How to Be Made Whole - Part 16: Redeemed from the Curse

REVIEW

One thing is for sure, God wants all of us to be made whole. Yes, the same way God wants all men and women to be saved is the same way God wants all of us to be healed & whole.
 
We’ve learned this through First Thessalonians 5:23 as well as through the myriad of examples in the Bible where Jesus healed them all!
 
I know religious people will argue that God sometimes will leave a person broken so they will learn to depend on Him or that He doesn’t heal everyone because for some, He has a person in their infirmity for a purpose. Some call their infirmity, their “cross to bear.” But that’s ridiculous! Why? Because Jesus told us to that we can take up or lay down our cross. So if our “cross” were a physical condition or handicap, then how can one choose to lay it down? No, they are “bound” to that infirmity, barring God heals them and sets them free.
 
No, choosing to take up one’s cross and following the Lord is correctly understood as dying to yourself and choosing to lay your life down for the Lord. Now that’s something everyone can and should do.
 
But only religion can pervert this and make something out that the Old Testament directly calls a curse and the New Testament specifically shows us we’ve been redeemed from sound like it’s a part of God’s redemptive plan for us. All that is, is man’s poor attempt at explaining why bad things happen to good people, but those philosophies of man are a stretch to say the least.  
 
And the reason why I can say this is because of all of the examples we have from the life & ministry of Jesus where He healed all who came to Him in faith – which is where the apostle Peter got the following statement that he made to Cornelius’ household— “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (Acts 10:38).
 
What a beautiful summary of the ministry of Jesus, which reveals to us the heart of God because Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing!
 
Yes, Jesus always was doing good! So this is why I like to add something to our well-known Christianize – “God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good.” You see, we are accustomed to saying God is good all the time, but we need to also add that He does good all the time too (Psalm 119:68).
 
What else was Jesus doing all the time? He was healing all who were oppressed by the devil, which was a point that we made last week – that sometimes our brokenness and the areas of our life that need healing are not just physical. No, sometimes there is a demonic control or influence that needs to be dealt with in order to be made whole.
 
We looked at this in the example of the blind & mute man last week – how he had these physical conditions, but they were a result of being “demonized.”
 
So what we learned last week was how to resist the kingdom of darkness so that if our sickness, disease, infirmity, or any other physical, mental, or emotional issue is demonically inspired, how to fight it off and receive our healing. And it is with those “It is writtens”, using God’s Word, we have the power to destroy the kingdom of darkness and resist the devil. This is how we can run off the works of the devil and become healed & whole like this blind & mute man did on that day – by seeing what we need to see and saying what we need to say. Amen!
 
THE HEALING OF THE MAN WITH DROPSY
 
Now this week, I want us to move into another account of healing where a man was made whole from a unique kind of disease called “dropsy.” This healing is mentioned in Luke 14:1-6.
 
Now in verse one, our story begins – “Now it happened, as He went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched Him closely.”
 
So, this host was not just any old Pharisee; he was one of the rulers of the Pharisees. In other words, he was the head-honcho! Therefore, you have to know this was a nice house and a prestigious dinner that Jesus was invited to. However, their motives were not completely pure in their hospitality. This is obvious by what is said at the end of verse one …
 
Notice how “they watched Him closely”: Now they were obviously not watching him closely to be blessed by Him. No, they were watching him closely to find fault with Him and accuse Him. You know, this is what someone who is offended does with those they are offended with: they will look for something else that will further substantiate their offense. But guess what the one will do that is not only not offended, but truly loves the other person? They will only see the good in them, magnifying their positives and not their negatives. Yes, you will watch closely or listen carefully to the person or thing that your heart is inclined towards.
 
We need to understand too that they were watching Him closely because they expected Him to break the Sabbath somehow, likely by healing someone. This is faith- is it not!?! They were watching, looking intently, for Him to do good on this Sabbath like He had done before (i.e. The healing of the man with the withered hand). Therefore, these Pharisees and religious leaders were in more faith for a healing than most of us Christians. 
 
