The Torah teaches us the the sins of the fathers are passed down to the second, third and fourth generations if those sin issues are not resolved. When we fail to find healing we have no choice but to pass the symptoms of our woundedness down to our children and their children's children until someone chooses to break the cycle. This process has the potential in the course of several generations to affect thousands of people. When a man marries several women he not only connects to them spiritually but also to their ancestral chain - to the good, the bad, and the ugly.
This is a consequence that most Christian/Messianic patriarchs rarely consider. Moreover, were they to be cogniscent of what it means spiritually to actually join themselves in one-flesh to more than one woman they would probably seriously reconsider contracting more polygamous marriages. When a man unites to a woman not only does he unite her to his ancestors but she him to hers and thus everyone's together. Little wonder, then, that some plural families which have been entered into presumptuously and out of Yahweh's will, have ended up as small holocausts.
Yahweh said to the prophet Malachi:
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of Yahweh.
And he will turn
The hearts of the fathers to the children,
And the hearts of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse"
(Malachi 4:5-6, NKJV)
This important and much neglected passage is speaking of the ministry of the Spirit of Elijah which has, as one of its functions, the reconciling of generational ties. This ministry is so important that without it Yahweh has no choice but to strike the earth whith a curse at the time of the Great Judgment. In simple English what this means is that if the generational issues are not resolved they will have fateful consequences for the last generation living on this planet before the return of the Messiah.
The piling up of sins in our world today is everywhere evident. Many of us look around and throw up our hands in despair as we watch mankind sinking ever deeper into the quagmire of unrepented sin. The rulers today are from the 1960's hippie generation which in one bold stroke rejected both the established order and replaced it with moral and ethical anarchy. And whilst this is by no means to say that this generation is the primary cause of all our woes today it is very much to say that they were responsible for setting aside the remaining bulwarks of Torah and letting in a tidal wave of filth. Their sins rest heavily on the young generation of today.
Unresolved sin issues in our lives are passed on to our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, affecting thousands of lives. This requires a word of explanation. This does not mean that, for example, if my father molested me (which he didn't, I hasten to add) that I will molest my children. Just because a person was molested as a child does not dictate that he will molest others. (Sometimes a generation is skipped). But every wound that is not healed will impact the way we deal with and relate to our children. An abused person may not become a child-molester, but he will have the symptoms or emotional consequences of this wound and will pass the consequences of these symptoms down to the children of the next generation if he does not find healing. This is without exception. If I was abandoned by a parent through divorce, alcholism, or some other form of parental absenteeism, I will pass the symptoms of this abandonment wound down to my children. I may never actually abandon them, but the symptoms of my wound will come through in some form or fashion in the way I parent.
When the Scriptures say that the sins of the father are passed down to the following generations this is what is primarily meant. Just because my father was a thief and a scoundrel (he wasn't in real life) does not mean that I will become the same or commit the same sins. But his sinful behaviour will very likely have a damaging effect on my emotions. This will translate into my life through wounded emotions and I will very likely make poor choices based on my pain.
There are many men and women in the Christian/Messianic community who are choosing polygamy because they see it as a last hope to deal with emotional problems stemming from parental abuse. Polygamy in and of itself is not, however, a spiritual sanitarium or hospital any more than monogamy is. Many people marry thinking that their personal emotional and other problems will be solved simply by being in an intensely loving environment. This is a dangerous fallacy. The only way the emotional and related problems stemming from ancestral sinning can be solved is through experienced ministry and it can as well be done in a single, monogamous, or polygamous state.
Every single wife of mine has brought ancestral problems into our marriage that have had to be taken care of (or not, as the case may be) by proper ministry. As I am myself a minister they have, in most cases, come to me to have these problems resolved. My first wife's parents had a loveless marriage which seriously impacted her emotional life. Both she and her sister married several times trying to find a solution in marriage itself. This was before I had the ministerial skills to know how to treat this kind of problem. My second wife came from a home hit by divorce which left her emotionally very insecure and unable to relate intimately with people. My third wife comes from a home where there was much love and as a result there is much love in her (our) home today. My fourth comes from a line where parental abandonment, divorce alcoholism have figured large. Both, however, had generational issues that needed to be sorted out. My fifth came from a physically abusive background which crippled her emotions completely but she would not, in the end, receive my ministry, and left unhealed and unreconciled. My sixth also came from a background of violent generational abuse but unlike the fifth received ministry and healing. And my seventh has required ministry of divers kinds. So it has been a heavy and ongoing ministerial workload.
