Doorways Our Ancestors Opened
"Remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set." — Consider Proverbs 22:28 in reverse
Doors Have Locations
A door is not an abstraction. It exists somewhere. It was installed by someone, at a particular time, for a particular purpose.
The same is true spiritually. When a family gives ground, that ground is given at a moment — a ceremony, an oath, a purchase, a migration, a dedication, a decision. Somebody did something somewhere, and a way was opened.
Understanding this changes how you pray, because you stop praying vaguely against a fog and start dealing with a specific structure that was built at a specific point in your family's history.
The Kinds of Doorways Families Open
Oaths and initiations. Lodge memberships, fraternal orders, secret societies, and their women's and youth branches. These involve vows sworn on penalty, symbolic deaths, and allegiance to entities not named as Jesus Christ. Members often regarded them as harmless civic fellowship, and their descendants often have no idea they existed.
Dedications. Infants presented, blessed, marked, or named in the rituals of a religion that is not Christian. A grandmother's promise made over a cradle. A child devoted to a saint, a spirit, a shrine, or an organization.
Covenants of protection. Charms accepted, blessings purchased from a practitioner, a bargain made in desperation during illness or war or childbirth. These are contracts, and contracts have terms.
Bloodshed. Murder, feud, or violence in the family line. Scripture treats shed blood as something that cries from the ground (Genesis 4:10) and defiles the land (Numbers 35:33).
Migration and legal instruments. Documents that formally attached a family line to a new place. This sounds strange until you consider that spiritual claims, like legal claims, follow persons and property.
How to Deal With a Doorway
You do not need to know the exact date and place, though it helps if you do. You need to renounce it specifically enough that you are naming a real thing.
Renounce the oath or dedication by name. "In the name of Jesus Christ, I renounce every oath, vow, and covenant made by my ancestors with any power other than the Lord Jesus Christ."
Declare your own allegiance. "I belong to Jesus Christ. He purchased me with His own blood. I serve Him alone."
Cancel the terms. Every oath contained penalties. Renounce those too.
Command the associated spirits to leave, and ask the Lord to close and seal the doorway with the blood of Jesus Christ.
Then destroy the physical evidence — regalia, certificates, rings, aprons, medals, ritual books.
Point to Ponder
A doorway was installed at a specific moment by a specific person. You do not have to find the date to close it — but you do have to name it.
Verse to Remember
"Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us… He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross." — Colossians 2:14
Question to Consider
What organizations, religions, or practices was my family involved in that I have never thought to renounce?
Today's Practice
Make a list under four headings, filling in whatever you know or suspect:
Organizations — lodges, orders, societies, clubs with initiations Religions — anything other than biblical Christianity practiced in the family line Practices — fortune telling, mediums, healers, charms, folk magic, curses spoken Events — violent deaths, suicides, murders, wars, and any land or property associated with them
Then pray through the list out loud, renouncing each item by name in the name of Jesus Christ, declaring your allegiance to Him alone, and asking Him to close and seal every doorway with His blood.
Where you are unsure, renounce it anyway. There is no harm in renouncing something that turns out not to have existed.
Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, I belong to You. You bought me with Your own blood, and no one else has any claim on me.
I renounce every oath, vow, covenant, dedication, and allegiance made by anyone in my family line to any power other than You. I renounce every organization, every religion, every practice, and every bargain made for protection or advantage. I renounce their penalties and their terms.
Where blood was shed in my family line, I ask You to cleanse the ground and silence its cry by Your own blood, which speaks better things.
Close every doorway my ancestors opened. Seal it with Your blood. And let nothing pass through it again — not to me, not to my children, not to any generation after me.
I serve You alone. In Your name I pray. Amen.
Your ancestors installed doors in this house. You have the authority to close them.