Expert: Dr Don Howe - 2/18/2009

Question
Hello Dr. Howe,

I have heard or read recently that our children, grandchildren, and maybe posterity even longer down the line are going to be helping pay for the billions of taxpayer dollars,(879 billion?), preparing to be pumped into our economy.

In the Bible, I have read in the past something to the effect that the children, grandchildren, and possibly several,(maybe 7th?),generation down the line can or would be responsible for the sins of a preceeding generation. I never could understand why God would want to punish people who haven't been born yet, but if one looks at the present economic crises, it appears that even our posterity are going to be saddled with this burden for these billions of dollars to be paid out. Could this be an example of God punishing succesive generations for the sins of their fathers or ancestors?

Thank you for any clarification.

Best regards,

Mike Eidson

Answer
Mike, thank you for your question. What the Bible says about curses to the third and fourth generation has not nothing to do with the 879 billion spending bill that was passed. Note this is a SPENDING BILL AND NOT A STIMULUS BILL. This Spending bill includes every ungodly pork package that the Democrats have been wanting for the last 20 years and they finally got it. All this is due to the sins of the Democratic Congress and the sins of our President. All you have to do look at the character of Osama Obama and Pelosi and see the evil and sin that is in their lives and the socialist, muslim,  communist ideology they possess. Because of the greed and sin of the our President and the Democratic Congress, our children and grandchildren will be paying dearly for this stupid SPENDING BILL. Notice the PORK that is in this SPENDING BILL does not include any Religious organizations or faith based parachurch organizations that could spread the gospel to hurting people, but they provided millions dollars for ACORN, which is the organization that contributed to the present housing mess and the one the President was involved in, it includes money for abortion that will kill more babies, money for propagation of perverted sex education i.e. homosexual agenda to be taught to children as young as first graders, 3 million dollars to save some stupid mouse in California (who cares about a stupid mouse), and it goes on. Why? Because the President, Pelosi, and the Democrats in Congress hate God and love the devil, and the people who they favor to receive money from the PORK THAT IS IN THE SPENDING BILL shows that craving of SIN also. It does not take a Rocket Scientist to figure this out. But Mike, you are right our children, and grandchildren will be paying for this spending bill.  

    They are spending 879 Billion dollars that we do not have. There is NO 879 BILLION dollars in the Treasury department, so the government will  print more money; that the money is more worthless and some business analysts say it will keep inflation up. Capitalism of America could eventually solve this problem not a 879 BILLION DOLLAR SPENDING BILL. When Ronald Reagan was President he deregulated the  strongholds that many big conglomerate businesses had on America, opened up for more competion, and the economy grew like crazy. This is example of a Stimulus package. He let the capitalism of our system to run free and it took care of the problem.
    You got me started now. I want to show the ungodliness of our President. By executive order, on his first day in office he okayed for millions of our dollars to be sent overseas to kill more babies. The bible says “thou shall not commit murder,” sounds like Obama failed to read the Bible that “he says” he believes in (that is a lie). Obama said, during the election. that he would even kill his own grandchild if it became a problem for his daughter or his family. I have never heard a grandfather say they would kill their grandchild if they became a problem, but Our president said it.
    This two-faced President got up and said at the breakfast for the National Religious Broadcasters that (and I quote accurately here) “No God would condone the killing of innocent human beings.” But he gave millions of our dollars that will kill innocent human babies overseas and here in America, said he would kill his own flesh and blood if they got to be a problem, but then say what he said at the NRB. God Almighty is righteous and God Obama is evil. Prov. 29:2 states “When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, But when a wicked man rules, people groan.” God’s Word hits the nail on the head every time.

