Chapter 12 - Jesus Was Made a Curse For Us

      Finally, someone told me that this little six-year-old was one I had prayed for during a visit the year before.  He was mute.  At that time, I had asked the Lord to remove the curses on him and put great blessings where there used to be that curse.  When I realized who the little boy was, then I was the one shouting, “Hallelujah, praise the Lord!”  You can’t see any more clearly that a curse has been removed than with children who have been delivered from them.  Children are generally so spontaneous and expressive that you can see the difference right away.

      Another time I was with the gypsies, and a little girl probably nine or ten years old, kept hanging onto my arm, pulling at my shirt, holding my hand and staying with me.  She was trying to tell me something.  I couldn’t figure out what she was saying because she was talking in gypsy.  I found out later that she was a little girl from whom I had removed curses.  God had healed her cleft palate (a hole in the roof of her mouth) and her lip, which was terribly deformed.  That was what she was trying to tell me.  She just wanted to share her healing with me and to say thank-you.

      About a year later when I returned to the church she attends, I saw her again.  There she was—this little girl who had been healed of her cleft palate and her deformed lip—now singing beautifully.  She is one of the main members of the music team at her church.  The amazing thing about her singing was that before, even her speech could not be understood because the sounds came up through her nose.

      The way curses operate in people’s lives is very real.  What great sin did the six-year-old boy do that he should have been cursed with a spirit of dumbness?  Do you think the little girl with the hole in the roof of her mouth got that way because she did something bad?  No, she was born that way.  Even doctors recognize that condition as generational, or inherited.  But in God’s mercy, He has given the way out.  Just because something is inherited, does not mean it has to be that way for the rest of your life.

      There is a good Christian couple in Romania who had been trying for eighteen years to have children.  Everyone had prayed for the couple without success.  In 1997, they asked me to pray for them.  I talked to the Lord and asked Him how to pray for them.  Then the Lord showed me to remove a curse that was in their lives.  Almost a year later, the couple came to me while I was visiting on another missionary trip.  They came to ask me to dedicate their new baby to the Lord.  They had the child they had wanted so desperately.  Talk about the mercy of God!  It makes me cry to think how loving our God is.

      I have hammered the issues about curses very hard because it makes us recognize that curses really exist.  The problems caused by curses are far more widespread than we have realized.  But we don’t just want to identify a problem.  We want to find the solution.  Complete deliverance is available to you and to me, because of what our Lord Jesus Christ did for us.  That’s why the following verse is one of my favorites.

      (Galatians 3:13)  Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

      The Romans didn’t pick up the prettiest pole, all varnished and clean, to hang Jesus on.  That tree had maggots on it from rotting blood, vile blood of vile men who had died on it before.  Jesus had to die in the most cursed way.  In Christianity, we know that Jesus’ blood washes away our sin.  We know that He died and rose again.  We also know He ascended and we understand the power of His name.  But we lost track of the reason why He died the way He died.

      Have you ever wondered why He hung on a tree, rather than dying in some other way?  He died on a cross to remove those curses—those strongholds and those ways in which the devil can legally get into your life.  That’s why Jesus died that way.  If it had been necessary to have a Mack truck run over him, either it would have been invented in that day or He would have waited a while to come and do what He did.

      The abuse He went through the night before—every thing the Romans did to Him was awful.  They did everything they could to kill him beforehand.  He was locked up with a group of soldiers that were so vile that they even enjoyed murdering babies with their mothers watching in horror.  Jesus had to fight to hold onto His life.  He had to die on the cross so that you and I could have our curses removed.

      It would have been so much easier for Jesus to die before he was hung on the cross.  He hung on and did not let go of His life until He was on the cross.  And then He gave his life.  He GAVE his life—they couldn’t kill Him!  That is how determined Jesus has been for you, and He still is determined for you.  If He went that far for you, why would you think that He could not deliver you today, or your children, or your nation?  Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.  The other men who were hung on the tree deserved it.

      To be crucified was absolutely the worst, most cursed way to die.  No mother would have been proud to see her son die that way.  The crowds jeered, they made fun and they spit on Him.  The shame and reproach that he bore is almost incomprehensible.  It’s a tragedy in Christianity that, because of our pet doctrines, we say that Christians can’t be cursed.  We still hold to that doctrine even after all He went through.  Jesus was blameless and yet died in the worst way possible.  Why did He allow it?

