We had been ministering in a church in Bucharest until about eleven at night and after the service was over, a gypsy pastor came up to me and said, “You must come with me.” And I said, “Well, where?” He answered, “To my village.” So I told him I could come tomorrow night. He promised to send someone to get us the next evening. The next night they came with a rickety old Dacha and we set off for the village. It seemed as if we’d fall out in the street every time the car hit a bump.

When we arrived, there were only fifteen people present. The pastor apologized and said, “I’m sorry this is all we are. Americans won’t usually come unless there’s a big crowd.” I replied, “Jesus would stop for just one, so we’d better too. But the night is beautiful. Let’s have church outside.”

“We never thought of doing that,” responded the gypsy pastor. They got their instruments together, and they certainly have some wild instruments! If you ever have a chance to go to a gypsy church, do it! If you have any trouble raising your hands and praising God, you won’t be able to stay sitting. The worship service is not out of control. It’s just that there’s so much love for the Lord, you’ll start feeling it down to the tips of your toes.

It was a powerful time. The music began to draw others from the neighborhood. They wanted to see what was going on. Because we were the only show in town, everybody in the whole town showed up. Spiritually, I could feel a kind of electricity in the air. About three hundred people gathered, all packed into the tiny churchyard. They also spilled into the street around, then into the field next door, all exuberantly waving their arms. The praise music and the novelty of white-skinned American speakers made quite an attraction. They had come out of curiosity. But then the Holy Spirit began to move.

The Lord said to me: “Read Psalm 109 to them regarding the curse that was put on Judas Iscariot and his heirs. Tell them that they are cursed and that this is the curse upon them.” I started thinking, “Well, this is impossible, because it says that Judas’ name will be blotted out in the next generation.” But the Lord told me unmistakably, “That’s talking about the males. The women change their name when they get married.” I didn’t understand much at all about this, but I figured that the Lord knew what he was doing. So I showed the interpreter the part I wanted read in Romanian.

The people became dead serious by then, because the gypsies are very knowledgeable about curses. They are always being cursed because of their lifestyle. Then I said, “Those of you who want to be freed of this curse, raise your right hand.” It was dusk in the little gypsy village and a bit hard to see, but we could make out lots of hands up and waving. They all raised their right hands because no one wanted to be left out. We could see the silhouettes of their hands up. I told them not to put their hands down until we finished praying. We broke the power of that curse over them in the name of the Lord Jesus.

There were so many people there who did not know the Lord Jesus and the message flowed regarding salvation. “Jesus is the one who died and paid the price for you, to set you free. He died on the cross, but God raised Him from the dead!”

Then I said, “Those of you who want to know this Jesus who has freed you from your curses and to make Jesus Lord of your life, raise both arms and hold them up and don’t put them down.” Every hand, as nearly as I could tell, was up and when I prayed, three hundred to four hundred people came to the Lord Jesus that night. When I said, “Amen,” they all started moving up to encircle us and to touch us. The love of God was overflowing and we kept saying, “God bless you, God bless you, God bless you!” It was one of the most moving times of my whole life. I had read Psalm 109 many times and had thought about how Jesus’ heart must have hurt as he was sitting there that night at the last supper. He knew the Bible well and by then, he knew that Psalm 109 was a prophecy about Judas. You can imagine the heaviness He felt because He loved Judas. I had read this Psalm and had felt the hurt, but never realized until the Lord told me, that it pertained to the gypsies.

Did it make any difference for the people in that village, having the curses removed? It sure did! Many villagers received healing in their bodies, as a result. They were freed from oppression and depression and many other things. I found out the following year that from that simple meeting, about a hundred churches sprang up.

There are some wonderful pastors who have taken the chance and had the audacity to work with the gypsies despite the adverse pressure from their culture. Just like in the Book of Acts—the gypsies are seeing miracles on every hand, and the spread of the gospel not only in Romania, but to the gypsies in the neighboring countries as well. God showed me that when the Iron Curtain goes back up, He would use the gypsies to get the Word of God to places where no one else can go. Those people are going to be His evangelists when the times get rough. They can live on almost nothing and you can’t keep them locked up; there’s no Iron Curtain they can’t get through!

What is this curse that is upon the gypsies? It is the curse of innocent blood. It is on them for betraying Jesus, the Son of God. The gypsies are in the bloodline of Judas Iscariot through his daughters.

THE CURSE OF INNOCENT BLOOD

FOR BETRAYING THE SON OF GOD – JESUS

(Psalm 109:4-6) For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.

And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.

Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.

What are these verses talking about? Judas was the trusted friend of Jesus and he turned away from his love. So what should have been blessings on the right hand were turned over to Satan.

