Three Sources of Curses

Three Sources of Curses: God, People & Self-Infliction

Three Sources of Curses: God, People and Self-Infliction

Where do curses come or originate from? There are three sources of curses:

Curses from God: Using his law and from the Original Sin,
Self-inflicted or self-induced curses – through negative talk, utterances, words, and confession that is self-directed,
Curses from people - through outward expressions that include face to face dialogue, written statements, and prayers.

Notice that Satan is not among the sources of curses. Some people like Rebecca Brown believe Satan curses people. This is not biblical. No wonder such people are so obsessed and preoccupied with Satan. They are constantly on the defensive over his assumed powers and trying to directly fight him with their own assumed authority. My book on spiritual warfare, titled Major Spiritual Warfare Principles: Biblical Do's and Don'ts of Warfare , covers on such matters.

Satan cannot curse. He can only influence us to fall under God's curse or fall under a curse from fellow people. Above I outlined the barrier Satan has on directly being able to curse people. I said spirits do not have physical bodies. They cannot express themselves in the physical realm. Curses have to be physically expressed orally or in writing.

1. Curses from God: Using His Law and from the Original Sin

There are two broad categories of God's curses:

Curses from the Original Sin (appropriately classified in the bible as the fallen nature, the corrupted nature, the flesh),
Curses from the breaking his law (the curse of the law).

Understanding the difference of the two types of curses from God is key to ensuring we do not easily label some unpleasant and undesirable matter as a curse from God.

The nature from the Original Sin is what we innocently inherited from Adam. God cursed Adam and consequently all humanity after he sinned in the Garden of Eden. The whole world, including us God's children is under the curse of the Original Sin. Such a curse is better called the fallen nature, the corrupted nature, the flesh, and so on.

It is hardly, if ever, referred to as a curse. The fallen nature is what makes us imperfect physically in our physical health and physical looks, and spiritually in our minds, understanding and behavior. Thus under this corrupted nature that came through the Original Sin even our understanding is not perfect.

Accordingly we now can burry the issue about the fallen nature being a curse. It is among the seven unpleasant and undesirable matters covered in the previous chapter. We can now move on to God's valid curses that are brought upon us through our own input, not through Adam. Such curses are normally called the curse of the law.

For God to pronounce curses may be a bit of a puzzle. It may seem so since one of the conditions for a curse to operate is that it needs to find expression in the physical realm, verbally or in writing. God is Spirit and thus has confined himself to the spirit realm.

How then is God able to pronounce his curses in the physical realm? God had to find a physical vessel to express his blessings and curses. Being God he could still overrule whatever conditions he sets. But he chose to operate within his rules of operation even on curses.

So he found physical vessels to express his blessings and curses. He used his human servants, particularly Moses, to put his words in writing. The main contents of his words on blessings and curses are found in the Books of the Law. These are the five books of Moses (Genesis to Deuteronomy). The Jews refer to them as the Torah, which means teaching or instruction. In this case the teaching is the teaching of the law. Orthodox Jews (Traditionalist Jews) like in the ancient days still read portions of the Torah every Shabbat (Jewish Sabbath). They follow the following instruction from God:

“Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go,” Joshua 1:8-9.

Thus God's curses are based on his written law or covenant he made to us. They are not just random curses God throws out. They are based on violations of his word. His blessings and curses are according to all that is written in the Book of the Law – God's word. The book of Deuteronomy has the major details about God's law with consequences on each side - good consequences for following it and bad consequences for violating it.

In this respect a curse is a punishment for violating God's instructions. Thus for committing a sin God brings a curse or an unpleasant and undesirable matter into a violator's life. Anything that is harvested as a result of committing a sin can be appropriately called a curse.

This does not mean God loves this game of placing curses or unpleasant and undesirable matters into people's lives. For Christians and unbelievers alike the unpleasant and undesirable matters are intended to capture their attention to seek to remedy the problem. They are his rod of discipline.

It's like an illness. When a person is ill he/she won't just sit by and endure the sickness, particularly if it's serious enough. He will seek medical attention to resolve or cure the illness. In God's eyes this is what unpleasant and undesirable matters in form of curses are for. They're intended to inform us to make amends or changes over our wrongs (sins). In fact God does not go on a cursing rampage over every wrong we commit. Please read the following scripture about God's love:

“He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust,” Psalm 103:10-14.

God's curses are primarily called the curse of the law because the curses are assigned in connection with breaking the law or God's word. The curse of the law comprises of numerous curses from which God selects and assigns an individual who has violated some of his laws. God's curses are sometimes called the curse of God because God is the one that assigns the curse.

The individual who willfully chooses not to follow or ignorantly fails to follow God's statutes in his word finds himself in a trap. It's therefore not an arbitrary curse that God assigns just because he feels like placing it on someone. It is based on an individual's obedience or disobedience to God's statutes.

Someone may say we have been freed from the curse of the law. This is very true. We have been freed from all its ritualistic regulations and the animal sacrifices we had to make to pay for our sins.

Jesus became our one-time sacrifice and paid the price for the consequences of being under it. And so on. More on Christ's work is covered in Chapter 7 “Breaking Curses from God: No.1 Source of Curses.” This chapter focuses on the curses from God and their consequences even on believers.

Being freed from the burden of being under the Old Testament law did not mean we now received a license to sin with no consequences whatsoever. The bible is clear about this. That's why we received the Holy Spirit to help us live holy lives. When we reject the promptings of the Holy Spirit not to sin we move into a risky area.

The bible says, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps whatever he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit will reap eternal life,” Galatians 6:7-8.

So what we can say about the Old Testament law is that though it may not apply to us in its strict sense its principles still apply to us. The rituals, sacrifices and condemnation it carried no longer apply to us. But its principles of sowing and reaping still apply to us.

The Old Testament law was actually a shadow of the things that were to come. What was to come was Jesus and the resulting law of the Spirit written in us:

“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come ; the reality, however, is found in Christ,” Colossians 2:16-17 (emphasis added).

Jesus came and for those of us born again we now have the unseen law of the Spirit at work in us. “Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us , who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit,” Romans 8:2-4.

Why was the old law done away with? The answer is right above: “ In order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us ,” Romans 8:4. So the righteous requirements of the old law are still required by the new law. The requirements for righteousness in the old law failed to be fulfilled by us. All humanity did was perform endless rituals without being convicted to live uprightly.

Next Part Self-inflicted curses