to the hospital one

00:08:33.520 | New Year's Eve night

00:08:36.320 | when the third heartache and tragedy had come into one of the young families of our lives, and

00:08:43.800 | they wondered, "How worse can it get?" And the father took me out in the hall from the place where his child was dying and

00:08:51.000 | said, "Pastor John,

00:08:53.480 | can a Christian be under a curse?"

00:08:56.080 | He just felt, "I don't know any explanation for why so many bad things are happening to me." And I said,

00:09:03.120 | "You

00:09:06.360 | may tonight be free from any kind of curse, from God's law, or any

00:09:12.960 | voodoo, or any hex, because Christ bore every curse for you." Brought him great comfort,

00:09:20.520 | and they worked their way through that in a wonderful way.

00:09:23.320 | Wow, what a story to bring this home, and

00:09:26.200 | what a Savior we have in Christ. Thank you for explaining this, Pastor John.

00:09:30.520 | And tomorrow we're gonna return to talk about what our hope in eternal purity in the presence of Jesus Christ

00:09:36.720 | does to our present purity right now.

00:09:40.080 | I'm your host Tony Reinke, and I will see you tomorrow. And as always, find more about the Ask Pastor John podcast online at

00:09:46.800 | DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn

00:09:50.600 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Can My Life Be Plagued by Generational Sins, Hexes, or Curses?

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