(Psalm 109:7) When he shall be judged, let him be condemned:

Now in this verse is the start of the curse for betraying the Son of God. I think of it like in the old Wild West in America. We’re going to have a trial and hang you. Remember the old western movies? Judas was judged to have done one of the most horrible deeds in all of history. His betrayal led to condemnation. That became a curse on all of the generations after him.

…and let his prayer become sin.

How would you like your prayers to become sin? This is the curse that the gypsies have carried through many generations! Just one of these things would be awful, but this curse just keeps on stacking up.

(Psalm 109:8-10) Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

I have had experience with the gypsy people and have watched them and tried to minister to them. I have seen desperation in other cultures, but I have never seen desperation like gypsies have. I have never seen so many fatherless children.

Anywhere in the world where there is poverty, they will be there begging. If gypsies are born into the beggar class and have a girl (which in that culture is absolutely worthless), they’ll do things like cut her tongue out, break her arms, and bind them up so they’ll heal crooked. Then they set them up to beg so you’ll feel sorry for them and give them money. I’ve seen this, folks; it’s real today.

Gypsies often try to move into an area and set something up, but then they are driven away. The Public Broadcasting System had a TV program about them a while back and was pretty accurate about them, except in one thing. They said that there was no such thing as princes and kings with the gypsies. But there is such a thing. They have a beggar class that has to support their high class. These beggars have no excuse—“Well, I just had a hard day of begging and didn’t get much.” They have to turn over their money to their gypsy prince or king. They have to do this! It fits with what this verse is saying that much of their money goes to the extortioner.

(Psalm 109:12) Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.

I’ve never seen a people more cursed than the gypsies! Even in India, as bad as things are there, I don’t see the curse on the people on the streets as bad as the one on the gypsies. Some gypsies have never even taken a bath. It’s an amazing thing—dogs can discern gypsies. And everyone in Romania has dogs for that reason. A gypsy gets within half a block or so and dogs go crazy. Is not that something? We would hear them.

One time, when we were in Bucharest we finally got to bed after one or two in the morning, the dogs barked all night. They kept waking me up. I’d been two or three days without a full night’s sleep. And I said, “Lord, I’m leaving. I’m going somewhere else. I can’t go on without sleeping anymore. What is going on?” After a while you get tired enough that you accept rest, and I did. We kept asking ourselves why the dogs went crazy and we started watching. Every time the dogs went crazy, it was always because there were gypsies coming down the street.

(Psalm 109:13) Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

That means all the male bloodline—gone! The girls don’t carry on the name of the father; they carry on the name of their husband, the male. But Judas’ daughters had to go somewhere and get on with their lives. This is not just a generational curse, but also the curse of betraying the Lord Jesus Christ and of spilling innocent blood. This is the greatest depth of all the curses, the spilling of innocent blood.

(Psalm 109:14) Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.

No forgiveness! This is the worst curse that anyone can get. And the worst thing was to betray the Lord Jesus Christ to death. This is prophecy about Judas Iscariot. If you don’t believe it, read Acts 1:20. Jesus loves us when we don’t deserve it. The last meal he had he shared with Judas. He tried to the last minute to win Judas and finally he said, “Whatever you do, do it quickly.”

You should not think for one moment that there is anything in your life that could stop you from being able to get right into the throne room of God. You can expect deliverance from sin today, because it was bought by the blood of Jesus, by His death and resurrection. If Judas had repented, he would have been forgiven, too. And when the gypsies repent, the curse is broken in the name of Jesus.

(Psalm 109:15) Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.

Everyone says, “Where did the gypsies come from anyway?” No one knows. There really is a gypsy kingdom; they do exist. They are people without a land, but with their own unique language. They know the gypsy language, but then learn every language wherever they go. The Iron Curtain was not able to keep them from moving. They move from nation to nation—we even have them in this nation. The gypsies are not a nation to be feared, but to be loved and respected and brought to the Lord Jesus, so they can be healed.

Curses, if they are not stopped, continue on. We have read about the kind of things that cause generational curses. Even the best families have them. The point is that despite the worst possible betrayal and committing of the murder of innocent blood, we, as well as the gypsies, can have complete deliverance. For Jesus became “a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree:” (Galatians 3:13).

CURSES FROM ABORTION OF THE INNOCENT

Another very important issue that we have to face is the curse caused by the shedding of the innocent blood of babies. Our whole nation has blood on its hands and is cursed by the lust for spilling innocent blood. We have something called abortion in this country. We need to repent for the shedding of innocent blood.

We’ve had about forty million babies killed in the womb, sacrificed to convenience. The way we get around this is that we have a debate about when life starts. You see, the issue is not about when life starts. The issue is that the little fetus has blood in it and is an innocent person. Abortion is murder and life is not in the breath only. My Bible says life is in the blood. You take a little fetus and take a razor to it and you’ll see it bleed. It’s a very serious thing. But, praise God, we’re living in a time when we can have a personal relationship with God.

