Unlawful sexual relationships we've already looked at. Violence and abuse brings a curse. You notice that families where there's violence, it is a generational thing, it just keeps on going. The pattern of violence just continues, one generation of cursing. It's alarmed me how abusive, verbally abusive, many of our native culture, the Maori people are to one another. The way I've heard some speaking to one another, they're actually literally cursing each other. No white person could say that without getting a huge severe reaction, but many seem to feel it's okay to speak that way to one another, and cursing one another is always going to end up with problems. So violence and abuse always brings cycles of cursing and demonic powers. Another one, which is very clearly outlined in Genesis 12 Verse 3, is anti-Semitism, or being anti the Jews, or acting in a way hostile or contrary to the Jewish people. The Bible says: those that bless Abraham and his family, those who bless him, will be blessed, those who curse him, will be cursed. So that's still in application that still is there. That's why we have to guard that we don't have an attitude or a negative thing towards the Jews in any kind of way.
Stealing and lying opens the way for a curse. Lying and stealing always go together; if you steal you'll cover, and you'll have to lie. In Zachariah 5, Verses 3 to 4, it tells that a curse will enter the house of the person who steals. It actually says a curse will enter in, it will fly into the house, so when there's stealing and lying going on, there's nothing you do prospers. Now it appears as though you prosper, but what you don't see, is what really goes on in the true riches, which are the relationships and the family building. Where there's stealing and lying going on, there's massive destruction and erosion, and sure, there may be some short term material advantage, but somehow it all turns to dust. There is a curse where there is stealing. That's why we want to operate in integrity in all our finances. We don't need cursing coming into our life. We don't want to break the laws that will involve demonic powers coming in, and plundering what God wants to bless us with.
Word curses are an evident one of course. Word curses are words spoken by authority figures, spoken by yourself, over yourself: well I'll never get anywhere, I'm a failure, I'll never get anywhere. Curses spoken by parents over their children can create huge problems because they activate demonic spirits. Sometimes, in some cultures, you'll have people arise to curse you, if you're working in missionary areas particularly. Sometimes people who operate in the occult will endeavour to curse you. The curse always has to have a reason to rest. I remember I was in a meeting in Indonesia, a fantastic meeting, and there were about 2000 people there, and three witch doctors came to have a confrontation. They wanted to stand up and strip the power off me, whatever power it was, and so they came in there all wound up to do it. I never even saw them, I just had a great meeting and people got delivered.
Then it turns out later that three of them had stood up to do their stuff, and the moment they stood to their feet, boom! The power of God hit them, they were just thrown on the ground and could not get up. They actually had to crawl out of the meeting [laughter], so the cursing did not rest, because there's flowing in the power of the spirit. Dave was able to whip round and catch one of them and confront them, and cast the demons out, one of them got saved. So cursed objects can create problems in your home, and we talked about that before. Deuteronomy 7, 34 to 35, says don't even bring them into your home, so we need to guard our home from having idols and focal points for demonic spirits, otherwise it can introduce sickness, turmoil, conflicts into the home. Of course the last one we have is generational iniquities.
So I've given a list that I've found. It's probably not an exhaustive list, there are probably others, but these are ones commonly that I have seen, or have come up when I've ministered to people, those various kinds of areas. So if you know that something is going wrong, and it keeps going wrong, there's got to be a reason, so what is the reason? When did it first start? Was it very young, was it in the family line? Has there been a pattern in the family line? Is it generational? Where has this thing come from? Let's track it down to its root; what is the potential cause? Was it idolatry, spiritism, whatever? The Holy Spirit, if we ask Him, can bring it to the surface, bring a memory, a picture, bring something up to the surface that brings to mind, this is what we think it might be. So how can people be set free from curses? It's not as difficult as it looks. Remember many of the curses are generational, but not all.