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CURSED OR BLESSED
A STUDY IN BLESSINGS AND CURSES FROM THE BIBLE
PREPARED
BY
JOE
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SECTION 1 - BLESSINGS AND CURSES
Release from The Curse Study
Introduction
The theme is “Release from the Curse.” And this contains truths which God has been teaching me
largely, I would say, in the last five years. Truths which have revolutionized my own life and the
lives of countless other people to whom I’ve been privileged to minister this truth. In some areas
where I’ve ministered, when I have asked people at the end of the message if they want to avail
themselves of what God offers through this truth, I would say ninety-five percent of the people
have responded. And we have seen the most dramatic changes in people.
I remember speaking in Zambia in central Africa several years ago now. I taught this theme and at
the end a man came up to me, and Africans are basically not wealthy, but he was a well dressed,
educated man. He threw himself on the ground at my feet and would have kissed my feet if I would
have allowed him to. Then he stood up—and he was probably about forty years of age—and he
said, “All my life I’ve been in pain and I’ve been miserable. I haven’t known one happy day.” But
he said, “Since I prayed that prayer with you, everything has changed in me. I’m totally free from
pain, I’m a different person.”
So, this is a message that has power. It’s appropriate to turn to Galatians 3:13–14 as a basis for this
message. Galatians 3:13–14:
“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us: for it is written,
Cursed is every one who hangs on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the
Gentiles in Christ Jesus; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
Those verses reveal an exchange that took place when Jesus hung on the cross. It states in the Old
Testament in the book of Leviticus that anyone who dies by hanging on a tree is a curse. And so
when Jesus hung on the tree that was the cross He became a curse. What took place was a divinely
ordained exchange which is clearly stated in these verses. Jesus took upon Himself the curse, every
curse, due to us that we might be redeemed from the curse and enter into the blessing which God
has prepared for His people. So there is a very simple practical exchange. Jesus became a curse
that we might receive the blessing.
In order to make this real to you I invite you to join with me in saying that. And I’d like you to use
your hands; your left hand for the bad thing, your right hand for the good thing. Watch me once
and then we’ll do it together. “Jesus became a curse that we might receive the blessing.” Okay?
Now remember, your left hand is opposite my right so don’t get confused by me. And don’t hit
your neighbor on the nose but just do it tactfully! Are you ready? “Jesus became a curse that we
might receive the blessing.”
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What I’m going to do now is explain to you the nature of curses and blessings. These are two major
themes of Scripture. I think the word bless in various forms occurs about 600 times in the Bible.
And the word curse probably nearly half that number of times. But I have learned by experience
that most of God’s people are not really familiar with the nature of curses and blessings. I believe
it’s the purpose of God that through the redemption in Christ we should be released from curses
and enjoy the blessings. But wherever I travel I find many of God’s people who are enduring curses
when they should be enjoying blessings. One main reason is they don’t know how to recognize
what’s a curse and what’s a blessing.
The second reason is that even if they recognize it they may not know how to be released from the
curse and entered into the blessing. So let me begin by offering you a simple definition of blessings
and curses. Both of them are vehicles of supernatural power. It’s very important to understand
we’re not dealing with something that’s purely natural. It goes beyond the natural. They are
vehicles of supernatural power for good if they’re blessings, for evil if they’re curses. And one
characteristic feature of them is that very frequently they’ll continue on from generation to
generation. Often until somebody knows how to cut them off if they’re curses. The result of that
is that many people—and some of you are here tonight—are enduring in your life consequences
of things that may have taken place many generations ago. And you have to trace your problem to
its source and take the appropriate action in order to be released.
Biblical Examples of Blessings and Curses
Now, the vehicles of blessings and curses are usually words. They may be words that are spoken,
words that are written or simply words that are pronounced inwardly. However, both curses and
blessings can be transferred or transmitted by objects, by physical objects. So it is not always just
a question of words. To take a very simple example: In the communion that we celebrate as
Christians, Paul says the cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the body of
Christ? So, through that cup, which is a physical object with the wine in it, God transmits to us a
blessing.
In the Old Testament there were various examples of curses transmitted by objects. But particularly
under the Law of Moses, if a woman was accused of being unfaithful to her husband there was a
specific test. The priest would take her to the tabernacle, write out a curse and then wash off the
words of the curse, the ink, into a cup of water. And the woman would be compelled to drink the
water and pronounce the curse upon herself. If she was innocent nothing would happen to her. Her
husband would never be free to accuse her again. But if she was guilty there would be disastrous
physical consequences in her body. I merely give that as an example of a curse transmitted by
something that is physical. In that case, a cup of water.
Derek's Personal Example
Now, I have come into this truth by personal experience. I hardly ever preach on anything that is
mere abstract theory. Nearly everything that I’ve ever taught has been related in some way to
things that have happened in my life. This is particularly true of this message. I want to give you
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three personal incidents that gradually alerted me. I didn’t come into this just in one moment; it
was a gradual process of unfolding truth. And I think God supervised my education by permitting
me to have certain experiences and deal with certain cases that opened my eyes to these things.
Going back to the end of the l960s when I was living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with my first
wife Lydia, I had inherited from my maternal grandfather various Chinese pieces of art and culture.
The way that came about, just as a matter of history, is that my grandfather who was an officer in
the British Army was the officer commanding an expeditionary force that the British government
sent to China in l904 to suppress what was known as the Boxer Rising or the Boxer Rebellion.
And he returned with various items that he’d acquired in China. In due course, through my mother,
some of these passed by inheritance to me.
Among them were four gorgeous embroidered dragons, each one on a separate piece of material.
I mean, the colors were gorgeous. I learned from somebody who knew a little bit about Chinese
culture they were Imperial Dragons because they had five claws. Ordinary dragons just have four
claws but Imperial Dragons have five claws. And I really was very close to my grandfather so
these meant a lot to me. When we set up house in Fort Lauderdale I had these four dragons framed
on our living room wall. But after a while the Holy Spirit began to trouble me. Have you ever been
troubled by the Holy Spirit? Do you know what we do first? We shrug it off and we say that’s
nonsense, He wouldn’t do that. Anyhow, the Holy Spirit would say to me, “Now, in the Bible what
does the dragon represent?” Well, I knew the Bible well enough to be able to know the answer to
that. The dragon represents the devil very clearly in Revelation 12:9 and so on. Well, then He
would say to me, “Is it appropriate for you as a servant of Christ to have on the wall of your living
room something that advertises the devil?” Well, you know, I struggled with this for a little while
and I said, “All right, God, you win. I’ll get rid of the dragons.” And I did.
Now, I didn’t do that with any motive except obedience to God. But the results were quite
remarkable. Up to that time I had been just getting by financially. I traveled and preached and
received honorariums. And they covered our needs but we had no real surplus. Also, there were
certain strange things happening even in my family. I was finding it difficult to communicate with
my wife. Then I was entitled to an inheritance from my parents, a very substantial sum of money,
and because of various irresponsible acts by other people the inheritance was interminably held
up. Now, I just got rid of the dragons but I began to realize that my whole level of prosperity had
changed. I didn’t do anything different but the next year my income doubled without my making
any changes.
Then I received the inheritance, it was released. And my first wife and I were able to purchase a
house which was a rather big step of faith for us but we felt very clearly directed by God to
purchase that house.
Now I’m not just preaching prosperity because, I mean, I think that has to be very carefully
qualified. But prosperity with a purpose. We moved into that house, we lived in it for nine years
and we sold it for more than three times what we paid for it. With the money that we obtained my
second wife Ruth and I were able to build a home in Jerusalem—which is very expensive. God
provided the finance through the sale of that house. That was not something we had planned. I
didn’t have any conscious intention, but I realized that a dark evil force had invaded my home
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through those dragons. And until that force was expelled and dealt with I could not go on in the
fullness of God’s plan for my life and ministry.
One interesting thing was I didn’t even know what God had for me that I was being kept from, you
see? I’ve seen this is true in many peoples’ lives. When people are dealing with a curse they don’t
know what they would be like to be freed from the curse. They can’t picture it.
Other Examples of People Released From Curses
A Cursed Family
Well then a little later I was ministering in a church, a Presbyterian Church somewhere in what
they call the Midwest of the United States. I had finished my message and I was standing behind
the pulpit. I didn’t quite know what I was going to do next and I saw a family on the front seat on
my left: father, mother and teenage daughter. And as I looked at them I felt the Holy Spirit said
there is a curse over that family. I hadn’t preached on that, I wasn’t thinking about that and I didn’t
quite know what to do about it. So I just waited and it came very clearly again “there is a curse
over that family.” So I stepped up to the father and I said, “Sir, I believe God has shown me there’s
a curse over your family. Would you like me to release you from it in the name of Jesus?” I really
had no experience, I was just moving out in faith. He immediately said, “Yes.” I learned later from
him that there had been so many disastrous things happening in his life and in the life of his family
that he accepted the fact there was a curse. Then I prayed a short simple prayer out loud releasing
the family from the curse. When I said “In the name of Jesus”, there was a visible, physical reaction
in each member of the family, although I was not touching any of them. So I stepped back and
then I noticed that the teenage daughter had one leg in a cast from the top of her thigh to the bottom
of her foot. So I went back and said, “Would you like me to pray for the healing of your daughter’s
leg?” He immediately said yes but he said, “You ought to know she’s broken the same leg three
times in eighteen months and the doctor said it will not heal.” Well, if I heard that today that
somebody had broken the same leg three times in eighteen months I wouldn’t really doubt that
there was a curse in operation, but it was new to me. I said, “All I can do is just pick the leg up in
my hands and say a simple prayer”, which is what I did.