Generational sins and curses cannot be safely ignored in marriage
Ed M. Smith relates the story of a man called Jess who carried deep wounds of abandonment into his marriage and parenting. He loved his children deeply and swore he would never abandon his children as he had been. Jess' problem was the huge hole in his heart for being loved and valued. His abandonment wound had a lie in it which told him that he had little value and was not loved. Jess began to try to fulfil this need through getting love from his children. He found himself always asking them for affirmation and love. He wanted them to hug him often and give him attention. Jess was looking to his children to meet the love needs that had gone unmet in his own childhood. The wound was being passed down. The primary rôle of the parent is to love the child, not the other way round. The child is not responsible to meet the love needs in the parent. When these rôles are reversed, great damage results.
There are limitless symptoms which fester from the wounds we carry of which the following is just a sample:
A. The inability to remember much of one's childhood. Many people who are wounded are unable to remember much about their childhood.But not remembering is not conclusive of repressed memory. If you have dificulty remembering your childhood, this may or may not be because of some deep repressed trauma. You may just have a bad memory. But for some, repression of the abuse becomes a way of survival. Little children are incapable of dealing with the trauma of abuse, so they learn to separate themselves mentally and emotionally from the actions that were being forced upon them. The layman's term for this survival tactic is 'splitting off' or more technically, dissociation. Later, as adults they may have flashbacks of these events and, if pursued, may regain some of their painful memories. Remembering is the first phase of healing.
B. Feelings of shame and guilt. The victims will often feel 'dirty' or shameful for what has happened to them. If they are unaware of their past, they will still feel their shame but will attach things to it that are unrelated to the real issue. These people often struggle with the assurance and security of their relationship with Elohim (God). 'How could God accept me as shameful as I am?' The truth is, the shame and guilt are misdirected and false. They were victims and were innocent of any sin or crime. There is a difference between shame as in 'feeling guilty' and shame as in 'taintedness' because of what was done to us.
C. Sexual dysfunction in the marriage relationship. People who have been sexually abused may have difficulty being sexual with their mates. If they are unaware of their past abuse, they will be tempted to blame the cause on their spouse or other unrelated elements. They may have a difficult time feeling intimate during sex. Sex may feel bad, dirty, overwhelming, abusive, repulsive, sad, confused, etc..
A woman counsellee was surprised when she was told that most women did not feel depressed and dirty after sex. For her this was normal. It was what she had always felt. However, it is important to state that not all sexual dysfunction is rooted in childhood molestation. But you will not find a person who has been sexually molested who did not have some form of sexual difficulty as an adult. Most do not know that what they experience during sex (the unpleasant symptoms) is not normal and needs to be attended to.
D. Difficulty in expressing anger, sadness, or any strong emotion. In many cases of abuse, if children expressed anger or other strong emotion when being abused, additional pain or punishment was inflicted on them. The child of abuse quickly learned to do whatever he/she had to do in order to 'get through' the ordeal. This often meant being quiet and not showing anger. Children also learn not to show emotion as a way of staying in control. Often an abuser would not permit the child to cry. Because of this, victims may have great difficulty in allowing themselves to cry as adults.
One woman remembers making the decision not to cry or feel while her mother was beating her. She watched as the blood fell in large drops to the floor around her and yet she felt no pain. She wanted to fight back. She wanted to be angry, but to do so would mean more pain. She cut off her anger as a means of protecting herself.
E. Compulsive and/or addictive behaviour. Eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, and other destructive behaviours are commonly symptomatic of a person who has been wounded. I do not accept the notion which attributes addictive behaviour as a disease. If it is a disease, then we are no longer responsible for it. We simply need to treat it in the same way we would if we developed a case of the measles. We would need to go to the doctor and get a shot. Addictive disorders have a common root. They are a vain attempt at healing a wound apart from Elohim's (God's) grace by masking the pain.
Religious overcompensation can also be evidence of childhood woundedness. Many people are in pursuit of becoming clean by doing good things. The problem is, nothing will clean them since their dirtiness is rooted in a lie. It is like trying to wash out a spot which is not there. It feels real and looks real but it is a lie. The wounded person tries to 'be good enough' or pay for his or her shamefulness.
