Release From The Curse
Part two In the first session I
tried to give a picture of some of the commonest ways that
curses operate in people’s lives, and I also gave you some of
the basic causes of curses. The primary cause
of every curse is not hearing God’s voice
and not doing what He says. Then there are many specific
ways in which we can be guilty of not hearing God’s voice
and not doing what He says. We looked at a number
of different curses that are pronounced by
God Himself on various forms of disobedience and conduct
that is displeasing to Him. We saw that the greatest
single cause of all curses is false gods,
idolatry and the occult. Then we looked at a number
of other specific things on which God
pronounced His curse. Now I’m going to deal with a
number of other sources of curses, maybe about half a dozen,
which I’ll try to move through without undue delay so that
we can come to the real climax which is how to
be free from the curse. My experience is in many cases
people don’t see their need to be free until they’ve understood the
way that the curse first came. 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 first Kings chapter sixteen. 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. And 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 worshipers
over the people of the true God. Because the Philistines
were idol worshipers 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 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 3000 years ago. And in this century, after the
Jews returned to their land, they began to plant trees
and re-cultivate 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
3000 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 Elisha'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,
in 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 can 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 1965 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,
or saloon. I didn’t think
anymore about it. 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? 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! So, my first wife and I, we got
in the car and we went there. Sure enough, not two 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 previously. You know what 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. 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. Now 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 father
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. 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. 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 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. That is always dangerous.
And now, 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. 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've 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 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, fifteen. 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
and 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,
he's 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 verses 14 and 15: But if you have bitter envying
and self seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against
the 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? 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 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,
verses 24 and 25: When Pilate saw that he
could not prevail at all, but rather that 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 in
the previous session 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. 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 worshipers, people who lived in total
rebellion against the living God. Moses said, Exodus 23:32: 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 1950s 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.
J-A-B-U-L-O-N 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 experiences
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. 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. 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. And if I’m not mistaken, amongst
the Mauris it’s called tomanga. Is that right? 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 are not 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. See? 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 on 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 70 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 chapter 22, verses 4 through 6. This is the story of Balaam.
Numbers 22:4–6. 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: Look [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 amongst
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 77 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: 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. 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 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 need of
deliverance from a curse, you better go home and check
what you’ve got in your home. 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. All right, 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.
"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: [...] for this purpose the Son of God
was revealed, that He might [what?] 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 says: 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 worshipers 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,
care, honor, 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. 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 our 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.
We’ll probably do that again. Thank you, sweetheart. 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. I think I won’t let you
say it now, I’ll wait. Now, if there are those of
you here this evening who 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, now. 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? 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 Jesus,
thank you Lord Jesus. Thank you, thank you,
thank you. Now let’s make our
good confession. Ruth, come up
and help me again. 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 it’s a very good principle
which we did earlier in the worship to turn to somebody and say
it to them about yourself. All right? So find somebody. If there’s just two of you,
face one another. If there’s three of you,
face each other. You’re going to say it
in the singular. We’ll give you the words.
Are you ready? All right.
Find somebody to look at. Are you ready? Through the sacrifice
of Jesus on the cross I 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. Thank you Lord. Remember,
you’ve made the U-turn, now continue right
in the new direction. God bless you.
Amen.