Then notice verse two – “And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy.”
 
The word “before (Him)” reveals to us that this man was “in front of” Him. He might have been sitting across the table from Jesus. We don’t know. But herein lies a good principle – our ministry is what is “in front of” us (i.e. before us). Too many times we are looking for opportunities to minister and miss the opportunities that are before us.
 
For example, there are many out there who feel called to preach and teach and complain because they don’t have anywhere to preach. Listen, there are plenty of places for us to minister: the prisons are always looking for ministers. Nursing homes would love to have you come minister there. Stop just looking for places you want to go, and go where the need is. So, what is before you, or let me ask it this way—what are the needs that you see and are staring you in the face? Oftentimes, those are the people or things that God wants you to directly minister to or simply pray for. 
 
Then notice who it was that they brought before Jesus – It “was a certain man … who had dropsy”
 
Now we will get into what this specific disease was because I doubt there are too many folks here today that know what “dropsy” is, but how many of you know that you don’t even need to know what this is to know you don’t want it?
 
Now this brings up an important point: Did you know that you do not really need to know everything about a certain infirmity or disease to get healed of it? In fact, it is generally those who know everything there is to know about a certain disease that have the hardest time getting healed of it. They spend countless hours doing research on their illness, and the problem with this is it can fuel the unbelief that would hinder the miracle. Now I am not saying that we should bury our head in the sand and be naïve, but there is a proper balance to simply being informed and letting that information spawn unbelief in our hearts.
 
Then in verse three, Jesus asked those in this ruler of the Pharisees’ home – “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
 
Notice that Jesus did not ask what was “unlawful.” Rather, He asked what was “lawful.”
 
You see, religion focuses only on what you can’t do. Yes, the Law liked to focus on what you can’t do and what you aren’t doing. The royal law- the law of love- focuses more on what you can do and what we should be doing. So, for Jesus to ask what was lawful, He is coming at it from a New Covenant perspective. Things like healing, doing good, setting people free, etc. were never forbidden under the Law. Therefore, instead of majoring on what we shouldn’t be doing, they should have majored on what we have the right to be doing.
 
The Old Covenant mentality says, “I got to do this to get that.” The New Covenant mentality says, “I get to do this because I already got that.”
 
So in verse four, we see how Jesus healed this man with dropsy – “He took him, and healed him, and let him go.”
 
Notice the process of healing here: Jesus first “took” him which indicates that He laid hold of this man with His hands. Then He healed him, and then “let him go” – meaning that He set him free and released him. That shows me that sometimes healing is sandwiched in between laying hold of something and not letting it go until they are healed.      
 
Finally, in verse five, Jesus used an analogy to drive His point home: He said, “Which of you having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?”
 
Jesus here compared the healing of a person to helping an animal in an attempt to show us how, just as we would not think of not helping our animals, we should not think twice about helping a person who is in physical need. And in this instance, the pit was being compared to the infirmity.
 
Church, sickness, disease, and infirmity is not a blessing. It is a “pit” – that is, a trap or an inescapable place! Hell is referred to as a bottomless pit. So here infirmities are likened to the same thing hell is – a pit. Therefore, sickness and infirmity are in no way a part of the liberty that we have been called unto. It is evil. It is hell. It is a curse. And therefore, we are redeemed from it. Amen.  
 
Which is the point I want to make today – what we are redeemed from.
 
Now as promised, I wanted to describe to you what this specific disease is – the disease Jesus associated a pit with: This term “dropsy” is not a common medical term today, but it might be referred to today as “edema” (a-deme-a), which is a disease characterized by fluid retention and swelling. “Dropsy” is a symptom of a disease of the heart, liver, kidneys, or brain. This condition involves the accumulation of water fluid in the body cavities or in the limbs. Thus, other translations say that he was a man whose body, arms and legs were swollen.
 
But there is power in specifically knowing what these things that our so-called experts have given names to are because then we can uncover what we are redeemed from.
 
You see, the fact that we are not that familiar with the term “dropsy” is a point I’d like to make today.
 
