CURSES AND BLESSINGS by PASTOR E.A ADEBOYE

Numbers 23:8:

“How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy, whom the LORD hath not defied?”

Then the All-Sufficient One has blessed you, no one can curse you.

What is a Curse?

A curse is an invitation to an evil supernatural power to fight against somebody that you are cursing; to weaken the fellow, to cause the fellow to fail and to cause sorrow for that person. When Goliath came against David, he cursed him in the name of his gods. In other words, he was saying his god would fight David. In Numbers 22:2-6, Balak invited Balaam to come and curse Israel for him. He said Israel was too strong for him.

Proverbs 26:2:

“As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.”

In other words, if anybody curses you and you have not done anything, the curse will not work. Many curses are provoked by sin. For example Genesis 3:14-19, when man sinned, God came and began to curse

What are the natures of a curse?

all those who participated in the sin, beginning with the serpent, then the woman and ended up with the man. If not for the sin that led to that curse, women would have been producing their children as easily as the animal in the bush. I am sure you know that animals in the bush have no midwives. I have been in the bush for a long time, I am yet to find an animal that died giving birth. Because sin came, delivery became a problem. Because curse came, man has to sweat before he can eat.

There is another kind of curse that could be called Anikura kind of curse. Anikura was a thief in Lagos several years ago. He was such a notorious thief that a musician waxed a record about him. I think I heard the record for the first time in 1952. The song says Anikura will not ask you not to trade. He will not ask you not to make gains, but he will make sure that you do not take the gains home. In other words, he will wait until you have succeeded, then he will pounce on you and collect your blessing. Bible scholars also like that one to what they call Curse of Lor’ Lot prospered in Sodom and Gomorrah. He became very rich but he lost everything in one day. Every curse that is waiting for you to prosper before pouncing on you will be broken in Jesus’ Name.

This kind of curse also works on backsliders. When you read the story of the prodigal son, as soon as he became separated from a blessed father, he ran into trouble. Lot got into trouble because he was separated from a man who was blessed.

There is another nature of a curse and that is the fact that it goes from generation to generation. It might be working on the grandfather, then works on the father, then on the children and so on. God said in Exodus 20:3 5:

” Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am

a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;”

There are some houses for example where if their women give birth to baby girls, they must not eat oil or salt for seven days. For a baby boy, it will be nine days. Can you imagine eating without oil, without salt for seven or nine days, because you have just given birth?

Who can curse?

The devil, for example, can curse. Surely, the devil does not bless anyone. John 10:10 says:

“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

That is all that the devil wants to do. He is just to kill, to steal and to destroy. All the agents of the devil know how to curse too. John 8:44:

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

The people who have authority over you can also pronounce a curse and it will work. For example, your parents. If you offend them and they curse you, it can work. When you read Genesis 9:20-25 you find Noah there cursing his son and that curse worked on that son for several hundreds of years. A husband can also curse a wife. Wives should be careful how they treat their

husbands. Husbands should also be careful before they

open their mouths against their wives.

In Genesis 31:31-35, Jacob cursed Rachael, unknowingly of course. He simply said whosoever stole the idol of Laban should die. He did not know that Rachael had stolen the idol of her father. The next time Rachael conceived, she died at childbirth because the husband had pronounced a curse on her.

Another fellow that can pronounce curse on you and it will work is your spiritual father. It is a very dangerous thing to annoy your spiritual father because if he curses you, the curse will begin to work almost immediately. You know the story in 2 Kings 5:25-27 when Elisha cursed Gehazi. The curse worked immediately. If God curses you, who is going to deliver you? When you read Genesis 4:8 12 you find God pronouncing a curse on Cain, and you know the result. If somebody is under a curse, the fellow would be working like an elephant and will be eating like a rat. As he is trying to move forward, there are forces he cannot see that are pushing him back. As he tries to rise, there are forces far beyond his ability pressing him down.

Who can break a curse?

