How to Pass From Curse to Blessing - Derek Prince

That I want to deal with tonight is how to pass from curse to blessing. I'll say that once more: how to pass from curse to blessing. I believe that this message can be of tremendous help to many of you here tonight. I believe I've proved this over the past years—that this message can change lives, communities, churches, and even nations. I believe there are many of you here tonight who are fighting something that you don't fully understand in your own life—some kind of frustration; something that, every time you're about to succeed, intervenes and keeps you

from success; something that holds you back from being a complete person, from being completely free, from being able to serve the Lord the way you would wish to, from leading a life of real victory. I believe in many cases, the problem that you're fighting with, that you've never diagnosed, that you've never come fully to grips with, is that there is a curse over your life. I'd like to tell you, first of all, a little of how I myself was led into this truth some years ago in a Presbyterian church in America. I was conducting a

deliverance service. I'd come to the end of my message and had not yet begun to minister. I was standing behind the pulpit, and on the front row on my left, I noticed a family—father, mother, and teenage daughter. As I glanced at them, it seemed to me the Holy Spirit said to me, "There's a curse over that family." I had no other reason except that it seemed to me the Lord showed it to me. So I stepped from behind the pulpit, went up to the father, and said to him, "Sir, I believe God has shown me

that there's a curse over your family. Would you like me to revoke that curse and release you from it in the name of Jesus?" Immediately, he said yes. I had no idea at the time why he so immediately accepted that statement. So I stepped back behind the pulpit and said a short, simple prayer, breaking the curse over that family. When I said that in the name of Jesus, although I was not in contact with any of them, there was a visible physical reaction in each of them when I broke the curse. Then I noticed that

the girl, the teenage daughter, had her left leg in a cast from above the thigh to the bottom of the foot. So I went back to the father and I said, "Would you like me to pray for the healing of your daughter's leg?" He said yes, but he said, "You need to know that she's broken it three times in 18 months, and the doctors say it will not heal." Now, today, if I heard that one statement—that a person had broken the same leg three times in 18 months—I wouldn't have any other need to know that

there was a curse over that family! Well, because the leg was in a cast, I said, "All I can do is just hold the cast in my hands and pray." And I did, and prayed a simple prayer. Now, the story is more complicated, but I'll tell you just the main outlines. Shortly afterwards, I got a letter from the father thanking me for what had happened and saying that when they went back the next time to the clinic to have the leg x-rayed, the x-ray showed that it had healed, and she was soon out of the

cast. Now, as I meditated on that experience, this thought came to me: God showed me there was a curse over the family and led me to break the curse before He permitted me to pray for the healing of the daughter. Why? My conclusion was that she could not have been healed until the curse was revoked. In other words, the curse was an invisible barrier that kept her from the blessing that God wanted her to receive. And then God began to deal with me about this whole matter of blessing and curse. As I turned to the

Scripture, I was amazed at how much the Bible has to say about it and how little has been preached in most of the places and congregations that I'm familiar with. Then I'll tell you an up-to-date testimony that I heard when I was in South Africa in November of last year. I met a Jewish lady who's a believer in Jesus, saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit. She told me and Ruth this testimony personally. She was a very highly qualified executive secretary, and under the influence of some teaching that she'd heard—Christian teaching—she prayed to get the

best-paid job in her profession in Cape Town, and she got it. She found herself working for a man who was the president of his own particular business, and she soon discovered that this man and all the executives in the company were in some strange kind of cult that was led by a woman prophetess. In a little while, her boss said to her, "Our lady guru, whatever you want to call her, has pronounced blessings over all of us. We'd like you to type them out for us." Well, when she started to type them, she discovered that

they were anything but blessings. As a committed Christian, she didn't feel free to type them, so she went to her boss and explained the situation, saying, "I just don't feel free to type these." The boss was very gracious and he said, "I'm sorry, but I didn't realize it would go against your conscience. Of course, we wouldn't ask you to do that." Now, I don't know exactly what happened next, but my guess is that this lady guru heard about this incident and prayed some kind of a prayer for this executive secretary, which wasn't really too good

a prayer. Anyhow, almost immediately after that, this lady began to develop acute arthritis in both hands, and her fingers curled up and became absolutely rigid and stiff. She couldn't bend them; she couldn't do anything in her profession. And the pain was agonizing. She couldn't sleep at night; she couldn't sleep in the same bed with her husband because every time he moved, the movement of the bed caused such pain in her fingers that she couldn't sleep. She went to a professional in this realm, a doctor, and he diagnosed it as rheumatoid arthritis. Well, a friend of