Churches often mistake 'spiritual gifts' with woundedness. For example, the inability to say 'No' in a codependent person is often mistaken for the gift of service. All that looks spiritual is not always what it seems. It might be interesting to see what a church/assembly really looks like when it gets a little more free and is able to walk in truth rather than in religious compensation.
Other miscellaneous symptoms. Flashbaks of the abuse, feelings of wanting to die, need for control, feelings of inadequacy, low self-esteem, difficulty in connecting with others, frozen emotions, an inabality to say "no", confusion about rôles, fear of authority, fear of men, fear of women, stress, associating abuse with love, poor partner choices, and many other symptoms are rooted in lies embedded within memories. If you expell the lies, you will remove the symptoms. If you go after the symptoms, you will never find an end to your effort.
An illustration helps. We have apple trees in a small orchard which usually put out a large crop of apples each year. If I wanted to get rid of the apples I could go and shake the tree and pick every last one. The problem is that I have only removed the apples for a season. Next year I will have just as many apples as before. I could cut the tree down. This would work for a while but eventually the roots of the tree would send up a new sprout which would with time produce more apples. The only way I can eliminate the apples completely is to pull the tree up by its roots. You have to get to the roots of spiritual problems and so remove the symptoms for good.
As sin multiplies in our wicked world the chances of finding an unwounded marriage parter diminish significantly every year. According to statistics I have seen, 50% of all children are sexually molested before they become adults and can defend themselves. Of every two men you meet, one is likely to be a victim and have severe emotional problems. Of every two women you meet, one is likely to be a victim and have severe emotional problems. The chances of finding virgin men and women is likewise nearly impossible. Somewhere in the order of 80-90% of all teens have experienced premarital sex and have all the problems associated with fornication. By the time you come to people in their 30's, the chances of finding a virgin is nigh impossible. Most have had multiple partners, many have committed adultery.
Chains of sexual soul-ties introduce destructive forces into marriage
The sins we commit are our own choice and we are responsible for them but the impulses that often drive people to live immoral lives is usually generational. The sins of the fathers pass to the children. Traits like alcoholism and suicide run in families. One of my wives' families has these problems in abundance. Some families seem plagued by divorce. Others have a propensity for the occult. And yet all of these traits can, and must, be eliminated by deliverance ministry. And when one member of a family breaks these generational curses, the whole of the family can be blessed.
A polygamous husband is a covering for his wives. Whatever the devil throws at them, the husband meets as the first line of defence. What many men do not realise, however, is that marriages can be assaulted from within by generational curses. I relate a couple of instances by way of an illustration.
The first concerns soul-ties. I was once courting a woman who very much wanted to become a part of my family and though we lived some distance apart, a soul-tie was formed. This was symbolically represented to both of us, independently, in dreams we had in which we had a 'child' together. This child symbolised a living relationship or soul-tie. It began as a baby and then grew, over the weeks, into a boy (on my side) or a girl (on hers). (Many mistakenly believe these dreams to be prophetic of future children - they are usually not). One day I was looking at this child in vision and noticed he was asleep. At once I knew the relationship was experiencing a problem from her side, and indeed she went quiet for a day or two as she wrestled with the consequences of embracing this lifestyle by emotionally detatching from me for a while. She returned to the relationship and once more opened her heart and again I saw the boy in vision awake. Then I heard the voice of Yahweh say to me: "There is another".
I then learned that buried in her subconscious was a previous relationship that had not actually been ended (there had been no closure) but merely supressed. The next thing I knew was that I was connected to a former lover through my soul-tie to her. It was a horrendous experience because I found myself connected to a very filthy and disturbed person who was suddenly 'one' with me. I could see into his very soul and literally read him like a book. I knew all about him in a few moments. I also came under demonic attack because the man was seriously demonised and then found myself connected to other soul-ties which this man had with others. I was literally in the middle of hell.
I told the lady I was courting that she had to break the psychic link to this man and she went through deliverance prayers, thus cutting the link to me. Or so I supposed. In actual fact, she was still struggling with the previous relationship and had not fully resolved it in her own soul. And though the psychic link was broken by the Spirit it was only a while later that she decided to choose this man instead of myself. The effect of that was devastating because it literally killed the 'child' that had been forming in both myself and one of my wives who was in close contact with her and with whom she had a soul-tie too. There was still a tie but the channel for demonic infection had been closed down. We prayfully waited for Yahweh to do His work and for the lady in question to make the necessary choices to extricate herself from the destructive situation. She never did and the ties had to be permanently broken.
