20 CURSES UPON MAN

There are curses which we seldom recognise as such. People stumble over their problems and seldom think about their ways. In fact, Isaiah said they cannot see over what they stumble.

This is an attempt to show some curses which are not seen as such most of the time. 

  1. God gives man to his own way and to the heart he gains by walking in it.

  2. Man does not believe in God and God is so quiet man believes he is right about what he believes. An unbeliever may even believe in the existence of God without knowing Him personally. A pastor may be of the unbelieving kind without realizing it, just as a Christian may sing in the Church Choir without being converted. Only those who have a clean heart will see God in a real manner. Unbelief or a deceiving kind of faith is a curse which follows a heart that has not been cleansed thoroughly. A half cleansed heart has a greater curse upon it than a completely dirty one. A dirty heart knows it is in darkness. A half-cleansed one doesn’t believe in that as a possibility for himself.

  3. Man forgets he has sinned and cannot recall most of his sins to cleanse them. He prays “Lord, forgive our sins” without being able to mention them by name and says “our sins” instead of “my sins”.

  4. Man thinks he wins by being evil, and God keeps so quiet that man is motivated to be even more evil and to carry on as he is.

  5. Man cannot choose between good and evil anymore because he does not know how to differentiate between them. He is not like Job who said “Cannot my taste discern desirable things?” Job 6:30.

  6. Man cannot repent because his heart has taken him so far away from God and so deep into self-believing that he feels comfortable where he is the way he is. How great a curse is it to be self-confident!

  7. Man thinks he cannot repent when he does not feel like it – he has learned to do only as far as he feels. He cannot separate feeling from doing. “Surely after I was converted, I repented; and after I was taught, I struck on my thigh. I was ashamed, yea, I even blushed, because I bore the disgrace”, Jer.31:19. But, it happened only after Jeremiah did something about his sin and his heart. If sin hardens a person, surely, doing away with it softens the heart.

  8. Man is able to live by fame and believe it is what life is all about – he is handed over to deceit and failure and thinks he is a winner.

  9. Man’s day is filled up with things to speed up his time and to give him no chance to think about death, salvation, or a judging God.

  10. Man believes he is eternal because he has been created eternal. No one can avoid that the creation man is gets to rule and influence the way he thinks and sees things concerning himself. “...Also He has set eternity in their heart...Ecc.3:11. Nevertheless, God allows him to carry on living and thinking as the eternal being he has been made in the beginning and as if nothing bad will overtake him. Man lives in a way which leads to death. Yet, he does not conceive himself dying. In fact, he believes and assumes he shall live.

  11. Man confuses pleasure with life; money-confidence with trust; feeling safe with being safe; carnal and sinful love with love; aggressiveness with liability; easy-going with calmness; fighting with perseverance. He is not able to discern between sin and holiness. For every leftover of the knowledge or the intuition of goodness in man due to the creation he is, there is a similarity he works out sinfully. Man lives his own way and lacks the real, experiencing knowledge of how things are done in heaven. Yet, he is a creation made specially to lodge goodness in him. He is a creation fully prepared to live things out the way everything is done and lived out in heaven. Therefore, he makes likenesses of what is in heaven without realizing it. "You shall not make ... any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above", Ex.20:4. They put strange fire in the altar of God. Sinners are handed over to their own way of thinking, feeling warmed up by the fire which is burning their house down with them inside it. This is a curse which people are rewarded with by going astray and by going each his own way, Is.53:6. Man in sin is a confused being. He is voluntarily and gladly cursed and blinded there. He loves what he can't love due to the image of God he has originally been shaped by, and hates the only thing which will fulfil or fill his heart and being. This is why the Bible says, "Instead, be filled with the Spirit...".

  12. Man cannot see truth because he has a own way to look at his own things. He sees lies as truth and truth as lies. He, also, gets scared when truth is turned into reality. He will prefer to believe lies instead and can't believe if truth becomes reality. The only faith or belief he will accept, is the kind which remains mystical or which does not work out in a practical way. (This is why excitement over miracles is sin, since excitement does not allow us to live and to accept the life with God as a normal life). The sinner feels an urge to live his own way and will easily and preferably accept that kind of believing which allows him to do so. This is why many believe in truth without being truthful, and believe there is a reality without being real about God. Sinners lie to themselves in a most subtle way and do not become aware of their own deceit and self-deceiving manners. They feel content to pray without being heard and, if they are heard, they make a big fuss over it. It is very hard to find a sinner who believes God is against him. Because they move their eyes up and own, they believe they can see in darkness. Therefore, when light shines, they close their eyes seeking their darkness back. Loving darkness is a curse.