hers, another Christian lady, had heard my three messages that I mentioned here this evening—curses, cause, and cure—and brought the cassettes to her friend, the executive secretary, to listen to. They got through the three cassettes to the end of the third, where I lead people in a prayer of release from any curse over their lives. At that point, the cassette jammed; it wouldn't go forward, it wouldn't go back, and it wouldn't eject. Now, that's a totally supernatural situation. But the lady who brought the cassette said, "Well, as a matter of fact, I typed out this prayer

of release, and I have the typed version with me. I'll ask you to read that instead." Well, this Jewish lady was pretty sophisticated, and she really didn't believe very much in curses. She thought there was something medieval. She'd listened to the cassettes just to please her friend, and at first she didn't want to read this prayer of release. But eventually, she agreed with her friend to read the prayer. As she read it out loud—and it doesn't last more than three or four minutes—her fingers uncurled, became completely free, the pain ceased, and by the time she

had finished reading the prayer of release, she was perfectly healed. She then went back to the same doctor and had him check her, and he said, "Medically, you are totally healed." That came only by one thing—there was no prayer for healing; all there was was this prayer of release from a curse. All right, now let's look at the Bible and see what it has to say about blessings and curses. First of all, there's a lot in the Bible about them; you'd be surprised how much there is. Both blessings and curses are usually expressed in words,

either spoken words or written words. But those words are not normal, ordinary words; they are words that are charged with supernatural power. The power may be the power of God, or it may be the power of Satan. One of the features about both curses and blessings is that when they come, they usually continue from generation to generation to generation, so that a person who is experiencing either blessing or cursing may not easily discern where it comes from because it may be in the past, even hundreds of years. Interestingly enough, I was teaching on this in

Adelaide, and we had a dramatic response there. A lady wrote me a letter afterwards; her ancestors were from Scotland. They were from a clan called Nixon, and she knew she had the historical evidence, which she gave me a photocopy of. Because of clan wars between the Scots and the English in the 16th century, the bishop of the Church of Scotland had put a curse on that clan, and she realized that how many centuries later—four centuries later—things were happening in her family that were due to that curse that went back more than four centuries. Now, you

can raise your eyebrows and look surprised, but I'm going to show you biblical examples of this. So, curses and blessings are words that are charged with supernatural power; maybe the power of God, maybe the power of the devil. They are words that impinge on people's lives and, to a large extent, determine their destiny, and most often they will go on from generation to generation, even for thousands of years. Now, if there is a curse on your life, I want to say right out tonight: God can give you a solution; He has provided a solution. But

let me, first of all, give you an overall picture of this situation. First of all, let's take a couple of examples of blessings. The first is in Genesis 22, where Abraham had just been willing to offer up his son Isaac in response to the Lord's requirement. Then, at the last moment, the Lord provided a ram to be offered instead of Isaac, and then the Lord spoke to Abraham from heaven and He said in Genesis 22, verse 16, "By Myself I have sworn," says the Lord, "because you have done this thing and have not withheld your

son, your only son, in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed or your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore, and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies." Notice that the blessing was going to go on to Isaac's descendants, and then it says, "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice." It's very important to notice the reason for the blessing: because Abraham obeyed God's voice. That is the basic reason for

the blessing of God. Then, if you look on a little further in Genesis chapter 27, you'll find how Isaac blessed his son Jacob. But the strange thing is, if you remember the story, that Isaac thought he was blessing Esau, who was the firstborn. But while Esau was off hunting the venison which Isaac had asked for, Rebecca, Isaac's wife, substituted Jacob, who was her favorite son. In order to get away with the deception—because Isaac was blind—she dressed Jacob up in Esau's clothes and cooked a kid of the goats instead of the venison, serving it up the

way her husband liked it. She took the skin of the kids of the goats and wrapped them around Jacob's neck and arms so that he would seem hairy like Esau, because Jacob was a very smooth man and Esau was a very hairy man. So, along comes Jacob, pretending to be Esau, and Isaac checks and says, "Are you my son Esau?" and Jacob says, "Yes, I am." He told the lie, and then Isaac blessed him. the blessing. I'll read it, beginning of verse 24. Then Isaac said, "Are you really my son Esau?" He must have felt