A few weeks later I got a letter from the man thanking me and saying specifically that when they
went back with the daughter to the clinic to have the leg x-rayed, the x-ray showed that it was
healed. And very shortly afterwards the cast was taken off.
But as I meditated on that I realized this: That the curse which God had showed me over the family
was a barrier to the healing of the daughter’s leg. Until the barrier was removed, prayer for the
healing of her leg would not be effective. And this is a principle that I’ve seen now hundreds of
times that a curse over a family or over an individual can be an invisible barrier that keeps away
the blessing that God intends those people to have. In my case through the dragons it was the
blessing of financial prosperity and release to God’s will. In the case of this girl the blessing was
the healing of her broken leg but the curse was the barrier.
Miriam's Story
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After that I began to teach on this and I made some tapes, including a series of three messages
called “Curses: Cause and Cure.” And these began to circulate and I began to get remarkable
testimonies of what was happening not just to individuals but to whole congregations. One of the
sets of three tapes found its way to South Africa. And a little later Ruth and I were there ministering
in South Africa, we were in Capetown, and we encountered a Jewish lady who had met the Lord
Jesus and acknowledged Him as her Messiah and her Savior. She told us firsthand this story, we
got it straight from her. She was what they call an executive secretary, very highly qualified. She
had a very well paid job with a man who was the president of his own firm. After a little while she
discovered that the president and all the executives in the firm were in a strange cult under a lady
guru. Then the president asked her if she would type out some blessings that this guru lady had
pronounced on the executives. When this lady began to type them she realized that they were
anything but blessings as far as Christians were concerned, so she went to her boss and said, “I’m
sorry but I don’t feel free to type these blessings.” The boss was gracious, he said, “I’m sorry. If I
had known it was against your conscience I wouldn’t have asked you to do it.”
That was the end of that.
Now we have to supply something by inference. But I am sure that the lady guru heard about this
secretary that wouldn’t type her blessings. And who knows what she did? She may have prayed or
she may have pronounced a curse. But from that source it really wouldn’t make much difference
which it was. Within a few weeks this lady secretary, I’ll call her Miriam—it wasn’t her name.
Miriam’s fingers began to go stiff and curl up and set and in a short while they were extremely
painful and she couldn’t bend them. She said you wouldn’t believe the pain. She had to sleep in a
separate bed from her husband because any time her husband turned over and the bed shook the
pain was unendurable in her fingers. She went to a specialist who X-rayed them and said it was
rheumatoid arthritis. She was, in a sense, a crippled person.
Another lady, a Charismatic lady, had received these three cassettes of mine and felt that this lady
Miriam ought to hear them. I don’t think Miriam was really very excited about them, she was a
rather sophisticated lady and I think the thought of curses was something remote and medieval in
her eyes. Anyhow, this other lady prevailed so they sat and listened to the three cassettes. And at
the end of the third cassette I lead people in a prayer by which they release themselves from any
curse over their lives. At the point where the prayer began, the cassette jammed. It wouldn’t go
forward, it wouldn’t go back and it wouldn’t eject. That is not purely natural. So Miriam said,
“Well, then I can’t say the prayer.” This indefatigable lady said, “Oh no, I have the prayer typed
out! I’ll bring that.” So she persuaded Miriam, I think rather against her own judgment, to read
this prayer. Now, you could read the prayer within three minutes, it wouldn’t take as much as that.
So Miriam just dutifully read the prayer and in between the time she began reading the prayer and
the time she finished, her fingers and her hands were totally released. There was no trace of
arthritis. She went back to the doctor, he confirmed medically the healing. What I want to
emphasize is this. She was not praying for healing. It wasn’t in her mind. She was simply releasing
herself from a curse. But when the curse was broken there was no more reason for sickness, you
see? Another example of the invisible barrier.
Forms of Blessings
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Now I want to deal out of scripture with the forms that blessings and curses take. There is one
particular chapter in the Old Testament which deals exclusively with blessings and curses. How
many of you know which it is? Deuteronomy 28. All right. It’s got fourteen verses of blessings
and fifty-four verses of curses. Now, we can’t go into that because of time but I suggest if you’re
concerned, that at your own convenience you study that chapter carefully. I’ve studied it many
times and I’m going to offer you my summation. But please exercise your own judgment as to
whether you think this is accurate or not.
Here is my summation of the main blessings and the main curses. As a matter of fact, really, they’re
exactly opposite to one another.
Here are seven blessing:
Number one, exaltation means being lifted up. You’re no longer living under things.
Number two, a word I had to coin, reproductiveness. I couldn’t find one normal English
word. But a person who is in the blessing of God is fruitful in every area of his or her life.
Number three, health.
Number four, prosperity or success.
Number five, victory.
Number six, Moses said you’ll be the head and not the tail.
And number seven, you’ll be above and not beneath.
When I was studying that some years ago I asked the Lord what’s the difference between
the head and the tail. I feel He gave me a simple answer. The head makes the decisions,
the tail just gets dragged around. So which way are you living? Are you making the
decisions? Are you in charge of the situation? Or, are you simply being dragged around
like a tail by circumstances and forces that you don’t understand and you can’t control? If
you’re a tail it’s very possible you’re under a curse.
I’m not saying every one of those blessings is due to this cause but that’s for you to
discern. There’s only one expert in this field and his name is not Derek Prince. It’s the
Holy Spirit. He’s the one who has to show you personally. I can preach the general truth
but you have to get the specific application from the Holy Spirit.
Forms Of Curses
Then let’s look at the curses, and they’re just exactly the opposite.
Humiliation
Failure to reproduce or barrenness. I would say basically barrenness is nearly always in
some way associated with a curse.
Number three, sickness of every kind. And if you read Deuteronomy 28, I mean, there is
no sickness that is left out by the time you’ve come to that list.
Number four, poverty or failure.
Number five, defeat.
Number six, you’re the tail and not the head.
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And number seven, you’re beneath, not above.
You’ve probably heard about the two Christians who met. One of them said, “Well, how are you
doing, Brother?” And he replied, “Well, under the circumstances I’m not doing badly.” And the
first Christian said, “Well, what are you doing under the circumstances?” You should be above
and not beneath.
Over the years, independently of this list, I made a little list of indications that to me alerted me
that I was probably dealing with a curse. I only say probably. And I made this independently of
Deuteronomy 28 but it’s amazing really how close it is. I happen to have a list of seven. I want to
be very clear I’m not saying if you have one of these it’s absolutely sure you’re under a curse. You
need to examine the possibility and seek God. But if you have several of them, the more you have
the greater the possibility that you’re under a curse.
Here’s my little list:
Number one, mental and/or emotional breakdown. Where people fall apart, that’s a
phrase that’s used today. They say he or she just fell apart. That’s what I’m talking about,
emotionally, mentally or both.
Number two, repeated or chronic sicknesses. Especially if they’re hereditary because,
you see, curses pass from generation to generation. Also, in situations where doctors cannot
find any normal cause.
Number three, what are called female problems. Barrenness, a tendency to miscarry, and
problems with menstruation. Ruth and I have dealt with so many cases like this that
wherever a person comes for prayer in that category, we just simply act on the basis that
it’s a curse. In fact, we have come to the place where we really feel often we’re wasting
our time to minister to the sick without first teaching them how to be delivered from the
curse. We once called for a line-up of people with female problems and in the middle of
the line was a man! So when he came up I said, “What’s your problem? How can you have
a female problem?” He said, “My problem is depression, and that’s female!” However, I
didn’t accept his statement.
The next one, a breakdown of marriage and family alienation, where families fall apart,
where marriages break up, where children are alienated from their parents, brothers from
sisters. Very, very probably a curse at work.
The next one, financial insufficiency. I want to be careful how I say this. I don’t think that
poverty for a short period—it may be a test that God is putting us through. But if you’re
always short, if you never have enough, if you’re always scraping, I think you very
probably are under a curse.
Then the next one is what they call accident prone. In other words, you’re one of the
people that always has an accident, you know? This is kind of objective because insurance
companies will check on you and they’ll give you a higher premium if they classify you as
accident prone. I mean, that’s not natural to be the person who always breaks your ankle
when you step off the curb or your wife always slams the car door on your finger or
whatever it may be. Or, it’s always your eye that a little bug flies into. I mean, it’s not
natural if it’s always going on.
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And then finally, in a family a history of suicides or unnatural deaths. If there’s a
frequency of those things in a family.
Let me just very quickly go through that again: Mental and/or emotional breakdown, repeated or
chronic sicknesses—especially when they’re hereditary, female problems, breakdown of
marriage/family alienation, financial insufficiency, accident prone and in a family, history of
suicides and unnatural deaths.
