Curses: where angels fear to tread and touch!

I love to travel! The only continent I have not been to yet is Australia. I have a huge world map and a key ring placed on each country I have been to.

However, we can get quite a few curses from our travels I have noticed, especially in countries of eastern culture influence. Why? We can tread on unholy ground and what is the one thing we always do? Buy a souvenir and bring it home. There it sits on your shelf or mantel piece looking all pretty for the world to see where you’ve been. But some of these souvenirs harbour their own curses and bring destruction onto you or your home, or both.
The reason for this is that many souvenirs, and areas, are blessed by these eastern religions, which gives demons, and the demon gods these cultures worship, the legal ground to inhabit the souvenir and area. Also, some are dedicated to the services of Satan.
When I went to Taiwan for a month with my Taiwanese friend, he told me quite proudly that they don’t fear anything because the “gods of Taiwan” have been ‘brought down’ to protect Taiwan’s borders and itself as a country. I thought, ‘oh boy!’ Those are demonic beings that have legal ground to oppress anyone coming into the country!

Looking at scripture, we can see how God forbade touching of unclean things. We are not to associate with darkness, and bringing unclean things into our homes is doing just that! The best example lies in the book of Joshua. When the walls of Jericho came down, God warned them to not take anything from Jericho for themselves.

“But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed things, for Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed things; so the anger of the Lord burned against the children of Israel.” Joshua 7:1

Then, they went up to Ai and 36 men were killed! They were distraught and Joshua cried out to God not understanding what had gone wrong. Sounds like us? “God, why did you let this happen to me? I don’t understand what’s going on!” God explained this very well to Joshua and said,

“So the Lord said to Joshua: “Get up! Why do you lie thus on your face? Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things, and have both stolen and deceived; and they have also put it among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they have become doomed to destruction. Neither will I be with you anymore, unless you destroy the accursed from among you. Get up, sanctify the people, and say, ‘Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, because thus says the Lord God of Israel: “There is an accursed thing in your midst, O Israel; you cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you.” Joshua 7:10-13

God specifically commanded them to not take anything from Jericho because it was cursed and sinful, and they did not listen.

God makes it clear to keep ourselves and homes clean, sanctified and holy:

“And he spoke to the congregation, saying, “Depart now from the tents of these wicked men! Touch nothing of theirs, lest you be consumed in all their sins.” Numbers 16:26

“Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.” 2 Cor 6:17

In the Book of Acts, those who accepted Jesus Christ did not hesitate to rid of their occultist practices and objects!

“And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totalled fifty thousand pieces of silver.So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.” Acts 19:18-20

Some of the most obvious objects we should not have in our homes are statues of demon gods such as Buddha or Egyptian Pharaohs, eastern gods and some African art – some are clearly representations of demon gods and we should not have any of them in our homes or on our possession. I see often how tourists got nuts for the African art sold here. Some are very pretty, but a lot of them are carvings of their demon gods and some are so blatantly obvious they’re demonic they make your hair stand up. We are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Also, almost anything from Asian countries is risky – in my travels there I learnt how many objects are cursed, and most some for the destruction against Christians!
The easiest way to tell is to learn about the culture and history you are visiting. It is my prayer that the thought “Well, if I don’t believe it, it won’t happen to me!” will be eradicated from the hearts and minds of every Christian out there. I hear that so often. There is no way Satan thinks, “Oh well, let me give him a break – he doesn’t believe it, so I will leave him be.” Not a chance.

My next few posts will be focused on the types of curses you can get specifically on objects you bring into your home and the unholy ground we walk on – a lot of it will be on different countries, mostly the ones I have traveled to and learnt from.

Curses

Have you ever felt your relationship with the Lord just does not get anywhere? You’re putting in the time to pray, fellow-shipping with Him, being obedient but it’s remaining stagnant, inconsistent and you even battle to read the Bible? Or there’s a recurring illness you have, or bouts of ‘bad luck’, unsolved problems and you’re praying and praying but it is just not improving? Have you seen this in your own life, or people you know?
I have a pressing from the Lord to write about curses over the next few weeks. Yes, curses. I have prayed for a few weeks if this really is from Him and I feel it is.

I think my resisting is partly to not really wanting to write about it. I have heard many comments from Christians who refuse to believe curses exist or that Christians can be affected by them, such as “If I don’t believe it, it won’t happen” (that one irks me) or “But I’m under Jesus’ blood now, Christians can’t get cursed.” I’m afraid we can.
Jesus came to fulfill the law but not abolish it (Matt 5:17) so all the spiritual principles you see in the Old Testament still apply today. We can see a lot of information about curses in the Old Testament, but Jesus defeated Satan, has given us His authority to trample every scorpion, to break every curse and to be set free from every curse!

Christianity is militant. It’s governed by love but it is a war between good and evil. Blessed be the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war! We even have our own armour (Ephesians 6)!
It won’t be much of a war if Satan was unable to touch us in any way. But how can we fight a war we don’t even know exists? We have no excuse! In Leviticus 5:17 God emphatically stated, “If a person sins, and commits any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord, though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity.” Just because you don’t know about it, or refuse to believe it exists does not mean you are automatically protected!

“Therefore my people have gone into captivity,
Because they have no knowledge;
Their honorable men are famished,
And their multitude dried up with thirst” (Isaiah 5:13)

“For wisdom is a defense as money is a defense,
But the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it.” (Eccl 7:12)

People, the aim is to stop us. To stop being effective in God’s kingdom. Satan needs to do whatever is necessary in order to ensure people do not receive salvation, hinder our walk with God, not be a blessing to others, not grow the church etc. He is literally on the warpath. The Bible says we are not ignorant of his devices (2 Corinthians 2:11), yet God also says that his people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Keeping knowledge hidden about curses is Satan’s great weapon because they are so very easy to place and very effective unfortunately.

The definition of a curse according to Mirriam Webster’s Dictionary is:

–      a prayer or invocation for harm or injury to come upon one
–      evil or misfortune that comes as if in response to imprecation or as retribution
–      a cause of great harm or misfortune : torment
–      to use profanely insolent language against: blaspheme
–      to call upon divine or supernatural power to send injury upon
–      to bring great evil upon

You will see as I post, how those definitions fit into the different types of curses.

But the good news is, even though most of Satan’s schemes are clandestine, most curses are quite easy to identify and to break! Because Jesus’ power and authority is so absolute, complete and above all things. We can never discern or break them without Jesus. It is futile. I have been on the receiving end of curses myself and knowledge about curses and how to break them has helped me tremendously in removing those stumbling blocks from my walk with the Lord!
Living in Africa, witchcraft is in full swing here and I have sadly seen many people cursed, yet many who have broken them in Jesus’ name and set free from such a horribly stifling bondage.

I am certain I will face much opposition with these next posts, but I’m biting the bullet as I really feel this is what the Lord is leading me to do. I encourage you to pray over each post so the Lord can give you understanding. What I offer you these next few weeks is what the Lord has taught me in my own experiences and what Scripture has to say about it. My prayer is that no one is left in bondage anymore! There is no time left, we need to be prepared and walk all over the enemy and stop being done in by his schemes.