With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. James 3:10
When we speak of cursing today we usually think of swearing or cussing or simply saying hateful things to someone with whom we are angry. In our minds we limit the damage to hurt feelings or broken relationships. The Bible views curses as much more serious because they have a spiritual dimension to them.
In Numbers 22, we find an interesting account. Israel had moved into the region of Moab. Balak, the king of Moab, felt threatened by their presence. He went to a man named Balaam and declared, “Now come and put a curse on these people, because they are too powerful for me. Perhaps then I will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the country. For I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed” (Num.22:6) But God said to Balaam, “Do not go with them. You must not put a curse on those people, because they are blessed” (Num.22:12).
Balak had seen the power of Balaam’s words over people and situations. Those over whom he spoke blessings seemed to be blessed and those over whom he had spoken curses seemed to be cursed. The interesting thing is that God took him seriously and instructed him to speak a curse over those whom God had blessed. How do we make sense of that in our world?
It is not that words have power in themselves but they have authority to set things in motion in the spiritual realm. A curse releases forces in the spiritual realm to come against a man, a family, or a nation to work for negative outcomes in the natural realm. Before you write that notion off, think of a curse as a kind of prayer. We pray to God and ask him to set forces in motion to bring blessings and positive outcomes to ourselves, our families, and people we care about. We pray for health, provision, protection, direction and all kinds of things and expect God to mobilize his angels or to work through his Spirit to create positive outcomes for those we bless.
A curse is a kind of a prayer than mobilizes forces in the spiritual realm to hinder blessings and bring about negative outcomes in the life of the individual over which it has been spoken and Satan is very eager to take the curse as his authority to come against those who have been cursed. Satan is always poised to kill, steal and destroy and he is simply looking for the legal right to do so. A curse may give him that right.
If you are reading this blog, you probably already believe in the God-given authority of believers to command, declare, and pray for kingdom outcomes in lives, situations and nations. If our words have authority, how much more should we guard our words so that we do not release a curse over others either purposely or carelessly. We should always speak blessings because our words can set demonic forces in motion to enforce any curse we speak over others. As I have already said in this series, we may not take our words seriously but the spiritual realm does.
Our words don’t have to be formal curses. They can simply be expressions of ill will or judgments over others: Your worthless! You’ll never amount to anything! I wish you were dead! You’re going to end up in prison just like your worthless father! Etc. We can even speak curse over ourselves in the same tone. I don’t believe every careless word is enforced as a curse by demons but I do believe that if we say it often enough or with enough venom, the demonic realm may answer. I also know that there are man and women today who do pronounce formal curses over God’s work and God’s people. Maybe someone has even spoken a curse over you or your family even in past generations. I will discuss that in our next blog. Until then, be a constant source of blessing even toward your enemies (see Luke 6:27-28).