      (Galatians 3:13-14)  Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:   That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

      (Isaiah 53:5-6)  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.   All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

      All of our iniquities were laid on Jesus and He paid the price for our sin.  He didn’t make one excuse—we make excuses.  That is one of our iniquities.  Jesus went the whole route.  We must believe that if there is something He wants us to do, we will be able to do it and we can do it—no excuses.

      When Joshua was told by God, “Moses, my servant, is dead,” God told him to get up and get going and go take the land.  Jesus was hung on the tree to be cursed for us.  But if we don’t get up and fight for our freedom from curses, we’re still going to have them.  By His stripes, we were healed.  Then why are we sick?  Because we have to fight for our health.  We have an enemy and his purpose is three-fold: to steal, to kill, and to destroy.  Which one of these do you like?  I don’t like any of them!  I choose none, thank you.

      Back in Washington State in 1989, I got some kind of poisoning in my system.  I was praying, but I kept getting sicker.  Pretty soon, I started turning yellow and I knew that my liver was giving me a lot of trouble.  We were still praying.  My friends were telling me, “Carl, this is not like a kidney problem.  You have two kidneys, but you only have one liver.  If it fails, you die.  You need to go see a doctor.”  I kept saying, “I am healed by Jesus’ stripes, and I don’t need any doctor!”  And God bless Sheila, my wife.  She stood with me on this.  I was so weak that I couldn’t get out of bed and for six days, I was in and out of a coma.

      One day when I was all alone, I heard a laugh and a voice saying, “Why don’t you let loose?  You’re going to die!”  It was Satan.  I said, “I am going to let it loose.  I am going to give it to God.  I have been trying to make my faith happen.  Either God heals me, or I will die.  I don’t care.  It is His problem.”  But I kept getting weaker.

      Then, suddenly I saw my wife’s face right in front of mine and felt her tears dripping on my face.  She said, “I’m sorry, honey, I called 911.”  This stirred me up and I found enough strength to get out to my pickup truck.  I headed off the mountain that we lived on and I drove up to the high Cascade logging country.  I wanted to get to one of my favorite spots there, where I’d had good times talking things over with God.

      I had to walk the last hundred yards to get a view of Lake Spada.  I would go a few feet and then fall in exhaustion.  I heard that same laughter again and a voice said, “Now you’re going to die, because nobody knows where you are.”  And I said, “I don’t care.  Something has to change!  I either get healed today in the name of Jesus, or the coyotes will have me for supper!”  I fell asleep on the ground.  When I woke up, my strength had returned.  My skin was still yellow, but I was praising God!  I jumped in my pickup and roared down those logging roads to get home.

      When I reached Highway 2, I noticed a family whose car had broken down.  I was so blessed; I wanted to help them.  I said, “Let me get your car started.”  They looked at me.  I hadn’t shaved or bathed for six days and I was yellow.  I could understand their fear.  I said, “I’m healed, I’m healed.  Jesus healed me!  But if you don’t believe me, get upwind from me.”  And they did.

      I’m not sure what I did to their car, but it started.  And I said, “God bless you, I need to get home.”  I left them standing upwind.  A mile down the road, before I made the last turn behind the mountain, they were still standing upwind by the car.  I’m sure they are not there now!

      When I got home, we had great rejoicing.  Sheila told me that she had called 911 but had not let me know because she knew how I felt about it.  She had gone to lead the ambulance to our place because they didn’t know how to find us in the mountains.  She was not even home at the time that I thought I saw her face next to mine.  Praise the Lord!  It must have been God who gave me the vision of her face, so I would get moving.

      Sometimes we have a hard time believing that everything is taken care of.  I believe that when we are sick, the doctor should not be our first call.  Our first call should be to God in the name of Jesus Christ.  Then we can go get the aspirin bottle or whatever is needed.  “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33).”  By Jesus’ stripes, we were healed.  If we can believe this, we can truly be blessed.  Even if the doctor helps us, God is still the healer.

      It’s an amazing thing, because when you remove curses, God will also give you the revelation of the blessing that is needed.  And then, that blessing starts ministering in place of the curse.  You know, sometimes a year will pass after someone was prayed for and had curses removed and blessings put in their place.  Then they’ll call me and I have to go back and try to remember who it was and what we did.  Then they tell me what they were into before and how God has changed their lives.  Sometimes you cannot even recognize the person.  I’m talking about people who were bi-polar manic-depressives, insane, all kinds of things.