My fourth wife, when she left and committed adultery, created a new soul-tie. I found myself coming under massive demonic attack and had to progressively cut soul-ties at spiritual each level of infestation both for the spiritual welfare of myself and for my other wives. Over the years it got worse and worse until there was only a small kernel of her soul that was still uninfected and linked to me (2016). So long as that is there, there is the hope of reconcilliation through repentance and deliverance. If that ever succumbs, then the old relationship will have been wiped out. Such is the gross sin of adultery.
If you don't break ungodly soul-ties caused by sinning and commandment-breaking, you will end up getting your own spirit in a hopeless and confusing knot. Forces will operate in you that you don't understand and which will impact the rest of your family creating disharmony and conflict. Soul-times need not, moreover, be generational (connecting us with the dead) or sexual. We can form emotional soul-ties that are destructive too. If you have ever been around someone and felt psychically drained by them, it is almost certainly the result of an ungodly soul-tie to them, their demonic feeding off your energy.
Soul-ties come in many forms and can completely knot up your spirit
For many reading this account this will sound science-fictiony, and too incredible to believe. But these things are real. Throughout my ministry I have dealt with this kind of phenomenon time and time again. Moreover, when we link to a new spouse we also link to their ancestors, and if there are ancestral curses, those curses become ours and are inherited by our children. The breaking of ancestral curses through deliverance ministry is therefore critical in our demonised world for a healthy and happy marriage relationship.
The act of sex creates full soul-ties which is why sex must never be done outside marriage. Sex is the act of marriage. It makes of two (and more in a polygamous family) "one flesh". Mental, emotional, and spiritual bridges are made and the process of echad begins ... if you let it.
This is an enormous responsibility for a polygamous husband. As the head of a new family in a 'one flesh' relationship with his wives, he is responsible not only as their spiritual cover without but also for resolving generational issues both for his and his wives's sakes and also for their children's. Like it or not, children inherit unresolved spiritual issues as we have seen. They become handicapped in so many ways. This means that we must not only work with ourselves but also intercede for our ancestors, living and dead. For an account of one such healing, read Bringing Salvation to Jews through Intercession.
The patriarch-husband is not just a husband and father but also a minister and a tribal lord. That means he is a judge in both the physical and spiritual realms. As far as the latter is concerned, he has the responsibility to operate in the Spirit of Elijah. Indeed I find increasingly that tripartate rôle as husband-father-minister is in truth the rôle of every Christian/Messianic polygamist man. Every polygamist man is a pastor and needs the tools and skills for the job. If he is serious about his calling to have many wives he will be anxiously engaged in acquiring them because without them he is going to get mountain loads of difficulties and may well be overwhelmed. A polygamist man is therefore training for the ministry in at least some degree, even if it is only part-time. And it follows, then, for the sake of his family, that he had better get his doctrine and practice right.
The polygamist man must wear three hats
There are, of course, other types of Christian/Messianic polygamy apart from echad. It really depends how deep you want your marriage relationship to be. There are many who are content to live spiritually superficially and interact on a less demanding level of human contact. That is, however, artificial and is no guarantee against problems arising and causing major strife leading to break-ups.
I am led to therefore once again restate the importance of building up a solid spiritual relationship in Christ before contracting a plural marriage, and going through deliverance ministry. To do otherwise is, in my option, folly. It therefore gladdens my heart to find many more couples studying out these things and preparing their lives accordingly before entering polygamy. This is definitely the right and wise thing to do. Nobody should be rushing into this principle.
Finally, echad Christian/Messianic polygamy does not guarantee success and has its casualties. Everyone is their own agent and must make choices. Planet earth is a war zone spiritually and the warfare is intensifying. Building strong patriarchal families becomes all the more critical, and to do that requires careful preparation. This I, at any rate, aim to do, with the full backing of my wives. We stand ready to help anyone who would like to know more.
Further Reading
[1] Please see the extensive materials in our ministry's Deliverance Website
Acknowledgements
[1] Ed M. Smith, Beyond Tolerable Recovery, Alathia Publishing, Campbellsville, Kentucky:L 1999
[2] Dr. Kenneth McAll, Healing the Family Tree, Sheldon Press, London: 1982
Author: SBSK