Anyone who has an authority higher than the authority of the one who placed the curse on you can break a curse. It works like the judiciary in human life. For example if the Magistrate Court sentences you to an imprisonment and you appeal to the High Court. If the High Court Judge says you are not guilty, then the imprisonment is quashed. If your father or your husband curses you, your spiritual father or your Pastor can break the curse. If your Pastor curses you, the one who ordained him can break the curse. If God gives you judgement and you say you appeal, who is going to be your lawyer? Who will be the final judge?

How are curses broken?

Anointing breaks curses. Isaiah 10:27 says the anointing breaks the yoke. In Job 22:28 we find that the word of God says we shall decree a thing and it shall be established unto us. We discover that just as a curse is in place by pronouncement, in the same manner it is broken by the same pronouncement. After you have broken a curse, you will discover that the fellow involved will start afresh. However, years that have been lost may never be regained.

Nevertheless, you can help the fellow further by not only breaking the curse in his life, but now pronouncing a blessing on him. The blessing will now accelerate his progress.

What is a Blessing?

A blessing is an invitation to supernaturally good forces to assist a person to succeed, to overcome and to increase. For example in Genesis 27:26-29 Isaac blessed Jacob. The greatest prayer you can receive is, “God bless you. Once God blesses you, everything you touch will prosper. Like curses, blessings normally do not come without a reason. In Deuteronomy 28:1-2 God said:

“And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken

diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to

observe and to do all his commandments which I

command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:” you do not do certain things blessings may not come. If Many of us want blessings but we are not ready to pray for them. We are not ready to work for them. In Genesis 12:1-3 the Bible tells us that God pronounced seven blessings on Abraham:

“Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt

be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

Often, when God is going to pronounce a blessing on you, He will give a condition.

Who Can Bless?

Those who have authority over you can bless you. Your husband can bless and it will work. Your father and mother can bless you and it will work. Another fellow that can bless you and it would work is your spiritual father. When your Pastor says “God bless you,” it is going to work. If your brother shakes hands with you and says, ” God bless you,” he is merely greeting you. It is like saying, “Good morning,” which is another way of saying, “I wish your morning will be good.” It will take your father, your mother, your husband and your spiritual father to bless you.

The nature of blessing is that just like a curse, it flows downstream. As it goes downstream, it becomes bigger and wider. God blessed Abraham and Abraham became great. By the time the blessing jumped on Isaac it had become very great. By the time the blessing got to Jacob, Jacob had become exceedingly great. At the time the blessing jumped on Joseph, not only did he become the ruler of Egypt, he was used to save the world of that time.

Just as someone can provoke a curse by annoying someone who is going to pronounce the curse, in the same manner you can provoke a blessing. In other words, you can do something that can cause someone to say it will be well with you. In Genesis 27:1-4, Isaac said to Esau that he wanted to pronounce a blessing on him. To do this, he asked that Esau cook him his best meal. This was to provoke the blessing. However, before Esau could carry out the instruction, Jacob had got wind of what was to happen and he impersonated Esau. Isaac blessed Jacob. By the time Esau came back, it was too late. Isaac had poured all the blessings of Jacob.

There was also a time in Genesis 22:15-18 when Abraham did something that provoked God’s blessing, God said:

“And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time,

And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD,

for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:

That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.”

In 2 Samuel 6:11-12, the Bible tells us that when the children of Israel were trying to bring the Ark of God to Jerusalem, an accident happened on the way and someone died. David said the Ark was dangerous so it should be put in the house of Obededom.

God blessed the house of Obededom. News came to David that God had blessed the house of Obededom because of the Ark. David went immediately to claim back the Ark. Then as they were taking the Ark back to Jerusalem, David began to dance. He danced so much before the Almighty God that he did not care he was the king. There and then, God promised that his kingdom would never end.

Another person that provoked the blessing of God was Solomon. In 2 Chronicles 1:6-12, Solomon gave one thousand offerings to the Lord. God then decided to pay him a visit. God asked him to ask for anything he wanted. He asked for wisdom and understanding but God added wealth, fame, long life and peace.

If you want God to bless you, you must be living the life of holiness and total obedience. God said if you would hearken diligently to His voice to observe and to do all that He commands you, then blessings will come upon you and overtake you. When God decides to bless you, it will get to a stage when you would say it is too much.

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