Now, that doesn’t cover everything. So I try to give also what I call a general picture because there
are lots of things that could be the result of a curse that are not in that list. And this is what I’ve
come up with as a result of dealing with many different people. You could say a curse is like a
long evil arm from the past. And you don’t know how far back. It’s stretched out and every time
you’re just about to succeed or get to where you want to be, this evil arm trips you up and you
have to get up and start again. You get so far and you’re tripped up again. And that really becomes
the story of your life.
You’d be surprised how many people have told me stories like that. And so many times they said,
“Well, the same thing happened to my father or my grandfather. In other words, it seems to run in
our family.” Or, another simple picture is a dark shadow from the past over your life, shutting out
the sunlight of God’s blessing. You can see other people walking in the sunlight and you know it’s
there and real, but somehow the sun very seldom seems to shine fully on you. So, if any of those
apply, you need to be seeking God as we continue with this message for the Holy Spirit to show
you what your particular need or situation or problem is.
No Curse without A Cause
In Proverbs 26:2 the writer of Proverbs makes a very important statement. He says:
“Like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow, so a curse without cause shall not alight.”
In other words, if there’s a curse there’s always a cause. There’s something that caused it. My
experience is in helping people that very often it’s helpful and sometimes necessary to discover
the cause before you can deal with the curse. I’m going to take now some time to deal with Biblical
causes of curses.
Let’s go to Deuteronomy 28 for what I would call the primary causes both of blessings and curses.
And fortunately they’re very simple. The first two verses of Deuteronomy 28 says this:
“Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe
carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you
high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come upon you, and overtake you,
because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.”
That’s a translation which I think is followed by most modern translations, but the Old King James
used to say “if you will listen diligently to the voice of the Lord your God.” And in Hebrew, that
phrase is formed by repeating the word listen. If you will listen listening—that’s emphatic—to the
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voice of the Lord your God, and do what He says. So very, very simply the primary cause of all
blessings is listening to God’s voice and doing what He says.
Now the primary cause of all curses is exactly the opposite. In verse 15 of the same chapter:
“But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully
all His commandments and His statutes, which I command you today; that all these curses will
come upon you and overtake you.”
So what’s the cause of curses? Not listening to God’s voice, not doing what He says. So there
basically you have the two root causes. The cause of blessing: listening to God’s voice, doing what
He says. The cause of curses: not listening to God’s voice, not doing what He says. I want to tell
you right now that if you are released from a curse, in order to remain in the blessing you will have
to fulfill this condition: you’ll have to listen to God’s voice and do what He says. If you go back
to not listening and not doing, you’re liable to come under a curse again.
Causes of Curses
Click on the Listen icon to hear Derek's teaching or click to on the Words to read.
God Himself
Disobedience
Treachery
Injustice to the Weak or Helpless
Illicit or Unnatural Sex
Anti-Semitism
Trust in Man
Perjury
Stinginess Toward God
Preaching False Gospel
God's "Mouthpieces"
Relational Authority
Self-imposed
Unscriptural Covenants
Servants of Satan
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Abominations in the Home
God Himself
There are also in the Bible a number of different sources and specific causes for curses. We’ve
dealt with the general one, now we’ll deal with some specifics. The first source of curses—and
this may surprise some of you—is God Himself. There are many curses in the Bible which God
Himself pronounces. Probably one of the most common forms of God’s judgment on disobedient
people or nations is to pronounce a curse on them. And then as the curse is worked out, that’s the
outworking of God’s judgment. Do you understand that? God both blesses and curses.
So we’re going to deal, first of all, now with curses that proceed from God Himself. And there is
one supreme cause which is stated in Exodus 20:3–5. This is the first part of the Ten
Commandments. Let me say before we read the greatest and most common cause of curses in
peoples’ lives is breaking the first two commandments. In fact, I’m inclined to believe you cannot
break those commandments without coming under a curse. Now let me read those words.
“You shall have no other gods before me.”
But the Hebrew means just as much beside me. It’s not a question of having the Lord as the main
god and other gods as well. He says, “I am the Lord and beside Me there is no other god.” So, you
must not acknowledge any other god except the true God.
And the second is what we would call idolatry.
“You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or 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 on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.”
Notice that’s the specific feature of a curse, it goes on for at least three and probably four
generations. Think of the billions of people on earth all of whose ancestors worshiped idols for
countless centuries. Think of the pile-up of curses that there is. Travel in Southeast Asia. In my
opinion it’s scarcely worth ministering in Southeast Asia if you can’t deal with the subject of the
curse because basically ninety-five percent of all the people there are under a curse. That’s not to
say that they’re bad people. I think they’re wonderful people. But there’s something from the past,
you see.
It’s very important to see that having another god besides the one true God includes every form of
occult practice. I cannot take time this evening to go into all the possible forms of the occult,
because they are almost countless. But whenever you go to a source other than the true God for
things which you are free only to seek from the true God, whatever source you go to you are
actually making your god. So, if you go to a fortune teller for information about the future which
God has said you shall not receive through that channel, through that fortune teller you’re making
the power behind that fortune teller your god. You play with a Ouija board. If you get involved in
all sorts of occult experiences or cults that deny the truth of the Bible. In all those things you are
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making a god who is not the true God. So, it’s very important to say this, the curses pronounced
for the breaking of the first two commandments cover every form of occult.
Now, the Lord says up to the fourth generation. If you do a little arithmetic, go back four
generations. Every one of us has thirty ancestors. How many of us can say for sure that none of
our thirty ancestors were ever involved in the occult? Maybe a few of us can, I don’t know. I
certainly couldn’t.
To give you a very simple example of this. A good many years ago I was in a typical home prayer
meeting which was the kind of thing that was going on in those days. I just found myself next to a
young man of about twenty or so. I said to him, I suppose the Holy Spirit prompted me, “Have
you received the Holy Spirit?” He said, “Yes, but . . .” And whenever a person answers that
question yes but, you know what the but is. “But I don’t speak in tongues.” And it seemed to me
he really wanted to speak in tongues. I wasn’t trying to force him. I didn’t argue with him but the
Lord prompted me, I said, “Did you ever go to a fortune teller?” He thought and he said, “Yes,
once when I was about fifteen. But I only did it for a joke, I didn’t mean anything by it.” I said,
“You did go.” He said yes. I said, “You know, God forbids that kind of thing.” He was a little
reluctant to acknowledge that but he did. I said, “May I lead you in a prayer in which you confess
that as a sin and release yourself from its consequences?” He said all right. I think he only said it
because he just wanted, you know, to get me off his back. So I led him in a very simple prayer,
“Lord, I confess as a sin that I went to that fortune teller, et cetera.” I didn’t say another word to
him, put my hand on his shoulder and prayed for him. He immediately began to speak fluently in
an unknown tongue. In a few moments he was just lost. You see, there was an invisible barrier that
kept him from the freedom of tongues. What was it? The occult. It’s just a simple example.
Disobedience
Now in Deuteronomy 27:15–26 we have twelve curses pronounced and when Israel went into the
Promised Land they had to pronounce all these curses upon themselves. If they disobeyed the Law
they automatically came under these curses. They couldn’t get into the Promised Land without. I
think it’s very much the same in a way when we come into a relationship with God, if we’re
obedient we come under the blessings but if we’re disobedient we’re in real danger of coming
under the curses.
I’ll just give you my little summation of the things on which the curses are pronounced in
Deuteronomy 27:15 and following. Number one, once again, idolatry, false gods. That’s always at
the top of the list. Number two, disrespect for parents. And this is repeated in the New Testament,
Ephesians 6:
“Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well
with you and you may live long on the earth.”
My personal conviction is any person who does not honor his parents never will have it well with
him, never. I can think of scores of examples of people. That doesn’t mean you can’t get saved,
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speak in tongues and go to heaven when you die. But there will be something missing in the quality
of your life until you adjust your relationship with your parents. That doesn’t mean you have to
agree with your parents or do everything that they say, but you have to respect them.
I think of another young man I dealt with. He had a very bad relationship with his father. His father
was dead, buried in a cemetery more than a thousand miles from where we were. When this truth
really penetrated he took a journey of a thousand miles to the cemetery where his father was buried,
went to the grave, knelt at it, confessed his wrong attitudes to his father, wept his heart out and got
up a different person. And from then the course of his life changed. I know that there are lots of
parents, especially today, you have a lot of reasons for having something against them. I understand
that. I say there are no delinquent children, there are only delinquent parents. Nevertheless, if you
want to have it well with you, you better do what God says. You can’t afford not to.
Treachery
Then the next, and we must go quickly, in this list is treachery against a neighbor. The book of
Proverbs says whoever rewards evil for good, evil will never depart from his house.
Injustice to the Weak or Helpless
And then injustice to the weak or helpless. Personally, I can’t think of anything more weak or
helpless than a baby in its mother’s womb. Personally, my conviction is anybody who deliberately
procures an abortion comes under a curse. I would never minister to such a person without dealing
with the curse. I want you to understand I’m not saying you’re cursed forever, please understand.
I’m telling you the problem because I’m going to show you the solution.