In the Bible, there were a lot of physical conditions, diseases and illnesses, that were unique to the day & age they lived in. And while we can certainly associate these symptoms with certain diseases & illnesses that we have in our world today, the fact is there were certainly physical conditions they had back then and in the part of the world that they lived in that differ from the physical issues that we deal with here in the United States in 2024.    
 
One of our most detailed examples of this is found in Deuteronomy chapter 28 where the Lord gave His covenant people a long list of curses that would come upon them if they broke His law and didn’t heed His voice. Yes, there is a very specific list of issues that they would have if they did not keep His commandments.
 
Now in Deuteronomy 28:1-14, we first see God give them the blessings of keeping His law and following His voice. But then in verses 15-68, which is a whole lot more verses than the blessings, we have some pretty horrendous curses for violating His law and not following His voice. These curses ranged from physical diseases (some of which we are going to look at today), mental & emotional issues, financial & business problems, and relationship issues such as brokenness in the family arena. It was bad! And it was clear that all of these things described in these 50-plus verses were considered “curses.”
 
You see, the dictionary defines being “cursed” as being “damned, doomed, devoted to destruction, (Now we don’t want to get “D’s” in this class, amen? We want to get “A’s and B’s”- Absolutely Blessed!) afflicted or plagued.” In our modern-day terminology, we might say it is to be “jinxed, unlucky, or unfortunate.”  
 
So why would anyone call any of these horrible things “blessings” or “blessings in disguise?” A lot of people in the church today do. They consider certain things like cancer, the death of a child, certain handicaps, etc. “blessings,” in an attempt to find the silver lining when those things happen.
 
No, friends, a curse is a curse, and a blessing is a blessing! Don’t try to make things that God calls a curse out to be a blessing in disguise. We are told here that these bad things are curses for violating God’s law and if you look at what God said through the law to the children of Israel, He said that they would dwell in the land of promise, promising them healing, prosperity, and peace (i.e. wholeness).
 
So it’s rather clear from God’s perspective what is a blessing and what is a curse, and it’s pretty much common sense. Yes, a blessing in God’s eyes is what a blessing is to most people, and a curse in God’s eyes is what a curse is to most people.
 
Now it is rather clear that there are those of us who seem to have these types of things called “curses” in the Bible that follow us around, that are abnormal and unnatural. I’m referring to those things that are reoccurring and seem harder to shake than the average infirmity.
 
It’s for this reason that we have people cite causes of this and refer to them as “generational curses.” Now there are such things …
 