there was something strange, and he said, "I am." And Isaac said, "Bring it near to me, and I will eat at my son's game so that my soul may bless you." I think you have to see that Isaac was a little bit carnal; he wanted his stomach filled with his favorite food before he could pronounce the blessing. Years ago, I gave a teaching on how a wrong attitude to food corrupted the family life of Isaac. I wish I could do it today, but I can't. So he brought it near to him, and he ate, and

he brought him wine, and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, "Come near now and kiss me, my son." And he came near and kissed him, and he smelled the smell of his clothing. Remember it was Esau's clothing, and blessed him and said, "Surely, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed. Therefore, may God give you of the dew of heaven, of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. Let people serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be master over

your brethren, and let your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be those who bless you." Understand that blessing was tremendous in its scope and it went on from generation to generation. Now, a little while later, in comes Esau with the venison, tries to offer it to his father, and his father realizes he's been deceived and that he blessed Jacob when he thought he was blessing Esau. But listen, this is Isaac's reaction in verse 33 when he discovers the deception. Then Isaac trembled exceedingly and said, "Who? Where is

the one who hunted game and brought it to me? I ate all of it before you came, and I have blessed him, and indeed he shall be blessed." Isn't that amazing? Because Isaac thought he was blessing Esau, but he knew the words that he pronounced didn't come from himself. Do you understand? It was a prophetic blessing, and because it was prophetic, he couldn't unsay it. So Jacob got the blessing; Esau didn't. But I want you to see the nature of blessing: that it's supernatural. It's not just a wishful thought; it's not just kind sentiments. It's

something that is supernatural, empowered, and determines people's destinies. That's true alike of blessing and curse. Now we're going to turn to the opposite theme: curses. First of all, I'd like to turn for a moment to Proverbs 26:2. Proverbs 26:2 states, "Like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow, so a curse without cause shall not alight." That's very important! If there is a curse, there's a cause for it, and in many cases, in order to be released from the curse, it's important to discover the cause. The curse never comes causeless. Now I'm going to look at

some sources of curses, different sources of curses. First of all, God Himself. God has many times pronounced a curse on nations and on individuals. It's one of God's severest forms of judgment. I'd like to look, first of all, at the calling of Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. This is where God called Abraham, when he was still called Abram, to go out from his city, Ur of the Chaldeans, and so on. There are actually seven stages to this call; if you look in Genesis chapter 12, verses one through three. Now the Lord has said to Abram,

"Get out of your country, from your kindred, and from your father's house to a land that I will show you." Now note the sevenfold calling of Abraham: number one, "I will make you a great nation." Number two, "I will bless you." Number three, "I will make your name great." Number four, "You shall be a blessing." Number five, "I will bless those who bless you." Number six, "I will curse him who curses you." And number seven, "In you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed." That's the sevenfold call of Abraham and God's sevenfold destiny

for Abraham. But notice the sixth one is a curse on everyone who curses Abraham: "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you." And you see, that goes for Abraham and his descendants: Isaac, Jacob, Israel, and the Jewish people. That's a very important point for all of us to see. When God calls a man to a special task, that man becomes the target of Satan's enmity in a special way. And so God built in a protective clause for Abraham: "I will curse him who curses you." What's that in modern

language? What is it that curses the descendants of Abraham? What's the word we use? Anti-Semitism! That's right. So you see, God curses anti-Semitism; in other words, anti-Semitism brings a curse from God. That's God's protection of the Jewish people, and you surely have to agree they've needed it. So there's one factor that may affect the life of some of you. Maybe you or your parents or your ancestors have been enemies of the Jewish people. You've spoken against them, you've criticized them, you've cursed them. Understand that will bring a curse on you and your life. Now I'm

going to explain to you how you can get free from that curse, but that's just one example. Then in Deuteronomy 27, God ordained that when Israel came into their promised land, they were to pronounce upon themselves 12 curses if they disobeyed God in certain respects. It's found in Deuteronomy 27, beginning in verse 11. Moses commanded the people the same day, saying, "These shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people when you've crossed over Jordan: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. And these shall stand on Mount Ebal to curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan,

and Naphtali." They couldn't enter into the promised land without being exposed to both a blessing if they were obedient and... A curse if they were disobedient. There was no way into the promised land but through that, and then 12 curses are listed. Now, we will not go into them in detail, but I'll just read the first: the Levite shall speak with a loud voice and say to all the men of Israel, "Cursed is the one who makes any carved or molded image, an abomination to the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and