Illicit Sex
Then illicit or unnatural sex, especially incest. And again, I don’t know what the particular figures
are here, but in the United States it’s now estimated that one out of every four girls under ten has
been sexually molested and one out of every five boys under ten. I cannot think myself that it will
ever happen without a curse following it.
Anti-Semitism
We’re going on from this list, Genesis 12 we have God’s call to Abraham. We need to look at that
because it has something significant in it. God calls Abraham out, promises various things, and in
verse 3 this is the end of the call. He says to Abraham:
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“I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you.”
So there’s both a blessing and a curse. I believe that was necessary because whenever God singles
out a man to be blessed, that man becomes the object of all sorts of evil satanic forces. So God
incorporated a protection. He said to Abraham, “Anyone who curses you, I will curse.”
Now we won’t go on but in Genesis 27:29, that protection is extended by Isaac to Jacob in his
father’s blessing. “Cursed be everyone who curses you, Jacob.”
So you’ll see that line is Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which became what nation? Israel, that’s right.
And what is the generic name for cursing or speaking against or abusing the Jewish people? Anti-
Semitism. In my personal opinion, Anti-Semitism almost invariably is followed by a curse for an
individual, for a nation. And if you look at the history of the last nineteen centuries, you see nation
after nation after nation that came under a curse because they cursed the Jewish people. Ruth and
I have a very good friend who is a Palestinian Arab born in Haifa, an American citizen who had a
dramatic encounter with Jesus some years ago. I led him into the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He
was a millionaire at the time.
After he was saved, listen to this, he became bankrupt. He had the sense to say, “God, what are
you telling me?” God said, “I’m dealing with your pride.” But God also showed him something,
that he and all his ancestors had regularly cursed the Jewish people. And believe me, I’ve lived
amongst the Arabs in Palestine. It’s normal, they all do it basically, with a few exceptions. God
showed him that if he would change that attitude he would restore his blessing. He repented and
asked God to give him love for the Jewish people. And he is a Palestinian Arab who is more pro
Israel than most Jews. And he’s now a multi-millionaire. See? How important it is to discover the
causes that are at work in your life.
Trust in Man
Then there’s another very important curse pronounced in the prophet Jeremiah which is just a few
short words, and I think often we pass them over without really appreciating their significance.
Jeremiah 17:5–6:
“Thus says the Lord; Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his strength, whose
heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good
comes; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not
inhabited.”
Notice please that that’s a very good description of somebody under a curse. Blessings are all
around but he lives in a salt land. Rain falls everywhere else but it doesn’t fall on him. What’s the
cause of that curse? Trusting in man, making flesh your arm. But the scripture says whose heart
departs from the Lord. In other words, here is a man who’s known the supernatural grace and
blessing of God and then turns back to relying on his own efforts. Turned his back on God’s grace.
And that brings a curse.
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I ask you to exercise your own judgment. But I would say that’s the condition of the greater part
of the professing Christian church today. Almost all the major movements in the church that we
know of today, and I will not name any, began out of a sovereign supernatural visitation and work
of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise they’d have never made it in history. But most of them today, I would
say, have turned away from the supernatural grace and power of God and have started to rely on
their own efforts and what their own strength and ability can do. And on that count they are under
a curse. I think that’s one tremendous problem with the Christian church, that whereas we should
be in the blessing, because of disobeying Jeremiah 17:5, we’ve come under a curse.
Perjury
I’ll go quickly now, in Zechariah 5:1–4, Zechariah had a vision of a flying scroll and there was a
curse on each side of the scroll. One was a curse on anyone who steals and the other was on anyone
who commits perjury. And in the vision this scroll would go into a person’s house, take up lodging
there, and the whole house would disintegrate. See, that’s the nature of a curse. It doesn’t just
affect the particular area but it has a kind of corrosive effect all around it. So we need to consider
that. Next time when—I’m sure you do fill in an Income Tax Return—just bear in mind that if you
are dishonest you’re exposing yourself to a curse. Because I’m sure you have to say this is a true
return, et cetera, et cetera.
You know that at least in the United States nearly ten percent of the cost of retail goods is due to
insurance against theft. Just think of how different the situation would be if people didn’t steal.
Basically, that would be the answer to inflation. Can you see how real that curse is? That it affects
a whole nation.
Stinginess Toward God
And then in Malachi 3, I think we have to look at this. Malachi 3:8–10:
“Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me. But you say, In what way have we robbed you? In
tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse; for you have robbed me, even this whole nation.
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be fruit in my house, and prove me now in
this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven, and pour you out such
a blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.”
Now I’m not teaching all Christians ought to pay tithes. Because as I understand the New
Testament it’s not law, it’s grace. But I would suggest to you that grace should make us more
generous than law. We’re told we have a better covenant established on better promises. Do you
think on that basis we could offer less than the Israelites? But I’ll say this one thing. Stinginess
toward God brings a curse. It is very poor economy to be stingy with God. And I tell Christians
everywhere when the offering comes around, God does not need your tips. Really, if you stop and
think for a moment, just to tip God half a dollar or a dollar or fifty Pence or whatever it may be,
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don’t do it. You don’t have to give but you are giving to God. Actually, as I said, He does not need
your tips. There’s such irreverence in the church in this matter of giving. We should realize that
giving is part of worship and do it as worship. I’d have to say I’m British right to the core. About
my own nation Britain—I think Britain came under a curse because the British Christians basically
were stingy. Now, I thank God that’s changing. I think there’s a new day coming in Britain. I’ve
lived through that. I was a pastor for about nine years in England. The motto of the church board
in England is “You keep him humble, we’ll keep him poor.” And they certainly keep their side of
the bargain!
Preaching False Gospel
And then in Galatians 1, here is another tremendously significant statement that affects the church.
Paul is speaking about the gospel that was revealed to him supernaturally by Jesus. And he says in
Galatians 1:8–9:
“Even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached
to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any
other gospel to you than what you have received, let it be accursed.”
The Greek word there is anathema which has been taken over into the English language. The word
anathema means something so totally abhorrent to God that He will never have any dealings with
it. It’s totally shut off from Him. What is the cause of that curse? Preaching anything under the
name of the gospel which is not the truth of the gospel. When you put Jeremiah 17:5 and Galatians
1:8–9 together and apply them to the contemporary church, I think it’s marvelous there’s any
blessing left. And you add Malachi 3, cursed is the one who is stingy with God.
Brothers and sisters, do you know what we need to do? We need to repent. We need to change our
ways, we need to take God very seriously. There are a lot of different definitions of faith but I’ll
offer you just a very simple one. Faith is taking God seriously. Taking the Bible seriously.
I was five and a half years in the British Army during World War II. And I heard many, many
(quote) “chaplains” preach. I didn’t know the Lord and I didn’t know the gospel when I went into
the army. I met the Lord in the army. I cannot remember hearing one chaplain preach the gospel.
So this is a tremendous issue that confronts us.
Now, we have to close this session but we'll be continuing in the next one. I'll be carrying on
where I left off. I'll be dealing with other cause of curses. Then we'll come to the really important
part which is how to be released from the curse. So may I ask that you remain in a prayerful
attitude. That doesn't mean you have to not talk to your neighbour, but don't let the anointing
which is on you right now be dissipated because God has got a lot for you. He's got a lot for many
people here tonight. Don't cheat yourself out of it. Maintain an attitude that qualifies you to be
released from the curse and receive the blessing.
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God's "Mouthpieces"
Another specific source of curses is men who speak on behalf of God as God’s mouthpiece. There
are many examples of this in the Bible. We’ll only look at just a few. The first is found in Joshua
6:26 after Israel had captured and destroyed Jericho. Joshua, the leader of God’s people, and God’s
mouthpiece, pronounced a curse on anybody who would subsequently rebuild a city on that site.
In Joshua 6:26:
"Then Joshua charged them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord who rises up
and builds this city Jericho. He shall lay its foundation with his firstborn, and with his youngest
he shall set up its gates."
That’s a very specific curse, not a general curse. But the form that the curse would take would be
that the person who rebuilt Jericho, it would cost him the lives of two of his sons. I’m sure most
of the Israelites forgot that curse, it just receded into history. But about five hundred years later in
the reign of Ahab, king of Israel, a man did just that thing on which Joshua had pronounced a
curse. And this is recorded in 1 Kings 16 in the reign of Ahab. 1 Kings 16, the last verse of the
chapter, verse 34:
“In his days [that’s the days of Ahab] Hiel of Bethel built Jericho: he laid its foundation with
Abiram his firstborn, and with his youngest son Segub he set up its gates, according to the word
of the Lord which He had spoken through Joshua the son of Nun.”
The marginal translation says “at the cost of the life of his son.” Most modern translations follow
that.
So, the man who went against the curse pronounced by Joshua five hundred years earlier, it cost
him the lives of two of his sons.
I often think to myself what did the doctors of that day say when they were asked to give the cause
of death of these two young men? Would they have understood that it was caused by words
pronounced by a servant of God five hundred years earlier? One of the things this brings out is that
curses basically continue until something is done to cut them off. They’re self-perpetuating.