      The first time we dealt with insanity was in a church with a man who was bi-polar.  The man did not get healed right away, but there was evidence of change.  Then he called me up and told me he was going to quit taking lithium.  Bi-polar people are supposed to take this medicine for life.

      So, I said, “Well, why don’t you just start cutting back on it?”

      The man said, “Carl, you don’t understand.  You don’t cut back on lithium.  If you go off of it, you have a chance that you will go completely insane.  You either take it or you don’t.  And if I’ve making a mistake, I’m going to go in faith, but I won’t know it until it happens.  I feel led of the Lord.”

      So, I said, “I sure can’t advise you, Brother, but whatever you decide to do, I will stand with you.”

      He said, “I called you because I knew you would stand with me.  I’ve already decided and I have been off of the lithium for four days already.  Anytime in six weeks I may go overboard.”

      For those six weeks, I was praying for the man.  When Satan could no longer affect his mind, he attacked the man’s kidneys.  They collapsed.  His whole renal system shut down.  We prayed in the name of Jesus Christ and he received new kidneys and God honored our prayer.

      This man has gone through so many trials.  He is one of the strengths in that church today.  He is a strong counselor there.  I had no idea when we dealt with this kind of insanity, how things would go.  The blessings keep working, even though the devil is committed to try to steal them away.  But those blessings are ministering at every beat of the heart.  Those blessings will stay there unless we kick them out.

      There is only one way to get rid of curses.  That is death.  Do you want to get rid of your curses?  Die!  The Bible instructs us to die to ourselves, right?  Jesus died on the cross and He took the curses.  But we have to die to ourselves; we have to die to our flesh in order to stay free from curses.  I am talking to myself on this issue also.  What we really need to remember is that God does care.  He has a burning love for us, even though sometimes we don’t have this kind of love for Him.

      Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:” If we will walk in Christ, we will be curse-proof!

      (Galatians 3:14)  That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

      Faith is very important here.  If we believe that His promise is greater than our problem, we will receive the promise of God.  It takes faith to trust that God has a solution.  As we have said so many different ways throughout this book, we need to repent, to ask forgiveness for our sins and the sins of our forefathers, so that even the generational curses can be broken.

      (1 John 1:8-10)  If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.   If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.   If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

      Write your name on this one!  Is there anyone reading this who does not sin?  This verse is here because we do sin.  When we sin, we leave ourselves open for the enemy to cause us to be cursed.  But we have an advocate with the Father who is standing ready to represent us before the throne of God.

 
      (1 John 2:1)  My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.  And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

      We’re going to stumble if we don’t love one another.  That’s why the devil tries so hard to get us to judge one another.  After all, if I can find a sin in you, you don’t dare confront me because I can slap you back.  This goes on among God’s people!  Who do you think orchestrated that one?

      (Romans 12:9-10)  Let love be without dissimulation.  Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

      Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;

      One day I was driving down the road and had a vision.  I saw a big tube coming down, obviously from Heaven, and there were good things coming out of it—blessings.  As I looked, the blessings started going right back up the tube just that quickly!  Reversed—going away!  And then I saw some little hooks that were hooking them.  So, I said, “God, what is this?”  He said, “Those hooks are unforgiveness.  I love my people.  I bless my people.  I answer their prayers.  But there are things they are doing which gives Satan the legal right to steal those things away.  It does not really matter if they say ‘I’m sorry’.”

      Do you want to get rid of curses in your life?  Start forgiving!  We are supposed to forgive.  There will always be someone doing something bad to us, but it is our responsibility to forgive and it is to our benefit.  You can’t say that you love someone if you can’t forgive him or her.  We all have to work on loving one another.  This is what makes it tough, but we have to get involved with one another.  Are you having difficulty getting along with someone?  Spend some time with them.  Do them a favor.  If we would work on getting along with one another, it would make a big difference.

      This whole book on “Turning Curses to Blessings” can be summarized in one word:  LOVE.

      (1 Corinthians 13:13)  And now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

       The greatest thing we can do is love.  That will open the door to freedom.  If we really love people, we are not going to be afraid to tell them about Jesus.  If we really love people, we are not going to be afraid to offer them healing.  We need to take this kind of stand.  “The greatest of these is love.”

Chapter 13  - A New Beginning

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