sets it up in secret." And all the people shall answer and say, "Amen." All Israel had to invoke upon themselves a curse if they became involved in idolatry, in worshiping false gods, or in what we call, in modern English, the occult. That's the first and primary cause of curses in people's lives: involvement in idolatry, the worship of false gods, and the whole realm of the occult. In Exodus chapter 20, verse 3, the first commandment, the Lord said, "I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods beside me. You shall make no graven

image to worship." And He said, "If you do, I will require it of the three following generations. It will not only be visited on you, but on the three subsequent generations." So you understand that you may be struggling with something in your life here tonight, which is due to your grandfather or even your great-grandfather or your great-grandmother, or some other ancestor. You see how important it is to diagnose and identify the problem. I'll just summarize the other main causes of curses listed here in Deuteronomy chapter 27. First of all, as I've said, idolatry and false

gods; second, dishonoring parents. And that's very, very important. I don't doubt that there are some of you here tonight who have problems in your life because your attitude to your parents is not right. Remember, the first commandment with a blessing is the opposite: "Honor thy father and mother, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth." I want to tell you, in all my experience in Christian ministry, I have never met a person who dishonored father and mother and had it well with them; never. I don't believe such

a person exists. It automatically exposes you to a curse. Now, I don't mean you have to agree with your parents or even do everything they tell you to do; that depends on the way your parents are living. But you have to honor them as your parents. It's the first commandment with the promise of blessing. You understand? I don't know how many people I've met whose lives have been straightened out when they straightened out their attitude to their parents. And I think of others who never did it and who never were blessed. I think of one

member of my family who's dead; he died of cancer at the age of forty. He was saved, baptized in the Spirit, and served the Lord, but he never enjoyed the blessing of God because he never put right his relationship with his mother, who was a spiritist. So he had all the problems you can imagine, but he could have escaped from them if he dealt with his relationship with his mother. See, I'm not talking about theories; I'm talking about things that I know from experience. The next reason for curses is illicit or unnatural sex. Any form

of unnatural sex brings a curse. Any form of homosexuality or bestiality will bring a curse. Also, sexual relationships with members of your family that are outside the permitted range. And today, we have to acknowledge the fact that there are millions of children who are victimized by their fathers in the area of sex. Then, the fourth main reason is injustice to the weak and helpless. In my whole series of tapes, I deal with the fact that American Indians in the United States placed a curse on the White House because the American government regularly broke its treaties

with the American Indians. And believe me, they know how to curse; they surely do. That's why, from 1860 until 1980, every president elected in the 20th year died in office. You can trace that back to two things: the American government's unfaithfulness to the American Indians and the fact that Abraham Lincoln, who was the president elected in 1860, permitted a spiritist séance to be conducted in the White House by his wife, who later ended up in a mental institution. So you see how this thing just doesn't affect individuals; it affects whole nations. Now, I believe that

the same would have happened to President Reagan. As you know, an attempt was made on assassinating him early in his presidency. But just before he took the oath as president, a group of us in a large meeting combined in prayer and faith and released him from the curse—not just him, but broke the curse over the presidency. You see how near the curse came to be fulfilled? The bullet lodged within one inch of his heart, but I believe that was God's, in a sense, vindication of the prayer that released the curse. You see, I hope you

can see that this is no abstract theory; this is something that affects the lives of people and nations everywhere. Then another completely different kind: Jeremiah 17, verses 5 and 6. Thus says the Lord: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm or his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord." And this is the curse: listen—"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." See, that's typical of

a person under a curse. Everybody else is getting the rain, the blessing, the prosperity, but he, in the midst of it all, lives in a parched land and never sees it. Why? Because it's a curse. What's the cause of that curse? "Cursed is the man who trusts in man, makes flesh his arm, relies on human ability and material resources, and whose heart departs from the Lord." Now I believe... That curse rests over many Christian churches, which have tasted of the grace of God, known what it is to be blessed by His grace, but then have

turned away and begun trusting in their own efforts, their own intelligence, their own religion. They have made flesh their arm. The blessing of God has lifted, and in its place, a curse has come over those congregations. I've preached in many congregations that I was assured were under a curse. You struggle, and you fight, and you preach, but there are very few results until the curse is dealt with. Turning there in Zechariah 5, Zechariah had a vision of a scroll that contained curses on both sides. One side was on the one who stole, and the other