And then another remarkable example is found in 2 Samuel 1, a lament that David pronounced
after King Saul and his son Jonathan had been killed by the Philistines on Mount Gilboa. In 2
Samuel 1:21 — now you need to understand the cause of David’s intense grief. It was not merely
that Jonathan was his dear friend or even that Saul had been killed. But it was the triumph of idol
worshippers over the people of the true God. Because the Philistines were idol worshippers and
when they found the bodies of Saul and Jonathan they mutilated them, cut off their heads, placed
them on the wall of the city called Bethshan and proclaimed it in all their idol temples. You have
to understand in those days when two nations fought, generally speaking, it wasn’t merely the
nations that were fighting but their gods were fighting one another. And when one nation was
victorious, it was a victory for the gods of that nation. And so what grieved David so much as the
servant of the Lord was that, in a sense, the idol gods had triumphed over the true God. And so he
pronounced this lament. And I’m sure he didn’t stop to think what he was going to say but it’s a
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remarkable lament about the mountains of Gilboa, because it was on Mount Gilboa that Saul and
Jonathan were killed.
“Oh mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, nor let there be rain upon you, nor fields of
offerings: for the shield of the mighty is cast away there, the shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.”
So David said let there be no dew, no rain, no fields of offerings. Those words were pronounced
about three thousand years ago. And in this century, after the Jews returned to their land, they
began to plant trees and recultivate every area. And they’ve been amazingly successful in growing
trees on their mountains. But when they came to Mount Gilboa they had totally unexpected
problems in making trees grow there. So the words of David pronounced three thousand years
earlier still affected the situation on Mount Gilboa at that time.
And then there’s another example in 2 Kings 5, we don’t need to turn there. But the prophet Elisha
had been used of God to bring healing to Naaman the Assyrian. He refused to accept any gift from
Naaman because he didn’t want Naaman to think he could pay for his healing. But Naaman’s
servant Gehazi thought that was a shame to turn down this offer, so he ran after Naaman without
Elisha knowing it and asked for money and clothing. Came back and hid it away, came and stood
in the presence of Elisha thinking that Elisha didn’t know, and Elisha said, “Did not my spirit go
with you when you ran after that man?” And then he pronounced this curse upon him. He said,
“The leprosy of Naaman [who had been healed] cleave to you and your descendants forever.” And
it says Gehazi went out from his presence a leper as white as snow, an advanced stage of leprosy.
And notice the curse was on his descendants forever.
See, what comes out of all these examples is the perpetuation of a curse until somebody knows
what to do to revoke it. You say can God’s servants curse in that way today? Well, Jesus cursed a
fig tree, you remember, in the New Testament. And the next day it had withered from the roots,
just one period of twenty-four hours. And when the disciples were astonished he said to them,
“You will be able to do what I did to this fig tree, and more.” He said, “You will remove
mountains.” Let’s leave out removing mountains for the moment. He said, “You can do what I did
to the fig tree.”
Now I relate this with some trepidation, but this is a personal experience. In about l965 I was part
of a ministry team in a church in the inner city in Chicago. Right flush with the church, wall to
wall on the corner was what the Americans call a saloon. I think the English call it a pub. But it
was a very wicked place. It not merely sold alcohol, it peddled drugs and it was a center for
prostitution. It was a very wicked place and it was right wall to wall with the church. Well,
sometime about October we had a prayer meeting in the church and I was on the platform as one
of the leadership team. And at a certain point without any premeditation I thought about this pub
and I thought it really is an affront to God that it should be right there just where the people come
into the church. So I stood up and I said, “I pronounce the curse of God upon that pub.” I didn’t
think anymore about. About two months later about 4:00 o’clock in the morning there was a phone
call, “Brother Prince, the church is on fire, do you want to come and see?” Well, it was the middle
of winter in Chicago, I mean it was about 20 degrees below. I didn’t want to go and see but I
thought, you know, if I hang around and just let the church burn without showing any interest it
will look bad! My first wife and I, we got in the car and we went there. Sure enough, not two
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blocks away you could see the flames and smoke. When we got there, however, we discovered it
wasn’t the church that was on fire, it was the pub. But, you know, Chicago is situated on Lake
Michigan. The wind was blowing off the lake and blowing the flames right onto the church. And
as we stood there and watched helplessly, the wind changed 180 degrees and blew the flames away
from the church. The next morning the pub was destroyed and the church had suffered nothing but
smoke damage which was covered by the insurance. And as I stood there and watched that I
thought, “God, am I responsible?” I mean, I wasn’t jesting. And I thought that is the outcome of
the words that I pronounced in that church about two months previous. You know my reaction was
I realized I had tremendous power committed to me. Not because I’m different, because every
Christian has that power. And my prayer was and is, “God, help me never to misuse that power.”
But I give that as an illustration just to prove that the things we’re talking about are not out of date,
they’re all relevant, they apply today.
Relational Authority
Now I want to go on to other sources of curses. The next one is very important and very little
understood by contemporary Christians. I call it persons with relational authority. That is, persons
who have authority because of a relationship. Now, authority is a very unpopular concept in many
places and parts of the world today but the fact remains it’s still real. Authority is not created by
man, it precedes from God. And there are many different relationships in which a person has
authority. You may or may not like it but a husband has authority over his wife in certain contexts.
Parents have authority over their children. Teachers have authority over their pupils. Pastors have
authority over their congregations, just to take a few examples.
Now, because of the authority relationship, words spoken by those persons to those under their
authority have special supernatural power. Whether they’re blessings or whether they’re curses.
And if you look at the Bible you’ll find that second to the blessing of God, the most important
blessing that any person could ever have in his life is the blessing of his or her father. That’s still
true today. I say to any of you whose fathers are alive, do everything in your power, everything
you can to obtain the blessing of your father. And your mother, but primarily your father. It makes
a lot of difference.
When I was saved I’m afraid I had a bad attitude towards my parents. I thought, “They’re not
saved, I’m saved; they don’t understand, I do understand.” I praise God He rebuked me for it and
He showed me that I could not expect His blessing if I didn’t honor my parents. And before they
died I had shown them the honor that was appropriate. I don’t believe otherwise I could have ever
enjoyed the blessing of God in my life and ministry.
HUSBANDS AND WIFES
I want to take an example of a husband who cursed his wife without knowing it and the results.
The story is found in Genesis 31. You’ll remember, some of you, that Jacob had been with his
Uncle Laban serving him. He’d married two of Laban’s daughters, he had become father to a pretty
substantial family and then the Lord directed him to leave Laban in Mesopotamia and go back to
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the land of Canaan. And he was afraid that if he told Laban he was going Laban would take his
daughters back. So he stole away secretly while Laban was busy somewhere else. But Laban and
his relative pursued after Jacob and caught up with him on Mount Gilead. And then there was a
confrontation. Laban said, “Why did you steal away and not let me say good-bye to my daughters?”
Jacob said, “I was afraid you’d take them from me.” “All right,” Laban said, “I can accept that.
But why did you steal my household gods?” The Hebrew word is terraphim, they were little idol
images that people kept in their homes to protect them against evil—which is a very common
practice to this day.
Now, Jacob didn’t know anything about the terraphim but his favorite wife, Rachel, had stolen her
father’s images. Now, that was a very bad thing to do because she shouldn’t have stolen from her
father. Second, she involved herself in the occult and that is always dangerous. This is what
happened. Verse 30 of Genesis 31:
“Laban says to Jacob, Now you have surely gone because you greatly long for your father’s house.
But why did you steal my gods? [terraphim] Then Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because I
was afraid [that’s why I went]. For I said perhaps you would take your daughters from me by force.
[And then he says] With whomever you find your gods, do not let him live.”
The King James says “let him not live.” What’s that? It’s a curse. Let him not live. Now, Jacob
didn’t know that he was talking about Rachel who was his favorite wife. Rachel succeeded in
keeping the gods concealed, Laban never discovered them. That ended that situation. But, within
a few years the next time Rachel gave birth she died in childbirth. Why? Because of the curse
pronounced by her husband. See? This is very real. You may not like it, I may not like it but that’s
the way it is. God has built certain principles into human life and relationships.
OTHER EXAMPLES
Now let’s consider a few other possible examples. And most of these are constructed out of
situations that I have actually dealt with but I kind of changed a little so I don’t expose the identity
of people. Let’s consider another possible example of a husband. This man is a business executive,
he’s busy, he’s financially successful, he’s a man with drive, he’s pretty ruthless. He marries a
woman who doesn’t know how to cook. Like so many young ladies today, she’s never learned
from her mother. And for a long while he endures his wife’s cooking but then he just can’t take
any more. And he says, “I’m sick of your cooking. You’ll never learn to cook.” And he probably
says it many times. What is that? It’s a curse. All right. What he doesn’t realize is he’s pronounced
a curse on himself, too. “I’m sick of your cooking.” So what happens? He gets indigestion. Doctors
cannot find any cure for that indigestion, he suffers from it till he dies. The marriage breaks up,
they’re divorced. The wife is a talented woman, she can succeed in every area except one—the
kitchen, that’s right. When she goes into the kitchen her body starts to shake, she gets all nervous
and she never can get it together. Why? The husband’s curse. Both of them endure their curse until
they die. See?
