Naaman was the captain of the host of Syria and a mighty man of valor, but he had leprosy. He had come to Elisha, the man of God to be healed and Elisha had told him to go dip in the Jordan seven times to be healed from his leprosy. At first Naaman didn’t like the idea of getting into a filthy river, but when he finally did it, he was healed. He had wanted to reward the man of God for having healed the leprosy, but the prophet sent him on his way. His servant Gehazi decided that he knew better than Elisha and disobeyed. The result was that he was cursed.
(2 Kings 5:26-27) And he said unto him, Went not mine heart with thee, when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee? Is it a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and oliveyards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and maidservants?
The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever.” And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow.
Gehazi had disobeyed the man of God, which was like disobeying God. He got the same leprosy that Naaman had been delivered from. When we don’t do the will of the Lord, it always brings curses, as we have seen previously.
THE DEVIL IS CURSED
God cursed the devil, that wily serpent, for his disobedience in the Garden.
(Genesis 3:14) And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
God told the devil back in Genesis and it’s still true today, “And dust shall thou eat all the days of thy life.” You have the authority in Christ to bruise the devil’s head. He’s crawling on his belly. You don’t even have to jump up to bruise his head and to cave it in! He’s on his belly; he’s in the dust. Listen, if he starts causing you grief and if you’ll stand on the Word, guess what? You can fill him up with dust! Why do you think Jesus said to his disciples when He was sending them out, “If they reject you, shake the dust off your feet”? It was a symbol; it was a curse that went on that village.
Do you know what has happened in Christianity? We have elevated the devil by making such commonly heard statements as, . “Boy, the devil sure has me under attack,” and “The adversary really got to me this time.” By making such statements, the devil is able to say, “Yes, give me some more praise! Give me some more praise!” If you are guilty of this, repent and know, “…greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
We have missed this one. Jesus didn’t miss anything. Jesus defeated the devil. We are permitting him to get a hold of our children, and to get a hold of our nation. The only power he has is what he has stolen from us. Jesus said in John 10:10: “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
The prophecy about Jesus is in Genesis 3 and God said it straight from the beginning:
(Genesis 3:15) And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
We have the authority to bruise the devil’s head, to cave it right in! Have you ever been bruised in the head? I have had a few shiners in my day. I know what having a bruised head is all about. If you get hit in the head, you can’t stay on your feet. The authority we have, because of Jesus, is a blast to the head of the devil. It’s time to take back our ground!
(John 14:12) Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do…”
If it is going to be a battle, which one is worse—a bruise on the head or one on the heel? In the battle, you have got the edge. You have a promise from God. It’s “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” You are God’s child if you have Christ in you. This is about taking a stand and putting the devil in his place, which is down in the dust. This is one curse that we don’t need to break. The devil is going to get the results of all his deceit!
CURSES FROM RELATIVES
Have you ever been cursed by a relative? Every one of us has. Grandma Eve and Grandpa Adam are in our bloodline. God cursed all of us when He cursed Adam and Eve because of their disobedience.
From Grandma Eve
(Genesis 3:16) Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
God told the woman that her sorrow and also her conception would be multiplied. Childbearing is a difficult time as any woman who has had a child can tell you. There is a curse on the woman and she will have pain in childbirth. Also, in this day and time, there is PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome) that is a part of the curse that came with the original fall. Women tell me that it is worse today. Maybe it is because today there is more evil, or it might be from all the innocent blood being spilled.
From Grandpa Adam
(Genesis 3:17) And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Men don’t need to feel left out. They have been cursed also. This is really important. You need to listen to God, even if your wife gets mad at you. If you make your decisions according to what the Word says, she’ll come around. If you give in and do her will, you will have trouble. Our labor and sorrow now are the result of what he did then.
(Genesis 3:18-19) Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
This is the curse that we received from Grandpa Adam. Man’s work was very hard after God cursed Adam. This one is easy to see every time we work hard and the sweat comes down our brow. I’ve been told that going against God is not a serious thing, but here we are still suffering today from that curse. We have to go through this work if we want to get paid so we can take care of our family. Have you ever heard of somebody being paid for not going to work?