was on the one who perjured and swore falsely in the name of the Lord. This curse entered into the houses of people and destroyed their houses. See, a lot of houses are destroyed because a curse has come in. Families are broken up because of a curse. I wonder how many New Zealanders would be under a curse if you included all those who stole and perjured themselves. How many are not honest in their tax returns? Do you realize that that could bring a curse on you? I tell you, in the United States, it would include a

lot of people, and many of them would be churchgoers. Now, the next area of sources is men representing God. We will just take a few. The first is Joshua. In Joshua chapter 6, verse 26, after the children of Israel had miraculously captured the city of Jericho, Joshua pronounced a curse on anybody who would rebuild it. Joshua 6:26: "Then Joshua charged them at that time, saying, 'Cursed be the man before the Lord who rises up and builds this city, Jericho. He shall lay its foundation with his firstborn, and with his youngest, he shall set up its

gates.'" The New International Version states, "He shall lay its foundation at the cost of his firstborn, and at the cost of his youngest, he shall set up its gates." Now, that was pronounced around 1300 or so before Christ. Around 800 before Christ, a man did that thing, and we can read about that in 1 Kings chapter 16, verse 34. In his days, the days of King Ahab, which is approximately four or five hundred years later, Hiel of Bethel built Jericho. He laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram, his firstborn, and at the cost of

his youngest son, he set up its gates, according to the word of the Lord which he had spoken through Joshua, the son of Nun. So, 500 years later, the curse pronounced by Joshua was worked out in that man who rebuilt the city. It cost him two of his children. Can you imagine the doctors of that day trying to find out the cause of their death? No obvious medical reason; they just pined away. Can't find any virus, no known medical diagnosis, and yet they die. The doctors didn't know that the cause went back 500 years—see, to

a curse that had been pronounced by a man of God as a judgment on a city which God determined should never be rebuilt. Can you see that you may be dealing with things in your life of which the cause can go back hundreds of years? Another example is David's words in his song after the death of Saul and Jonathan, in 2 Samuel chapter 1, verse 21. I have to say, if you can take it in the right way, David was a tremendous cursor. I don't mean in the sense we'd use it today, but he pronounced

some hair-raising curses on some people. I mean, you read some of the Psalms; it makes your blood run cold just to think of it. See, that's part of the ministry of a man of God. Men of God are not merely blessed; they also curse. All right, this is what he said in this beautiful song about Saul and Jonathan, 2 Samuel chapter 1, verse 21: "Mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, nor let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offerings; for the shield of the mighty is cast away there, the shield of Saul,

not anointed with oil." Does it make sense to talk to mountains, or do you think that's just something strange? Well, I want to tell you, those words were spoken about one thousand years before Christ, and we're now nearly two thousand years after Christ. You can go to the mountains of Gilboa, and there is no green vegetation on them still today. Trees and vegetation will grow on every other mountain all around, and the government of Israel, which is very keen on reforesting the country, has tried to plant trees on that mountain, and they wouldn't grow. What's

the reason? Words spoken by David 3,000 years ago, and the visible evidence is still there in the land of Israel today. That's real. We don't need to turn there, but you remember the prophet Elijah had a servant named Gehazi who disobeyed Elisha, ran after Naaman after he'd been miraculously healed, and asked for money and clothing, and hid it from Elisha. When he came back, Elisha said, "Didn't my spirit go with you?" And then he said this: "The leprosy of Naaman the Syrian cleaved to thee, and thy seed forever." And Gehazi went out a leper as

white as snow. What was that? The result of a curse pronounced by a man of God. Turn to the New Testament and Jesus in Mark chapter 11, beginning at verse 12. Now the next day, when they—that’s Jesus and the disciples—had come from Bethany, He was hungry. And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. And when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. Now, I believe, I'm not going to say for absolutely sure... That,

in that type of fig tree, before the figs come, there's a small kind of round thing that comes first, which the Arabs call nafa, which means "that which falls." Jesus was not so unreasonable as to expect figs when it was not the time, but he did come from the novel. But the teaching is that if a tree doesn't bring forth the naphal, the first preliminary thing, it will not bring forth figs either. So Jesus knew that that tree was fruitless. And what did he do? He spoke to the tree. Does that make sense? In response,