All right. Let’s take a father. This is perhaps the commonest of all. A father has three sons. The
first is the firstborn. Of course, he’s always welcome. The third, the youngest, is brilliant. But the
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middle one is neither firstborn nor brilliant. He has a lot of the same characteristics that his father
has. Have you ever noticed when people are bad and they’re bad in the way that we’re bad, we
like to take it out on them rather than ourselves. Have you ever noticed that? Parents, if you pick
on one of your children it’s probably the one that’s most like you if you knew it. What’s you’re
objecting to is what’s in you that you don’t like.
Anyhow, so the father says to the second son, “You’ll never succeed. You’ll always be a failure.
You’ll never make it.” What’s that? It’s a curse. And I’ve dealt with many men in their 40s and
50s who were still struggling against words spoken by a father before they were teenagers.
Or, let’s say the father has a daughter, 15. Like some young ladies of fifteen she has acne. And
the father has to drive her to school every day and every day she’s up there in the bedroom putting
things on her pimples. And so she’s late. And so the father gets exasperated and one day he says,
“You’ll never get rid of those pimples, you’ll have pimples for the rest of your life.” Fifteen years
later she’s a married woman with children of her own and she is still struggling with her acne.
Why? Because of a curse.
Or let’s take a mother. And this is actually a real case that I’ve been dealing with that I will not
give the identity. Her daughter always pleased her, she always did what she wanted. She was one
of those manipulative, controlling mothers. But then the daughter fell in love and married a man
that the mother didn’t approve of. And the mother said, “You’ll never make good. You’ll always
be struggling. You’ll never have enough.” I know the man. He’s a gifted man and a capable man.
But for at least a dozen years that was true. It’s only changed when I confronted them with the
reality of the source of their problems: the mother’s curse. Now there’s a new life opening up
before them.
Let’s talk about teachers. The teacher has a pupil who can’t spell. Maybe he’s got what they call
dyslexia. You know, you put the letters the wrong way around. “You’re silly, you’re stupid. You
just don’t try hard. You’ll never succeed.” I know teachers shouldn’t talk like that but sometimes
they do. What’s the result? A child, a boy or a girl that never can make it in life.
Ruth and I have a friend, a teacher said to her when she was a teenager, “You’re shallow.” She’s
now I think in her 60s or at least in her late 50s. We discovered that all her life she’s been struggling
against that statement “You’re shallow.” And the strange thing about it is if anybody doesn’t
deserve that statement, it’s that lady. She is far from shallow. But you see, there’s authority behind
those statements and that makes them powerful.
Usually speaking, there’s a demonic element. I’ll just show you one thing in James 3 which is very
important. James 3:14–15:
“But if you have bitter envying and self seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the
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truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, soulish, demonic.”
In other words, if your attitudes are wrong and your reactions are wrong and you speak, what’s
going to come out will have a demonic element in it. I’ve used this little picture. How many of you
know what a whistling kettle is? I’m sure most of you do. All right. So you have this kettle on the
stove and the water is getting hotter and hotter. And the moment the steam comes out, what else
comes out? The whistle, that’s right. The whistle is like the curse, you see? When the steam comes
the whistle comes. There’s only one way to prevent the whistle, what’s that? Take the kettle off
before it boils. So when, let’s say, a parent or a teacher or a husband is getting more and more
angry and frustrated and impatient, if you don’t take that kettle off the steam is going to come out
and the whistle will come out with it. You’ll say something cruel, hard, unkind, unjustified and a
curse will be released with it. Does that happen in our contemporary culture?
Self-Imposed
Then we come to another tremendously important area. Perhaps the most common of all, what I
call self-imposed curses. People pronounce curses on themselves. In Genesis 27 we have the story
of how Isaac was going to bless Esau and the mother Rebekah who is the first Yiddish yamama, if
you know what Yiddish yamama is, switched them and she got Jacob acting like Esau and claiming
the blessing. Jacob wasn’t reluctant but he was afraid and he said this in verse 11:
“Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Look, Esau my brother is a hairy man and I am a smooth
skinned man. Perhaps my father will feel me and I shall seem to be a deceiver to him and I shall
bring a curse on myself and not a blessing. But his mother said to him, Let your curse be on me,
my son.”
She took on herself the curse that would have been to Jacob. It was a self-imposed curse. If you
go to the end of the chapter, just the last verse, you’ll find Rebekah beginning to use very negative
language about herself. Rebekah said to Isaac in verse 46:
“I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of
Heth, like those who are daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?”
“I’m tired of living. What’s the good of living?” That’s a typical statement by somebody who is
under a curse. See? Never permit yourself to say that. Don’t make negative statements about
yourself. Don’t say I’ll never be able to do this. I never succeed. I’m no use. I’m a failure. I just
can’t take it anymore. And then you go on and you say I wish I were dead. I’d be better off dead.
Do you know what you’re doing? You’re inviting the spirit of death. And he doesn’t take many
invitations.
Ruth and I have dealt with countless people who needed to be delivered from the spirit of death
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because they’d invited it, they imposed a curse upon themselves. And we’ve learned one beautiful
verse that has helped hundreds of people. I’ll share it with you, Psalm 118:17:
“I shall not die, but live, and declare [or proclaim] the works of the Lord.”
If you have made a negative remark about yourself, if you’ve imposed something negative on
yourself, you need to revoke it by the positive. You see, as a remarkable example you know that
Peter denied three times he knew the Lord. Later on after the resurrection beside the Sea of Galilee
Jesus had a personal talk with Peter. And three times he said, “Do you love me?” He made Peter
affirm three times that he loved him. Why did he do that? Because Peter had to revoke the negative
statements he’d made before the crucifixion. See? So if we’ve said something negative and brought
some dark shadow over us, we need to revoke the negative and replace it by the positive. And this
verse is a perfect one. “I shall not die . . .” It doesn’t mean you’ll never die but it means that Satan
is not going to kill you before your time.
“I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.” I think it would be good for all of us
to say that. The first time you say it after me. “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the
Lord.” Now let’s all say it together this time. “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the
Lord.” Once more. “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.” Now saying that
may change the destiny of your life.
All right. Let’s go on to another example, the great tragedy of the Jewish history. In Matthew 27
Jesus is before Pilate and Pilate is willing to release him. We read in Matthew 27:24–25:
“When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather a tumult was rising, he took water,
and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person:
you see to it. And all the people answered and said, His blood be on us and on our children.”
What’s that? A self-imposed curse. The great tragedy of Jewish history. And by those words a
strand of tragedy was woven into Jewish history which was run for nineteen centuries. What a
lesson not to say the wrong thing about ourselves.
I pointed out to you previously that God had protected Abraham against curses. He said, “Anyone
that curses you, I will curse.” There’s just one area that God could not protect the Jewish people
from, from themselves. And that’s true in our lives many times. God can protect us from everything
except what we say about ourselves.
Unscriptural Covenants
Then we’re going on in the next common cause of curses. It’s what I call unscriptural covenants.
Exodus 23:32, in relationship to the people whom Israel was to dispossess from the land of Canaan;
that is, all of them. Idol worshippers, people who lived in total rebellion against the living God.
Moses said, Exodus 23:32:
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“You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.”
You understand, if people have false gods and you make a covenant with those people, you are
also making a covenant with their gods. Now, I’m going to say something that I trust will not
offend anybody and I say it simply because my desire is to help people. One extremely common
example of that in our contemporary culture in the western world is freemasonry. Because, a
person who becomes a mason makes a covenant with those who are masons. Freemasons will tell
you that it’s secret, but it’s not. In the l950s a book was published in Britain by an Anglican
clergyman named Hannah called Darkness Visible which sets out all the main rites and ceremonies
of freemasonry, and no mason has ever challenged that book in more than thirty years. When you
become a mason you have to pronounce a curse on yourself if you disclose the secrets of the
masons. And it includes things like having your tongue cut out, your right arm cut off and thrown
over your left shoulder, and your body being exposed in a place where the tides rise and fall twice
in every twenty-four hours. Those are self-imposed curses. Freemasonry is an idol religion. It’s
clear in the 32nd degree, the royal arch degree, which acknowledged and offers worship to a person
called Jabulon. Which is a combination of Jehovah, Baal and Osiris. And so the true God of the
Bible is joined together with two idol deities whom God has totally condemned. When you make
a covenant with that, you’re making a covenant with those gods.
I’m saying this on the basis of much experience. I cannot take time to relate all the experience but
I’ll simply relate one. In Australia about three or four years ago Ruth and I were ministering in a
church on Sunday morning and we were praying for people. A young woman came forward about
eighteen years old with a tiny little baby in her arms, for prayer for the baby. And you would have
said the baby was six days old but actually she told us it was six weeks old. We said what is the
problem and she said she won’t take any nourishment. So, as we prayed the power of God came
on this young woman and she went down on the floor. Ruth caught the baby out of her arms and
held it. As she lay on the floor, God gave Ruth a word of knowledge to the people who were
ministering to her. She said her father is a Freemason. Deal with that force. And the moment they
came against it the woman began to writhe and scream under the power of a demon. And as they
ministered, she was released with a prolonged scream. But the remarkable thing was the little baby
in Ruth’s arms released a precisely similar scream at the same moment. So not merely was the
mother released but the baby was released.