Some days I have come home from work so tired that I can’t even enjoy my supper. My wife is thinking, “He does not even appreciate that I’ve worked so hard on this meal.” It was because that day was so tough. Tough days like this are the result of Adam’s disobedience against God, which is a very serious matter. The price of disobedience is devastating, not only for us, but for our children. And it will only get worse, if we do not repent.
CURSES FROM IDOLATRY
There is only one God. But if you want to make enemies, just take away someone’s idols. People kill over that. My ancestors came from Ireland and the English decided they wanted to dominate the Emerald Isles, so they used religion. Today these same people kill, on both sides, over Jesus—the orange and the green. It goes on all over the world. Just go to Bosnia or Kosovo and you will see a thousand-year-old war over idolatry.
Genesis 31 has a record about a curse that happened because of stealing someone’s idols. Jacob and Rachel had left her father’s house and were on their way back to Canaan. To be able to have Rachel, the one promised to him, Jacob had had to work an extra seven years. His father-in-law, Laban, had required Jacob to work for him for fourteen years in order to marry his daughters. But when Jacob and his family sneaked off in the middle of the night, Rachel took some of her father’s gods.
(Genesis 31:30, 31) And now, though thou wouldest needs be gone, because thou sore longedst after thy father’s house, yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods?
And Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because I was afraid: for I said, Peradventure thou wouldest take by force thy daughters from me.
Laban was not a nice father-in-law. Jacob was afraid he wanted to steal his daughters back, the wives for whom he had worked so hard.
(Genesis 31:32) With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live: before our brethren discern thou what is thine with me, and take it to thee. For Jacob knew not that Rachel had stolen them.
Here is where Jacob cursed his wife unknowingly. It is easy to say things, but you can’t put that bullet back in the gun once you’ve squeezed the trigger. The bullet has a primer that gives it the spark, which explodes the gunpowder. You can’t ever take it back. Think about that when you speak words.
Here’s how this principle hurt Jacob. He lost his wife as a result of his words. Jacob cursed Rachel to death. He cursed his precious wife. When Rachel left, she stole her father’s favorite graven images. And, of course, he came for them because they were his favorites. He didn’t come to ask Jacob, “Why did you leave?” He said, “You took my gods!”
(Genesis 31:33) And Laban went into Jacob’s tent, and into Leah’s tent, and into the two maidservants’ tents; but he found them not. Then went he out of Leah’s tent, and entered into Rachel’s tent.
Laban first went to the tent of those he suspected the most, then to the next and the next. He did not go to his favorite daughter’s tent until last. She was his pet and he never thought she would do such a thing.
(Genesis 31:34) Now Rachel had taken the images, and put them in the camel’s furniture, and sat upon them. And Laban searched all the tent, but found them not.
The camel’s furniture was not a couch and a coffee table. It was a frame that went over the camel to carry loads. It was a bulky frame and they stored it in the tent.
(Genesis 31:35) And she said to her father, Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women is upon me. And he searched, but found not the images.
Rachael acted as if she revered her father, but nice words don’t always mean a nice heart. Did she really think of him as her lord if she did such a thing to him? She told him she was having her menstrual cycle, but that may not have been so. It could have been a lie.
According to the customs of the time, the menstrual cycle was cause for a woman to be considered unclean. Men were to stay away from her. Rachael told her father that, knowing he would respect her and not insist on the search. She thought she had so cleverly deceived her father, because he did not find the idols hidden under her seat. She thought she had deceived everyone, but let’s see what the Word of God says.
(Genesis 31:36) And Jacob was wroth, and chided with Laban: and Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is my trespass? what is my sin, that thou hast so hotly pursued after me?
Now, it is proven that Laban was wrong because he could not find the idols. Jacob gets very brave. If he had had the nerve to stand up to the man from the very beginning, none of this would have happened. And because of fear, he cursed his wife to death. Rachel only lived four more chapters in the book of Genesis.
(Genesis 35:16-19) And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour.
And it came to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also.
And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin.
And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.
Rachael died as a result of Jacob saying, “Whoever has stolen your gods, let him die!” The curse truly came to pass. You have to be very careful because you can curse someone you dearly love. Whenever you’re going to say hateful things, bite your tongue. Don’t make statements out of fear. In James 3:10, it says: “Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing.” We have the privilege of choosing which we will speak. It also says in the Bible that we will be judged for every idle word we say. We will not get by with these things. Praise God for the option of repentance!