While in Romania at the close of a church service one evening two years ago, I watched as a woman came forward for prayer for her granddaughter. The little girl was about six years old, and had an unusually short attention span - about two seconds. She was unable to stay focused on any person speaking, even one that was two feet in front of her face. Pastor Carl Fox anointed her with oil and began to pray. As I watched and listened, the girl couldn't sit still.
Carl prayed the words that the Lord gave him. They included removing the curse of the bastard off the little girl. I watched as the girl immediately stopped her wild agitation, and sat perfectly still, her attention locked onto Carl's face. She stayed that way the rest of the evening, and is still delivered today.
I wondered. As a pastor of a small country church, and an itinerant preacher in various countries, I had seen several deliverance ministries, and participated in many victories helping people overcome demonic manifestations. But never had I heard of such a thing as the curse of the bastard.
Neither had Carl. We talked about it as we rode home together late that night. He confessed that he had never heard of anything called the bastard curse either, and he has been teaching and delivering people from curses for over fifteen years. We each went our way at the close of that ministry trip to Romania - he to his home in New Mexico, and me to mine in Massachusetts. But neither of us forgot the incident.
A year elapsed, and the Lord began showing Carl the Scriptures which mention the bastard curse. They appear in Deuteronomy 23 and Hebrews 12. In Deuteronomy, the bastard curse is noted to last for ten generations, at least 400 years, keeping God's children from being able to come into the congregation of the Lord. In Hebrews, the same words are used to signify those who are unable to receive the chastisement of the Lord - they are called bastard sons. As a result, they are not able to come to the place of obedience, rest, and growth as children of God.
Is there a connection, an application to the Body of Christ today? Jesus Christ was accused of being a bastard. Why is this such a singularly significant accusation? The flood of Noah was the consequence of this curse on the earth. Why is it so acute an issue in the heart of our heavenly Father?
The Holy Spirit began to release Carl to share what he had learned so far. In various travels, he began to see that the bastard curse was real, and surprisingly pervasive - both in the Scriptures as well as in modern experience, though it remains very hidden in both. We arranged for Carl to come and teach what he knew thus far in a series of campfire meetings in my home area. I was prepared for the theory, but not for the application that surfaced in those meetings.
At the close of the teachings, as we prayed together for the bastard curse to be removed, many in attendance started weeping, and those that weren't weeping distinctly felt a great weight taken off in the spirit. Those that wept knew of illegitimate circumstances within their own kin. Those that felt weights removed, knew something had been jettisoned from their generations past.
A week went by. In my spirit, as I evaluated the impact on the people present, I saw a picture of a river full of logs. The logs were slowly traveling downriver. They were tangled, and jammed in places against the curves at the banks, though still moving slowly. Then I saw, as in the old time photographs of explosive charges being set off to break up the jams, that breaking the bastard curse off generational bloodlines was breaking apart the logjams in people's lives - both individually, as well as corporately in the church body.
In the weeks that followed, I continued to notice dramatic reductions in offenses, an increase in reports from the people and congregations present of more intimate experiences in prayer closets with the Lord, and remarkable stories of how the Lord was breaking into old anger and wounded-ness. It was clear that though these were people that eagerly seek the Lord, and who loved the Scriptures, praise and worship, yet there were still citadels that needed taking. These were mature, serious Christians, many with Bible school backgrounds. Yet underneath the surface there were still areas that needed tending. I am convinced those areas would have stayed in place, immune from the chastisement of the Lord, had not the legal bloodline bondage of the bastard curse been broken from them.
The results of breaking the bastard curse off these believers got my attention. I went to the Scriptures to study. On my next engagement to preach in another part of the country, I shared what I had learned, and at the close of the session, I broke the bastard curse off those who had gathered. Immediately I noticed an identical result as when Carl had taught in our campfire meetings - about one third of the group wept, feeling the release of known illegitimacy in their family. The rest felt a tangible release from unseen weights in their spirit which were real. They knew something had been broken from their generations. What is this bastard curse? How can it affect believers today so dramatically, and yet be so hidden?...
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