CAUSES OF CURSE (part two)!

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Injustice to the Weak or HelplessAnd then injustice to the weak or helpless. Personally, I can’t think of anything more weak or helpless than a baby in its mother’s womb. Personally, my conviction is anybody who deliberately procures an abortion comes under a curse. I would never minister to such a person without dealing with the curse. I want you to understand I’m not saying you’re cursed forever, please understand. I’m telling you the problem because I’m going to show you the solution.

 
5.Illicit Sex
Then illicit or unnatural sex, especially incest. And again, I don’t know what the particular figures are here, but in the United States it’s now estimated that one out of every four girls under ten has been sexually molested and one out of every five boys under ten. I cannot think myself that it will ever happen without a curse following it.

 
6.Anti-Semitism 
We’re going on from this list, Genesis 12 we have God’s call to Abraham. We need to look at that because it has something significant in it. God calls Abraham out, promises various things, and in verse 3 this is the end of the call. He says to Abraham: “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you.” So there’s both a blessing and a curse. I believe that was necessary because whenever God singles out a man to be blessed, that man becomes the object of all sorts of evil satanic forces. So God incorporated a protection. He said to Abraham, “Anyone who curses you, I will curse.” Now we won’t go on but in Genesis 27:29, that protection is extended by Isaac to Jacob in his father’s blessing. “Cursed be everyone who curses you, Jacob.” So you’ll see that line is Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which became what nation? Israel, that’s right. And what is the generic name for cursing or speaking against or abusing the Jewish people? Anti-Semitism. In my personal opinion, Anti-Semitism almost invariably is followed by a curse for an individual, for a nation. And if you look at the history of the last nineteen centuries, you see nation after nation after nation that came under a curse because they cursed the Jewish people. Ruth and I have a very good friend who is a Palestinian Arab born in Haifa, an American citizen who had a dramatic encounter with Jesus some years ago. I led him into the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He was a millionaire at the time. After he was saved, listen to this, he became bankrupt. He had the sense to say, “God, what are you telling me?” God said, “I’m dealing with your pride.” But God also showed him something, that he and all his ancestors had regularly cursed the Jewish people. And believe me, I’ve lived amongst the Arabs in Palestine. It’s normal, they all do it basically, with a few exceptions. God showed him that if he would change that attitude he would restore his blessing. He repented and asked God to give him love for the Jewish people. And he is a Palestinian Arab who is more pro Israel than most Jews. And he’s now a multi-millionaire. See? How important it is to discover the causes that are at work in your life.

 
7.Trust in Man
Then there’s another very important curse pronounced in the prophet Jeremiah which is just a few short words, and I think often we pass them over without really appreciating their significance. Jeremiah 17:5–6: “Thus says the Lord; Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited.” 
Notice please that that’s a very good description of somebody under a curse. Blessings are all around but he lives in a salt land. Rain falls everywhere else but it doesn’t fall on him. What’s the cause of that curse? Trusting in man, making flesh your arm. But the scripture says whose heart departs from the Lord. In other words, here is a man who’s known the supernatural grace and blessing of God and then turns back to relying on his own efforts. Turned his back on God’s grace. And that brings a curse. 

I ask you to exercise your own judgment. But I would say that’s the condition of the greater part of the professing Christian church today. Almost all the major movements in the church that we know of today, and I will not name any, began out of a sovereign supernatural visitation and work of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise they’d have never made it in history. But most of them today, I would say, have turned away from the supernatural grace and power of God and have started to rely on their own efforts and what their own strength and ability can do. And on that count they are under a curse. I think that’s one tremendous problem with the Christian church, that whereas we should be in the blessing, because of disobeying Jeremiah 17:5, we’ve come under a curse.