Words Matter (Part 5) – More About Curses

Biblically, there are two sources of curses. One is the result of persistent and unrepented sin on the part of a person, a family, or a nation. The other source is a spoken curse established by our own words or the words of another. If you read through Deuteronomy 28, you will see that God established certain consequences for obedience and disobedience to the covenant he established with his people. Obedience brought an array of blessings while disobedience triggered an array of curses. Those curses manifested in the form of crop failures, financial woes, oppression by others, health issues, problems with pregnancies, drought, defeat, mental illnesses, and so forth. God also established a principle that the children would experience the punishment of their Father’s sins to the third and fourth generation (see Ex. 20:5).

These consequences are called curses and some of those curses may be attached to families for generations. I do not believe that God is the source of these evils since by nature he is good and he is light and in him is no darkness at all (1 Jn. 1:5). Since Adam turned his dominion, planet earth, over to Satan, God’s people have lived behind enemy lines. Satan is always poised to kill, steal, and destroy anything or anyone that God loves. There are times when our persistent sins, our rebellion, and our pride force God to lift his hand of protection that has restrained Satan because our actions have given Satan a legal right to come after us. We experience Satan’s attacks as curses. Paul expressed that reality in his letter to the Galatians. “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what 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, from the Spirit will reap eternal life” (Gal.6:7-8). Consequences operate in the spiritual realm as well as in the natural realm. God warns us and even pleads with us not to open ourselves up to curses. The biblical pattern for breaking these sin curses is to acknowledge our sin or the sins of our Fathers, repent of our sins, renounce the sins that have brought the curse, and then to nullify those curses in the name of Jesus who became a curse for us that we might be blessed. There is an entire chapter on curses and vows in my book Born to Be Free if you want more detail on that.

In addition to sin curses are word curses. In a sense, the words of man have creative power. God spoke the universe into existence with words. Man is made in his image and although that image has been diminished by sin, remnants of his nature are still reflected in all men. Our words can create by setting forces in motion that establish the very things we spoke. We pray and we declare God’s word over situations and people with faith that he will establish what we prayed or declared when our words express his will. That is true because God has given his people authority. But Satan can also give authority to those who walk with him. In my last blog, I mentioned Balaam who had the capacity to inflict curses on others. We are told in Joshua 13:22 that Balaam practiced sorcery or divination. In other words, he called on demonic powers to enforce his curses.

We have no need to fear curses. The bible tells, “Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest” (Prov.26:2). In other words, curses spoken by others don’t have the power to affect us if we walk with the Father and keep our hearts and words aligned with Him. However, most of us have seasons where our walk is more of a stagger and in those seasons we may be open to a curse spoken by others. Since we have authority, our own words may act as curses when we pronounce judgments and negative outcomes over ourselves. If we have opened ourselves up then repentance, renouncing the sin or the words, and the blood and authority of Christ is sufficient to nullify any curses. Each time Israel fell under a season of cursing because of disobedience, repentance and renouncing broke the curses and opened up a season of God’s blessings again. As our hearts turn to the Father, he is able to place his hand of protection and blessing over us again.

What we need to remember, however, is that we can be aligned with God in 90% of our lives but if we have reserved 10% for the flesh, secret addictions, unforgiveness, etc. that 10% makes us vulnerable to curses spoken by others. Our own words always have authority to establish curses. Again…I don’t believe that a single utterance will open us up to a curse but if we persist in sin or negative words we may find ourselves being oppressed and afflicted by the enemy. Words matter and so we want to speak only as Jesus would speak and always speak life over others and ourselves. Be blessed!