If anyone has had an abortion, we can have the curses broken in the name of Jesus and replaced with blessings. We have seen that curse removed and have seen the difference it makes in people’s lives. But it’s a serious thing that our nation faces, a very grave issue. Every twenty-two seconds there is an abortion done in the United States. Every minute and six seconds, three babies are sacrificed. The blood of all these babies is on the ground crying out to God! If you have had an abortion or been part of an abortion by recommending it or counseling someone to have one, please make sure you repent and get this curse broken.

I used to belong to a Christian denomination in which we believed that life was in the breath, so the baby was not alive until it squealed out at birth time. It’s not right, folks. These are the kind of things that are destroying our nation. I had to repent of my sin of participating with abortion. I was sure glad to get rid of that curse. We prayed for several women who had had abortions who wanted to have children. They had tried all kinds of things for years, including the medical tests, and still couldn’t have any children. Once the curse of innocent blood was broken in the name of Jesus and replaced with a blessing on the womb so they could bear children, God healed them completely and they now have beautiful little babies. God is so awesome!

CURSES FOR PREMEDITATED MURDER

Besides abortion, there are many other ways that people shed innocent blood. One is outright killing of an innocent man on purpose. One of King David’s generals did that. I guess he thought he’d get in good with the boss by killing someone from the old regime.

(2 Samuel 3:28) And afterward when David heard it, he said, I and my kingdom are guiltless before the LORD for ever from the blood of Abner the son of Ner:

There was the spilling of innocent blood in this case, because Abner was a righteous man, a great man in Israel. That’s why David would not accept what was done.

(2 Samuel 3:29) Let it rest on the head of Joab…

Joab supposedly went out to do David a favor, but he really did it because he thought it would be politically advantageous to him. David was not fooled by Joab’s motives. So, he said, “Let it rest on Joab.”

…and on all his father’s house; and let there not fail from the house of Joab one that hath an issue, or that is a leper, or that leaneth on a staff, or that falleth on the sword, or that lacketh bread.

In other words, David made sure that that curse didn’t land in his bloodline. Why did he do that? You might say, David didn’t show much appreciation. But who was in David’s bloodline? Jesus Christ was. Generational curses are real. David had to make sure he cleaned up his body and his life, or Jesus would not have accomplished His job.

Curses are a very serious thing. I’m not trying to make this heavy and I’m not trying to entertain you, either. I’m just laying down what the Lord wants us to see. We have things that we need to protect, and innocent blood is the wrong thing to spill. If David had accepted what those men did, Jesus could not have set us free. God does not break rules. You know how you got rid of curses, under the law? There was not a guy whose name was Carl who came and ministered. They threw you in a hole and stoned you to death. It was not being stoned by heroin—it was with rocks!

Joab had done something that caused the curse of innocent blood. He had murdered someone innocent. And David sent it right back on Joab, because he would not take the responsibility for what Joab had done.

A few years ago in Bucharest, Romania, I was riding on the trolley and I heard this agonizing wailing sound that left me with a deep, lonely feeling. It passed, and I didn’t think any more about it. A couple of days later, I was on a trolley in this same area and I heard the same sound. I started inquiring of the Lord and was waiting for an answer. That same afternoon, we passed that same spot again on the trolley and Emily, the interpreter, said to me, “That cemetery over there is for national heroes. The people buried there are the ones that were slaughtered during the revolution of 1989.” I had my answer to what the sound was.

Then, I asked Emily, “Why do you call them innocent people?” She replied that during the revolution the citizens had no way to defend themselves. The oppressors had the guns, so they held hands in long chains of people and started marching across the countryside, singing praise and hymns to God. The military was ordered to shoot them and they did. But even the army didn’t have the heart to continue to do what they were ordered. They refused to support the Communist dictator that had held Romania in poverty and oppression for so many years. This was the turning point to freedom for the country.

I anointed the gates of the cemetery with oil and prayed to break the curse of innocent blood in Jesus’ name. I have been past that area dozens of times since, and have never heard innocent blood cry out again. God does hear innocent blood cry.

A record in the Bible that portrays this vividly is in Genesis 4.

(Genesis 4:8-11) And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?

And he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.

And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand;

Cain will always be remembered and when someone does evil or if someone is a wild person, they say, they are out “raising Cain.” The devastation of the spilling of the innocent blood of Abel literally was heard to be crying from the earth. God heard it and the curse followed.

If you or anyone you know of close to you has this curse, please repent and break the power of it in the name of Jesus. Healing will follow and lives will be restored.