GENERATIONAL CURSES

  Generational curses are result of sin and God Almighty is a Holy God and does not tolerate sin, but He does show mercy because He loves us. God showed this from the beginning even in the Garden of Eden. God said in Gen. 2:17 “but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." God warned Adam not to sin by eating of the tree of knowledge and evil or you shall surely die, but in Gen. 2:16 God loved Adam and provided for all the needs of Adam and “The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely.” But because of the sin of Adam, we see generational curses in the Bible begin. The Bible states in  1 Cor. 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” David Guzik states “Here, Paul is communicated the same ideas found in Romans 5:12-21. Adam (by man) is one “head” of the human race, and all mankind was brought under death by Adam. The second Adam, Jesus Christ (by Man) is the other head of the human race, and Jesus brings resurrection to all that are “under” His headship.”
    You can find verses about generational curses in Exodus 20:5; 34:7; Numbers 14:18; Deuteronomy 5:9. But let’s look specifically at Deut. 5:9-10 which states “Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me, And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.” In verse 9, Moses is telling Jewish nation that they shall not bow down unto graven idols and nor serve them, for God is a jealous God, and visiting means attend to, muster, or appoint to (paqad in Hebrew) the iniquity (depravity) upon the third and fourth generation that hate God. Note that God would punish only the fathers that hated God. So if a generation loved God, He did not punish them. Note the responsibility was placed on the fathers of each generation, not a all encompassing curse upon further generations, on the one who hated God.  
    And verse 10 shows His love for us, because “shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments,” Whereas God's wrath would be visited to the third and fourth generations for those who hate God, His mercy would be visited on thousands of generations for those who love God. Notice the contrast. The point of this passage is not to communicate the number of generations who will be blessed versus the number who will be cursed, but rather to communicate that God's mercy far exceeds His wrath.
   Deut. 5:9-10  contradicts the idea that children pay for their fathers' sins to the third and fourth generations, and that the children are destined to repeat the sins of their fathers. Consider David. David killed a man and committed adultery, but we don't read of Solomon doing the same. The outcome of their lives was quite different. Or consider the kings of Judah. King Hezekiah was Judah's most righteous king next to David (II Kings 18:4), but his son Manasseh was the most evil! Manasseh's grandson, Josiah, however, was a righteous king who brought a revival of Yahwism to the land! What happened to the mercies God promised to show on Hezekiah's progeny for thousands of generations? What happened to Manasseh's curse to the 3rd and 4th generation? They do not exist, which ought to clue us into the fact that Deuteronomy 5:9 et al is not about time limits on God's mercies and curses, but about the greatness of God's mercy over against His judgment.
   Ezekiel 18:1-5 Ezekiel 18:1-5 counters the idea that God punishes the children for the fathers' sins:  “The word of the LORD came to me again: 2 "What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, `The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge'? 3 As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. 4 Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins shall die. 5 "If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right.”
    Ezekiel expands on this idea in the verses that follow in much more detail, pointedly declaring that if the son of an evil man does not repeat His father's sins (which contradicts the interpretation of the "generational curses" passages that the children are destined to repeat their fathers' sins) he will not be punished, but only the father. The same goes for the corollary in which a righteous man's son commits evil. The father will be blessed, but the son will be punished. Ezekiel summed up the matter by proclaiming:  “The soul that 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. 21 "But if a wicked man turns away from all his sins which he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die.” (Ezek 18:20-21). Deut. 5:9-10, Ezek. 18:1-5, 20-21, both show personal responsibility for sin.
    Some like to distort these verses and say that these passages as referring to the cycle of psychologically and socially-influenced negative behavior patterns that tend to be repeated from one generation to the next (e.g. alcoholism, spousal abuse, uncontrolled anger). According to this interpretation one's upbringing, not God, is responsible for the curse. One sins cause of the problem. It is still about individual accountability of one’s sin and not what your mother, father, grandfather, or grandmother did in the past.
     But notice that this wrong understanding of generational curses has nothing to do with God.  While it is true that the human tendency is for children to repeat the sins of their parents, this is not due to the fact that God has cursed them so that they must repeat the same sins. There is nothing supernatural about it. It is a phenomenon of human nature. We learn from example and influence. We tend to do what we have learned to do by the example of others. We don't need a Bible verse to explain this social phenomenon. Scripture, however, claims the curse is supernatural in nature; it is attributed to the activity of God. If our understanding of "generational curses" does not depend on God, and yet whatever these texts are talking about depends on specific divine action, that ought to clue us into the fact that our understanding of "generational curses" has nothing to do with these passages, and therefore cannot serve as either an adequate interpretation or even application of these passages. While our observation that children tend to repeat the behavior pattern of their parents is true, that idea is not being taught in these specific passages (right idea, wrong Scriptural justification). We recognize that the bad behaviors we learned from our fathers should not be repeated, and indeed need not be repeated.
   A good example of this is the bad reputation of the Kennedy family. Some would say this due to a generational curse. NO. It is due to the sinful behavior of each individual Kennedy family member in the Kennedy clan.
   The curse of our sins of the world past, present, and future was paid for by Jesus on the Cross. The curse has been broken by his atoning blood. If any such thing as a generational curse does exist, that curse over our life would have been broken by Christ. In Christ we receive the mercy of God, not a curse. We have the victory in Christ Jesus.

     Mike you stated “if one looks at the present economic crises, it appears that even our posterity are going to be saddled with this burden for these billions of dollars to be paid out. Could this be an example of God punishing succesive generations for the sins of their fathers or ancestors?”
  God could be judging America for taking Him out of Schools, off our money, out the Courthouse, and our of our lives. The Liberals (are so close to Communist it is not funny)  in America hate Christians and they hate God because they do not want to be judged for their sins nor do they want anyone say anything against them, but they will be judged.               
  No, He is not punishing America, but He is letting us have what we  want. The sins of America will be the doom of America.
   The present economic crisis is our own doing. The 876 BILLION SPENDING BILL is based on the sins of Pelosi, Obama, and evil Democrats in Congress and it is the Church’s fault for being so Lukewarm and not getting out vote and these suckers would have never gotten in office in the first place, and our children and grandchildren will have to pay for it. 867 billion dollars is so much money people can not fathom what it would look like in one place. This country does not have 876 BILLION dollars and we will borrowing from China and the European international bank, and they will own us, even more than they do now. America is stupid sometimes.  

  God Bless You Today,

Dr. Don Howe, RN, PhD, ThD.