In Exodus 34:6-7, the Lord God told Moses –  “And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.’”
Now most of us are guilty of reading verses like this and focusing on the negative part – that God by no means will clear the guilty, but will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and grandchildren, even to the 3rd and 4th generations. But did you notice that it works in reverse as well? Verse 6 teaches about how merciful and gracious God is, how longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth He is. And how He keeps mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.
But I want you to notice that when this “generational cursing” is referred to, it just says this is for the “guilty” and doesn’t quantify who all and how many we are talking about. However, for “thousands” He forgives iniquity, transgressions, and sin! Glory to God!
So this isn’t one of those kind of things where there’s going to be five out of ten families that are going to be cursed and the other half won’t have to deal with it. No, what we are seeing here is that God’s propensity is for blessing, not cursing. Yes, He is the forgiver, being full of mercy and gracious. Therefore, the “guilty” referred to here has to be some abnormal, accentuated kind of sin for it to not fall under the umbrella of His grace & mercy. In other words, in order to be the guilty that the Lord is referring to here, a generation has to do some pretty heinous things or some specific kind of sin that falls outside of all of this mercy God tends to give.   
And I don’t think we really need to speculate as to what this is because in Exodus chapter 20 we get a glimpse:
When giving the children of Israel the Ten Commandments, The Lord said in verses 4-6, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
Notice that the specific thing that God said sparked Him to jealousy and to visit their iniquities up to the 3rd & 4th generations is idolatry. Yes, worshipping graven images of false gods is something that the Lord specifically noted would cause these generational curses upon family blood lines. These are those whom the Lord says, hate Him. 
This is why we see some of the most impoverished nations in the world as being those who practice idolatry. It’s because this particular sin hates God and opens people up to the fruit of their gods, which is never anything close to a blessing.
But my point is that, odds are we are not under some generational curse that requires some special form of ministry to break. No, the odds are we fall under this “thousands” category that has been shown a whole lot of mercy, grace, and compassion from the Lord even though we all have certainly sinned and fallen short of His glory. Praise the Lord!
But again, it is clear that there are things that might be tendencies and are hard to shake. So we need to learn how to break the power of these things, but I believe one very important thing to break first is the belief system that we have. And if we believe that there is something that has power over us whether that be some kind of generational curse or some demonic power or spirit, then that can hinder our healing & deliverance because in our hearts we’ve given it a right to be there.
Church, I can promise you that nothing of the kingdom of darkness has the right or power to be there. These things are dealt with through the same means that the big generational curse was dealt with that we were all born under.
Now you might be wondering – What is this generational curse that we all have in our bloodline? I’m referring to the ultimate curse of Adam’s sin.
You see, the apostle Paul taught us that “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—" (Romans 5:12).
Well, that sounds like a generational curse to me, how about you? 
So this generational curse of sin started with Adam in the Garden. Because of Adam’s sin we are all born under the curse of sin. This curse causes us all to be born with a sinful nature which is the true catalyst of any sinful behavior we exhibit.  As King David said, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5).
And if left undealt with, sin will run its course and it will end in eternal separation from God Himself. This is the ultimate generational curse.
So how was this curse dealt with? Jesus had to come and become the propitiation for our sin, dying on the Cross in our place. So in order for you and I to become cured of this curse of sin, we must call upon the name of the Lord, receiving His work of grace, and be born again. Once this occurs, that generational curse of Adam is removed, and we become a new creation where old things pass away and all things become new (See Second Corinthians 5:17). Yes, we go from being cursed to being blessed of God. No, not by our own works or by any other self-effort on our part, but by simply receiving the grace of God by faith. Amen?
Well, if this simple action is what took care of the biggest generational curse, then why would we think that we have to jump through all of hoops to get free from other curses? As we’ve learned already through this series, the same way we got saved is the same way we receive all of the other benefits of our salvation – by grace through faith. So if I want to get free from these pesky little issues that plague my life, then I just need to receive the grace of God by faith in Him. Amen!  
The apostle Paul teaches us this: Romans 5:17-18 says, “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.”
Yes, the remedy to break the curse of Adam’s sin and the consequence of your parents’ sin are both found in Jesus Christ. Any person born again in Jesus Christ has been made brand new and you are no longer under the curse of any sin. Consider this verse:
Again, Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life]”
Regardless of what has happened before, once you are in Christ it is all made brand new. This one decision to repent and choose Jesus as your Savior ends any generational curse or consequence that you feel prone to. If salvation breaks the ultimate generational curse of original sin, it will also break the consequence of any sins of your fathers. The challenge for you is to continue to walk out what God has done in you. If you are in Christ, you are no longer a prisoner to your past, you have been set free.
Honestly sometimes the scars of your past life remain but you don’t have to remain victim to them because Jesus has set you on a new path. As Jesus has declared in John 8:36, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
And it is for this reason that I tend towards believing in “generational blessings” because of what Christ Jesus has done for us.  
You and I were born under a curse and a consequence. The curse of original sin and the consequence of our parents’ behaviors. The good news is that just as sinful behaviors can be passed down, so can Godly behaviors. Once you are in Christ you can begin a new family heritage of people walking with God from one generation to the next.
Yes, because you belong to him, you can transform your family line from generational cursing to generational blessing. You are new in Christ, you are free in Christ, so walk in that newness and freedom. Regardless of what has happened before, because of Christ you have victory. I implore you to live in that victory and change the course of your family’s future for generations to come.