1 Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” 2 So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites. Although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. 3 And David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?” 4 The Gibeonites said to him, “It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.” And he said, “What do you say that I shall do for you?” 5 They said to the king, “The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, 6 let seven of his sons be given to us, so that we may hang them before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the Lord.” And the king said, “I will give them.”
7 But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul’s son Jonathan, because of the oath of the Lord that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. 8 The king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Merab the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite; 9 and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before the Lord, and the seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest.
10 Then Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell upon them from the heavens. And she did not allow the birds of the air to come upon them by day, or the beasts of the field by night. 11 When David was told what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done, 12 David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa. 13 And he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan; and they gathered the bones of those who were hanged. 14 And they buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of Kish his father. And they did all that the king commanded. And after that God responded to the plea for the land. ~ 2 Samuel 21:1-14
One of my favorite childhood movies is Holes. The movie starts out by explaining how a young boy is thrown into a camp for troubled teens who have gotten in trouble with the law. However, the main character wasn’t there because he was a troubled youth or did something wrong. He was there because of his family’s curse. His great-great-grandfather had made a deal with a woman and didn’t keep his end of the bargain, bringing a curse on all of the men in his family who were to come after him. For four generations, they suffered until, finally, over a hundred years later, the great-great-grandson of the man fulfilled his side of the bargain, unknowingly, I might add.
So many of us make deals, promises, and vows without fully understanding what we are making or the repercussions of breaking them. So, many of us have opened ourselves and our families up to generational curses without even realizing it. See, unlike the movie, in real life, you’re not breaking and ending generational curses by accident. It doesn’t happen by chance like that. It takes focused, centered, purposeful actions coupled with the grace and strength of God to break generational curses. A simple prayer won’t do it. Simply coming to Christ won’t do it. It takes spiritual warfare to break the legal rights that we have given over to the enemy.
If no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to get ahead. You can’t seem to move forward. You can’t seem to get anywhere, then it may not just be you. It may be a spiritual door open in your life. Whether opened by you or an ancestor, it’s time you bring it before the LORD in serious prayer. It’s time to begin to fight back against the enemy and all that he is doing in our lives.
Peace. Love. Go Forth and Break Them Down.