They came back that evening about six hours later and we asked the mother how the baby was
doing. She said she’d taken three full bottles since the morning. But I want you to see the fact that
the father’s participation in freemasonry had brought the curse upon the daughter and the
granddaughter. I mean, I do not have time but I can give you half a dozen other specific examples.
It affects the family, it affects the descendants, it affects the spouse, it affects the relatives. There
are other ways that this kind of curse can come in. Tribal societies, very commonly a baby or a
young person is initiated into the tribe by certain rites. Very often there are cuts made on the skin
or powder inserted under the skin. And that exposes that person to the curse that’s on the idolatry
that’s the focus of that tribe. Again, I could but I don’t have time to give examples.
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Servants of Satan
And then there are curses pronounced by servants of Satan. And there are various different words
for such servants in different languages. In English I think we call them witch doctors. In America
they call them medicine men. In Swahili it’s called umchawa. In the language of the Luo people
it’s called juowki. If I’m not mistaken, amongst the Mauris it’s called tomanga. It’s the same thing
in many different labels and guises. I want to tell you very frankly such men have real supernatural
power, don’t underestimate it. Don’t go, if you’re going to be a missionary, to some tribal people
and say Satan isn’t real, demons aren’t real, because they know much better than you that they are.
Your message is Satan is real but Jesus has more power. That they’ll listen to, especially if you
can demonstrate it.
I think I must give one example. Again, it’s from Zambia. This is given us in writing by the man
who was the witness of it. In an African Christian church two elders fell out with one another. And
this may seem strange to you but it’s quite common in Africa. The one elder went to the witch
doctor to get him to put a curse on the other elder. Okay? And when he did that the witch doctor
was very happy to oblige because it was a Christian. And this is what he did. He went out
somewhere into the bush, got some soil of a certain kind, brought it back, smeared it over a hand
mirror and then he said to the elder, “Now wipe the soil away and tell me what you see?” And he
looked in the mirror and saw the face of the man of whom he wanted to curse in the mirror. Now
the witch doctor said, “Take a knife and cut it through the mirror.” He did and when he did that,
blood appeared on the mirror. And when the elder returned he discovered the other elder was dead.
What would you call that? You couldn’t call it murder. Can you understand why the Bible prohibits
witchcraft? This story is given in perfect detail by a man who’s a missionary, he’s about seventy
years old and been a missionary ever since his boyhood. What I’m saying is don’t underestimate.
That doesn’t mean you have to be afraid. Jesus said, “Behold, I give to you authority over all the
power of the enemy.” He didn’t say the enemy doesn’t have power. He says, “I’ll give you
authority over that power.” That’s the realistic approach.
Let’s look at one example in the Bible, Numbers 22:4–6. This is the story of Balaam. The king of
Moab sent for Balaam who was a witch doctor. And a very powerful one and a very famous one.
And Moab said to Balaam in verse 5:
“A people has come from Egypt [that’s Israel]: see, they cover the face of the earth and are settling
next to me: therefore please come at once, curse this people for me; for they are too mighty for
me: perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land: for I know that he whom
you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed.”
Now that was, in a sense, the regular practice in warfare—and still is among tribal societies today.
Not only is your tribe fighting another tribe, but your tribe’s gods are fighting their gods. And if
you can get the victory in advance, you win the battle. There’s a document somewhere in the
Middle East in which it records seventy-seven nations on whom the kings of Egypt have
pronounced curses. Because, if you can get your enemy cursed, then you can defeat him. That is
the principle. Just one interesting example because this is something that’s unfamiliar to many
westerners. In the conflict between David and Goliath, when David went out with his sling and no
armor, Goliath was angry and insulted and this is what happened. 1 Samuel 17:43:
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“So the Philistine said to David, Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? And the Philistine
cursed David by his gods.”
Do you understand? Before they joined in battle he invoked his idol gods and David replied, “I’m
not coming to you in my own name but in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel.” See,
it was a fight between gods. And you know who was victorious. But I just want to point out to you
that Satan’s servants have power to curse. Again, I could illustrate it from examples of people that
we personally have helped.
Abominations in the Home
One final way in which a curse can come is stated in Deuteronomy 7:26. The previous verse says
about the inhabitants of Canaan:
“You shall burn their camp, the carved images of their gods. You shall not covet the silver or gold
that is on it. [And then it says in verse 26:] Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house,
lest you be doomed to destruction like it: but you shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it
is an accursed thing.”
So when you bring anything that’s associated with idolatry or the occult into your house, you’re
opening the way for a curse to come into your home. Again, this is something we deal with
frequently. I tell people after such a service as this if you believe you’ve needed deliverance from
a curse, you better go home and check what you’ve got in your house. Check if there’s anything
there that advertises any other god but the Lord Jesus Christ. My personal principle is I don’t want
anything in my home that dishonors Jesus Christ.
Let me give one quick example. We often have cases where parents tell us that the children don’t
sleep well at night, they’re restless, they cry, they’re frightened. One common reason for that is
that somewhere in that house is something which gives Satan right of access. You need to go
through your house from top to bottom, clean out anything that’s associated with the occult. Any
kind of superstitious thing. If you have horseshoes to ward off ill luck, that’s superstition. It doesn’t
ward off ill luck, it opens the door for Satan.
Click here to see a listing of common Occults etc. extracted from Derek Prince's book, Blessing
or Curse: You Can Choose!
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Occult Listing
This extract is taken from chapter 6 of the book Blessing or Curse: You Can Choose! entitled
"False Gods"
The following are some specific forms of the occult prevalent in our contemporary culture:
1. The power branch of the occult
Acupressure, acupuncture, astral projection, hypnosis, levitation, martial arts (those that
invoke supernatural spiritual power), mind control, mind dynamics, parakinesis, table-
tipping, telekinesis, “touch” healing, witchcraft.
2. The knowledge branch of the occult
Astrology, automatic writing, “channeling,” clairaudience (hearing “voices”),
clairvoyance, crystal balls, diagnosing by color therapy or a pendulum, divining, ESP,
handwriting analysis, horoscopes, iridology, kabbala, mediums, mind reading,
numerology, omens, palm reading, phrenology, séances, tarot cards, tea-leaf reading,
telepathy, “witching.” Also, all books that teach occult practices.
Also included under this heading are all false religions or cults that claim supernatural
revelation but contradict the Bible. Distinguishing between true and false in this realm is
like distinguishing between straight and crooked in the natural realm. Once we have
established a standard of what is straight, we know that anything departing from that
standard is crooked. It makes no difference whether it varies by one degree or by ninety
degrees. It is crooked. In the spiritual realm, the Bible is the standard of that which is
straight—that is, true. Anything that departs from the Bible is false. Whether it departs by
little or much is relatively unimportant. Some of the subtlest deceptions are those that
appear to differ only a little from the Bible.
Particularly dangerous are religions that misrepresent the Person, the nature or the
redemptive work of Jesus Christ. The New Testament, for example, presents Jesus as “God
manifest in the flesh,” but Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that He was a created being. Again,
Islam rejects the claim of Jesus to be the Son of God, and denies that He ever actually died
on the cross. Yet the atoning death of Jesus is the only basis on which man can claim
forgiveness of sins.
The following are some of the many false religions or cults that are active today:
Anthroposophy, Black Mass, Children of God, Christadelphians, Christian Science,
Freemasonry, Inner Peace Movement, Jehovah’s Witnesses (Dawn Bible Students),
Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), New Age Movement, Religious
Science, Rosicrucianism, Scientology, Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship, Spiritualism,
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Theosophy, Unification Church (Moonies, One World Crusade), Unitarian Church.
Also, Eastern religions or cults, such as Baha’i, Buddhism, Confucianism, Divine Light
Mission, gurus, Hare Krishna, Hinduism, Islam, Shintoism, Transcendental Meditation,
yoga.
3. The branch of the occult operating through physical objects, etc.
4. Amulets, ankhs (an ankh is a cross with a ring at the top), birthstones, charms (e.g., for
wart removal), crystals used for healing, hallucinogenic drugs, “heavy metal” rock records
or cassettes, hex signs, “lucky” symbols (e.g., inverted horseshoes), Ouija boards, pagan
fetishes or religious artifacts, planchettes, talismans, zodiac charms.
God’s estimate of those who are involved in the kinds of practices listed above is stated plainly in
Deuteronomy 18:10–13:
Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices
divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium
or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and
because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you.
You must be blameless before the LORD your God. NIV
Notice that those who engage in these occult practices are classed in the same category with those
who sacrifice their children in the fire to pagan gods. Under the Law of Moses, the mandatory
penalty for all such practices was death. It is important to recognize that books can be channels of
occult power. When the professing Christians in Ephesus were confronted through the ministry of
Paul with the reality of Satan’s power, their reaction was dramatic:
Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had
practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated
the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. Acts 19:18–19, NIV
The only appropriate way to deal with such occult material is to destroy it completely—by fire or
by whatever means may be most suitable—even though the value of the material destroyed may
be very great.