  13. Man cannot conciliate his heart with his present doings because of sin. I mean that, when he is doing something, his heart is always somewhere else, longing himself out of that duty. He has learned a way of dissatisfaction and of being unhappy about anything, anyway, anywhere, anytime – whatever he has or does. Dissatisfaction is there because of the heart we may have and not because of the circumstances we may find ourselves in.

  14. Man is unable to control his tongue and speaks before he thinks about what he is saying. The heart he has prompts him to speak first. For many, self-control is a desirable fruit for this very reason, since their tongue always leads them into trouble. But, only those who live in the Spirit will be able to breed that kind of fruit. Isn't it strange that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit? Is it from self or is it the Spirit's? Yet, only clean people have their way open to live a stable life in the Spirit, by being made free. The tongue is a curse man is handed over to by sinning. James says the tongue is a curse.

  15. Man is motivated by pride while he praises humility with his mouth. His practical ways take a different course his beliefs allow him to believe concerning himself. He does bad things, yet does not conceive himself doing those things his heart condemns. "If, therefore, the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" Mat.6:23. This is why man easily judges: he needs to condemn those things he does when he sees them in others, so he may better believe he doesn't do them. What a curse it is when we cannot see our own sins in such a way that God is moved to take them away and remove them as far from us as the east is from the west!

  16. Stubbornness, homosexuality, bad temper and so many other sins are sins to which man is subdued because of having moved away from God. But, man does not like the idea of being perverted. Yet, he likes being perverted and, to have his own way accomplished and to minimize his guilt, he defends perversion for the sake of self. To conciliate what he likes with what he thinks, he fights for same sex marriages, abortion, freedom of an evil tongue, among many other things.

  17. Man thinks little on God and feels at peace with that. What a greater curse could there ever be? And, if he thinks on God, he is hypocritical through the way he thinks. A man whose thoughts are naturally far away from God often uses background music to recollect and hold together what he believes his soul is so he may think on God. I cannot believe that a church which uses background music to cause people to be of one mind and one thought is a church ruled by God!

  18. Man is able to trust on anything anytime – but not on God. The natural ability to trust is something man has been created with. Yet, he cannot trust God in a natural, normal, unconscious, unfeigned way. This is why Jesus says "Whoever can believe...", Marc.9:23. Some people just can't trust or believe in God when He is real. Man cannot believe in the Lord who is his only way, the only salvation he urgently needs to take hold of without hesitating or looking back to the old life or to those old ways which made him feel safe before. Man's heart is naturally divorced from the idea of trusting God as a normal way of life, or even as the first and only way to do things. This is why God determined that all things be done and carried out through faith and that none should even think of looking back and offend the life God is or grants. We are saved through faith alone. To become unable to believe is a curse. Unbelief is a curse.

  19. Man cannot discern between feeling emotionally and feeling a Presence by touch, or by sensing the reality of the Lord. That’s why many go on singing to God believing their emotion is what that special Presence is all about, even when the Lord is absent – in some cases absent forever – they being that presence to themselves. They are feeling themselves and believe they are feeling the Lord. One needs to have one or the other, but not both. Man is handed over to what he believes is right or to what he feels. He is left to have what he wished for. But, he can't easily abandon the idea of God. Therefore, he believes his own ways, feelings, thoughts and many other things are God's. This happens because man loves himself above anything else and has moved away from the reality of a Holy Lord and still wishes the Lord to be with him while wandering in evil ways.

  20. Impatience is a  self-righteous curse which makes man impose himself upon himself at any cost and always. To be unable or unwilling to wait upon God is a curse or a habit brought from a life of sin. The amount of impatience in a man, in any man, is proportional the the amount of love he still has for himself or towards his own ways and wishes. If God delays something for the sake of discipline or holiness, to be impatient about it is as good as defending and protecting that which God is aiming to destroy. In the overall run, impatience delays good things and does not haste them if we are indeed connected to the Lord. In some people, however, impatience delays it forever. Be careful and guard yourself against this self-imposing, self-righteous curse. The only kind of impatience God will praise is the kind which longs to be with God right away if something is separating us from Him. Even so, do not jump over the wall, but rather cleanse that sin to go in through the gate.

Next time you seek your own way, just recall at least one of these curses which may come upon you by wandering away from the Holy of holies like a prodigal son who, by going astray, starts demanding from God. Maybe you will reconsider your ways by knowing what happens to anyone away from God and deep into oneself. God is not mean. The curses are already there, they already exist. They were already there even before you were born.I call Heaven and Earth to record today against you. I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. (These are already there!) Therefore, choose life, so that both you and your seed may live, so that you may love the Lord your God, and that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him. For He is your life and the length of your days, so that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore ... to give it...”, Deut.30:19-20.

José Mateus
zemateus@msn.com