Jesus said to it, "Let no one eat fruit from you ever again." And his disciples said, "It!" I'm sure they thought, "Our master is just a little bit, uh, gone a little bit too far." Now, in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. Twenty-four hours later, that tree was totally dry, and Peter, remembering, said to him, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered away." Notice he said to Jesus, "You cursed it." That was the result. Jesus said, "Have faith in God." And if you'd

like to look for just one other parallel passage, in Matthew 21, verse 21, the same story says in verse 20, "Well, when the disciples saw the tree, they marveled, saying, 'How did the fig tree wither away so soon?'" Jesus answered and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree." What was done to the fig tree? It was cursed. But he said, "You can also speak to a mountain." But notice, he authorized them to curse things. He

said, "You will not only do what is done to this fig tree." I tell you, the power we have, if we could but realize it, is frightening. We're really rather like Moses when God called him to go back to Egypt and deliver Israel. He said, "I don't have anything. What can I go with?" The Lord said to him, "What's that in your hand?" He said, "A shepherd's staff." The Lord said, "Throw it on the ground." What happened when it touched the ground? It became a snake, and Moses ran from the very thing he'd been holding

in his hand. And God said, "That's all you're going to need: your staff. Go back to Egypt and do the job." You see, a lot of us are like that; we're holding a staff in our hands. We don't realize that if we throw it on the ground, it can turn to a snake. Let me tell you a story—it's a true story. Um, about 1965, I was an associate pastor in a church in Chicago, and right on the corner, flush with the church, wall to wall with the church, was a saloon, a pub—whatever you call them

here. Not only did they sell alcohol, but it was a place of prostitution and a place of drugs, illicit drugs. We were having a prayer meeting in the church sometime in October, and I was on the platform, one of those leading the prayer meeting. Without premeditation, I stood up on the platform and said, "In the name of Jesus, I curse that pub, that saloon." I didn't think much more about it. Just about Christmas time, I think just after Christmas at 4 a.m., there was a phone call in our house: "Brother Prince, the church is burning.

Would you like to come and see it?" Well, it's very cold in Chicago, and when it's 4 a.m., it was probably 20 degrees below zero. I thought, "No, I really don't want to go and see it." Then I thought, "If I don't show any interest in the church burning, people would think I'm pretty indifferent." So, Ruth, my first wife, Lydia, and I got into the car and drove down. When we got near it, there were the flames up in the sky and the smoke rising in billows. But when we got there, we discovered it wasn't

the church—it was the liquor store, the pub. But the wind was blowing off the lake, Lake Michigan, and you call Wellington the Windy City. Let me tell you, Chicago is also called the Windy City; it's very similar in that respect. And the wind was blowing the flames right onto the church. As we got there, the wind changed 180 degrees and blew the flames in exactly the opposite direction, away from the church. The result was that the pub was completely destroyed, and the church suffered nothing but smoke damage. The fire chief of the Chicago fire brigade

said to one of the elders, "You people must have a special relationship with the man upstairs." But you know what? That was the result of a curse. When I saw what had happened, I thought, "Brother Prince, you better be pretty careful how you pray from now on." I didn't—I was like Moses; I was scared by what I had in my hand. You understand? All right, now another source of curses—and this is very important—is people with relational authority. God has so ordered human society that in certain situations, one person has authority over another person or persons.

The most obvious example is a father, who, according to the word of God, has authority over his family. Whether people like it or not, whether they fight it or not, is absolutely unimportant. The fact is, he has authority over his family. If he doesn't use it, that's his problem. Another person who has authority is a husband over his wife. They're very closely related. The Bible says, "God is the head of Christ; Christ is the head of the husband; the husband is the head of the woman." Women can say what they like about it, but the

fact remains it's true, and they can't change it by objecting to it. I'm not anti-women; I think that's obvious. Never has been my problem; I better not. "Get into that well! Where are we? Yeah, let's take the case of Jacob and his family. Jacob had served for a long time—more than 14 years—with his uncle Laban. He'd acquired two wives, two concubines, and 11 children, and then he decided to flee back to the land that God had promised him. He fled secretly because he was afraid that his uncle Laban would claim his wives back. You understand?