It has already been pointed out that the occult, like the "immoral woman," is constantly changing
its ways. Therefore, no final or exhaustive list of occult practices can ever be offered.
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The Cure
Now we come to the really important climax which is how to be released from a curse. I want to
give you some simple instructions. There’s a basic pattern which I teach people that consists of
four words, each of which begins with RE. Recognize, repent, renounce, resist. Recognize.
Recognize what your problem is. See why I’ve spent this time dealing with these things, to help
you to recognize your problem. All right. Number two, repent. Repent of anything that you’ve
done that exposed you to the curse. Number three, renounce. Declare that you are no longer going
to be subject to this thing. God told Israel don’t bow down before their gods. Don’t submit to them.
And we have a right as Christians to make the same, “I’m not submitting to anything that’s from
the other source. I refuse it. I renounce it. From now on it’s got no place in me.” And finally, resist.
And that’s something continuous. Keep on resisting. Keep on refusing to let that thing again have
any control over you. Let me say those words again. Recognize, repent, renounce, resist.
James 4:7 says: “Therefore, submit to God, [not to the enemy, not to demons but to God. And then
it says] resist the devil [and what will happen?] he will flee from you.”
What will he do? I didn’t hear you. [He'll flee!] That’s right. When you’ve met the conditions. All
right? But resisting is sometimes an ongoing process. It’s like if there’s a strong wind blowing you
have to keep the door shut. If you open the door the wind will come in. Then I say establish a clear
scriptural basis for your release. The best one is Galatians 3:13–14:
“Christ has redeemed us from the curse, having become a curse for us, that we might receive the
blessing of Abraham.”
I’ll give you a few other scriptures. Ephesians 1:7:
“In him [Jesus] we have redemption through his blood.”
Colossians 1:12–14:
“The Father has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: He has
delivered us from the domain of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the son of His love:
in whom we have redemption through His blood.”
So through the work of Jesus on the cross we can be delivered from the domain of darkness—
that’s Satan’s domain—and translated, carried over into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. It’s like there
are two territories and there’s a chasm between them. This territory is the territory of Satan, this
territory is the kingdom of God. But there’s only one bridge across that chasm and that’s the cross
of Jesus. If you take that bridge you can get out of this kingdom and into that kingdom—which is
where God wants you.
Then 1 John 3:8, the second part:
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“. . . for this purpose the Son of God was revealed, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”
To do what? Destroy the works of the devil. That’s why He came.
And then Luke 10:19, which I quoted earlier. Jesus said:
“Behold, I give to you authority over all the power of the enemy.”
So those are very clear scriptural bases. Then when you’ve established that basis, confess your
faith in Christ because Jesus is the high priest of our confession. It’s on the basis of your
confession, what you say about Him, that He acts as your High Priest.
Thirdly, commit yourself to obedience. You remember, how do we qualify for the blessings? What
do we have to do? Hear God’s voice, do what He says. So, when you’ve received your release,
make up your mind, commit yourself from now on I’m going to listen to what God says and do it.
The next step is confess any known sins. Either by yourself or your ancestors because the sins of
your ancestors can in some ways affect you. But there’s a difference. You are not guilty for your
ancestors’ sins but you’re affected by them. Do you understand? You are responsible for your own
sins. But in order to be fully clear, if you know that your ancestors were idol worshippers or
Christian Scientists or Mormons or let’s not go too long into the list, but something that’s totally
unscriptural; be released from it.
Then you need to forgive all other persons. Jesus said when you stand praying, if you have anything
against anyone, what did He say to do? Forgive, that’s right. Anything against anyone. That leaves
out nothing and no one. Unforgiveness in your heart is a barrier to the answer to your prayers.
Now, forgiving is not an emotion, it’s a decision. I tell people it’s tearing up the IOU. I don’t know
whether I’ve got time to tell this but I think of a woman. I was preaching on this, explaining how
many wives who’ve been mistreated by their husbands still suffer because they’ve never forgiven.
And I said it’s like this. You have in your hand a sheaf of IOUs from your husband. I owe you
love, support, honor, care, et cetera.
Those are perfectly valid, they’re legal. But God has in His hand up in heaven a sheaf of much
larger IOUs from you to Him. Now, God says we’ll make a deal. You tear up your IOUs and I’ll
tear up mine. But if you hold onto yours, I’ll hold onto mine. So, if you want to be forgiven you
have to forgive. You don’t have any options. Well, at the end of one message I hadn’t done
anything, just finished preaching. A young woman of about thirty, really sophisticated, smart
looking woman, marched right up the aisle to the pulpit. I wondered what she was going to do,
was she going to assault me or what. She looked me right in the face and said, “Mr. Prince, I just
want to tell you that while you were preaching I got rid of about $30,000 worth of IOUs.” Turned
around and walked out. I mean, I didn’t have to say a thing to her, she had got the message. I wish
everybody would get it that quickly! So you have to forgive other persons.
Then you must renounce all contact with the occult. Okay? By yourself or by your ancestors.
Again, you’re not responsible, you’re not guilty for what your ancestors did but it affects you.
Then you must get rid of all “contact objects,” the things I’ve been speaking about. If you bring
them into your house you bring a curse with them.
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Then when you’ve met those conditions you can release yourself in the name of Jesus. Jesus said
whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you release on earth will be
released in heaven. We’re going to do that in a moment but I want to show you where to go from
there when you’ve been released.
Then you have to confess and expect the blessing of Abraham because we’re released from the
curse that we may receive the blessing of Abraham. And so Ruth and I are going to make one of
our commonest confessions as a pattern to you.
“Through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross we have passed out from under the curse and entered
into the blessing of Abraham whom God blessed in all things.”
How many things? All. Do you want that blessing? God has provided it for you. Remember that
it’s the blessing of the Holy Spirit. In other words, it’s the Holy Spirit who administers the blessing.
That’s important. You’ve got to be friends with the Holy Spirit. See, if you grieve the Holy Spirit,
if you don’t honor the Holy Spirit, He withholds the blessing. He’s got the key to God’s storehouse.
If you want the treasures, make friends with the keeper of the storehouse.
And then, as I’ve said already, bear in mind that it’s in all things. You won’t get it all in one night
but you’ve qualified for it in one night, do you understand? If I can put it like this, some of you
are going the wrong direction. Tonight you can make a U-turn, start going the right direction. But
that doesn’t mean you’ve arrived. You’re on the way. You have to keep that direction, you have
to keep hearing and doing what God says if you want to continue in the blessing of Abraham. And
you have to keep making the right confession.
Conclusion
If you feel that in some way there’s the shadow of a curse over your life and you want to be
released, I want to lead you in a prayer of release. You remember the story I told you of Miriam
who read the prayer and was completely healed? I’m not promising you healing, that’s in God’s
hands. But if your sickness is directly due to a curse, if you’re released from the curse you qualify
for healing from your sickness. So, those of you that would like me to lead you, we just have a few
moments left. I’d like you to stand to your feet and then I’m going to lead you in a prayer. If you
feel there’s some shadow of a curse over your life, your family, your home. Let me say you really
can’t lose by saying this. I mean, you don’t have that much anyhow so is that right? Maybe. All
right.
Let me just very, very rapidly give you the steps I’m going to take you through. First of all,
we’ve established a clear scriptural base. I gave you the scriptures. Now, you need to confess
your faith in Christ, commit yourself to obedience, confess any known sins of yourself or your
ancestors. When we do that I’ll give you a few moments to confess them silently. Then forgive all
other persons, and I’ll give you a few moments to do a little forgiving. And then renounce all
contact with the occult by yourself or your ancestors. Commit yourself to get rid of all “contact
objects” and then release yourself in the name of Jesus. All right?
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Now, I’m just going to give you the words, you’re not praying to me, you’re praying to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he’s the one that answers, not I. I don’t have the power, He does. All right. Say
these words after me.
“Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that you are the Son of God and the only way to God, that you died
on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead. That on the cross you were made a curse
with every curse that is due to me, that I might be redeemed from the curse and enter into the
blessing. Lord, I confess any sins committed by me or by my ancestors. I ask your forgiveness. I
also forgive every other person whoever harmed me or wronged me. I forgive them as I would
have God forgive me. I also forgive myself. I renounce all contact with the occult in any form and
I commit myself to get rid of any ‘contact objects.’ And now Lord, having received by faith your
forgiveness, with the authority I have as a child of God, I now release myself and those under my
authority from any curse over our lives. Right now, in the name of Jesus, I declare release. I claim
it and I receive it by faith. In the name of Jesus.”
Now begin to thank Him, that’s the surest expression of faith. Thank you Lord, thank you Lord,
thank you Lord Jesus. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Now let’s make our good confession. Now I believe you’re fully entitled to say this. You know
what we’re going to say? Are you ready?
“Through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross we have passed out from under the curse and entered
into the blessing of Abraham whom God blessed in all things.”
Now just take a little while to thank the Lord, that’s the simplest expression of faith. Thank you
Lord Jesus. Thank you Lord. Remember, you’ve made the U-turn, now continue right in the new
direction.
God bless you. Amen.