Or his daughters back, who were Jacob's wives. Well, Laban pursued after him and eventually caught up with him quite near the boundary of the land of Canaan. Now, when they fled, Rachel, who was the daughter of Laban and the second wife of Jacob, stole her father's household gods. Now, first of all, he shouldn't have had household gods, and secondly, she shouldn't have stolen them, but she did. Laban was extremely angry because his household gods had been taken—his little images, you know, that protected him, etc., etc. You know the kind of thing that people keep, which

is totally against the will of God. So Laban catches up with Jacob and he says, "Why did you take my daughters without saying goodbye?" And Jacob said, "I was afraid you'd take them back." Then Laban said, "Well, secondly, why did you steal my household gods?" Now, Jacob did not know that Rachel had taken them, and Rachel succeeded by very typically feminine rules from allowing Laban to discover where they were. So Jacob was very indignant because he'd been accused of stealing his father-in-law's gods, and he hadn't done anything with them. And so he said just this

one verse about the household gods in Genesis 31, verse 32: "With whomever you find your gods, do not let him live." But the Hebrew says, "Let him not live." You understand? Now, that's a curse: "Let him not live," and it was pronounced by Jacob, the husband of Rachel, and he had authority over Rachel. It was not an empty word; it was a word that was charged with his authority. You know what happened; you know the story. The next time Rachel had a child, she died in childbirth. See, Jacob had pronounced the destiny of his wife.

Now, this comes very close to home. Another person, as I've already mentioned, is a father. Second to the blessing of God, the most desirable thing in life is a father's blessing, and one of the things to be feared most is a father's curse. Now, many fathers have put a curse on their children without knowing it, and I know this because I've dealt with so many and helped them out of it. See, a father can have, say, three children. The first is clever; the third is clever, but the middle child is not really so bright. So

the father doesn't like the middle child. You know what I've noticed about parents? If there's one child they don't like, it's usually the one that's most like themselves. I think they don't like what they see of themselves in that child. So the father says to this child, "You'll never make good. You'll never succeed. Your brothers are clever, but you'll be a failure all your life." You know what that is? It's a curse. And you'd be amazed how many people struggle all their way through life because of a parental curse pronounced upon them. Another kind of

person that can pronounce a curse is a teacher because a teacher has authority over his or her pupils. And again, it may be that a teacher in the early years has one pupil whom she really just can't get on with. You know, there's some kind of personality clash, and she says things like, "You'll never learn. You just will never learn to read. You just haven't got it. You'll never succeed." What's that? It's a curse. And again, I've dealt with people who've had to be delivered from a curse pronounced by a teacher. There's another person who

can do it: a pastor, because a pastor has spiritual authority over his congregation. Suppose a pastor has a clash with a member of his congregation. That person leaves, maybe in a bad spirit. The pastor says, "Wherever you go, you'll never succeed until you put things right with this church. You'll never get on anywhere." Do you think pastors ever talk like that? Believe me, they do. You know what that is? It's a curse. Religious groups are terrible about that. If you break away from some groups, they will automatically put a curse upon you. And believe me,

that's not something that is of no consequence; it's real. We've got to go on. The next category is a very common one: self-imposed curses—curses that people pronounce on themselves. We'll go back to the story of Isaac and Rebecca. You remember that Rebecca had persuaded Jacob to steal the blessing—or to get the blessing. I wouldn't say exactly steal it, but cheat his way into the blessing. Now Jacob was smart and he said in Genesis 27:12, "Perhaps my father will feel me and I shall seem to him to be a deceiver, and I shall bring a curse

on myself and not a blessing." And his mother said to him, "On me be thy curse, my son. It'll come on me, not on you." She pronounced a curse on herself. Later on in the chapter, she said to her husband Isaac that she complained about the wives that Esau had married, who were the daughters of Heth, and she didn't approve of them. Actually, they have a saying amongst the Jewish people. I don't know whether you've ever heard it about a Yiddish mama—a Jewish mother who basically seeks to determine the whole course of her family, her

children, everything. There's a story about one that was in a theater and she said, "Is there a doctor in the house?" And this man stood up, and she said, "Boy, do I have a daughter for you!" If you've never met the type, but they're not only found amongst Jewish people; they're found amongst all races—the mother who runs everybody, plans everybody's life, determines whom everybody should marry. Well, Rebecca really wasn't..." getting things the way she wanted them, and she said this to Isaac: "In verse 46, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of

Heth. If Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, like these who are the daughters of the land, what good will my life do to me?" You see, she pronounced the double curse on herself. She said, "I'm weary of my life. What's the good of living? I might as well die." I cannot tell you how many people we've dealt with who've pronounced the curse on themselves by saying, "I wish I were dead. What's the good of living? I'm not going to make it." You don't have to say that very often; it's like an invitation

to the spirit of death. You don't have to give many invitations; he'll come in. We've seen scores of people delivered from the spirit of death. In one meeting in Northern Ireland in November last year, I prayed collectively for the people that needed deliverance from the spirit of death in an audience of about 2,000 people, and about 50 people received simultaneous deliverance, and most of them were young people. How does it come in? This attitude of hopelessness: "No good living; what's life got to offer to me? I might as well be dead." Brothers and sisters, it's

a terribly dangerous thing to say. You're really pronouncing a curse on yourself, and you know how busy the devil is to trick you into saying that. You sometimes say it for very inadequate reasons, in a fit of pique or discouragement, but you're settling your own destiny. One other tragic example from the New Testament, familiar I'm sure to most of us, is Matthew 27, verses 24 and 25. The scene is the trial of Jesus by Pontius Pilate. Verse 24: "When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he

took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, 'I am innocent of the blood of this just person. You see to it.'" And all the people answered and said, "His blood be on us and on our children." What's that? It's a self-imposed curse, and you really cannot understand the history of the Jewish people over the last 19 centuries until you see that one major factor in it is a self-imposed curse that goes on from generation to generation to generation: "His blood be upon us and our children," where the word "children" in that context means

our succeeding generations. It's tragic, terrible. The next source of curses is men representing Satan: witch doctors. Now, don't laugh at me, but I think I know what it is in Maori—"tohonga," is that right? Yeah, well, every language has that word, believe me, and they are experts at cursing. That's their profession, and they're very skillful. They know how to do it. In East Africa, when I was principal of a college for training African teachers, one of my students from a certain remote mountain area told me this story. He said in his village, two families quarreled, and

one family went to the witch doctor, paid him a kid, a goat, and said, "Put a hex on the other family." The witch doctor said, "All right. At midnight on a certain night, a jackal will cry in the village, and the son of that family will die." And at midnight on that night, a jackal cried, and the son died. He didn't die of anything; he died of sheer fright. You understand? Ruth and I were in Zambia last year, and one of the ministries that we have is praying for barren women who can't have children. So,

out of this large crowd of about 7,000 people, we called for women in that condition. About 400 women came forward for prayer, and before we prayed for them, we asked the interpreter to ask them how many of them had been to a witch doctor to get a potion to enable them to have children. There were only two that didn't raise their hands out of 400. You see, if you know parts of Africa, they are totally dominated by witch doctors; everything in their lives is controlled by the unseen spiritual power of the witch doctor. When we

came with this message about the release from the curse, it was one of the most dramatic changes I've ever seen in people. After they had listened to my teaching and said the prayer after me, those people were visibly transformed. Up to that time, you hardly saw them smile. From then on, there were some of the happiest people I've ever seen. The change was like from night to day. One well-dressed man, obviously a well-to-do man, when I walked down from the platform, came up and rubbed himself in the dust, which is their way of expressing appreciation

and honor. He said through the interpreter, "I've been a wretched man all my life. I've been in continual pain for years." He said, "Now I'm free. I have no more pain, and I'm happy," and his face was radiant. The only thing that had happened was we'd released him from the curse. We've become so civilized in some places that we've lost touch with some things that are very real, but they're still real even if we don't believe in them. You can say you don't believe in viruses, but if you get one, you'll get sick. The example

we don't need to go into detail from the Bible is Balaam, the witch doctor. The king of Moab knew he couldn't defeat Israel in war, so he hired Balaam and said, "Come and pronounce a curse on them because I know the one who is cursed and the one you bless is blessed." That's typical. Most African tribes, before they go into battle, will get the witch doctor to put a curse on their enemies, then they believe they'll be able to defeat them. And that does perhaps not seem so far away as Africa. All right, two more,

and we are coming near the end of this part. Another source of similar problems is... What I call soulish prayers or utterances, and I just like to turn very quickly to James chapter three. I'm trying to make this brief, but I want to make it complete because some of you may not have another opportunity. James chapter 3, verses 14 and 15: "But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic." James is talking about two

kinds of wisdom, and he talks about one that’s not God’s wisdom. He says it has three characteristics: it’s earthly; then he says, in Greek, it’s soulish—it’s the expression of the soul, not of the spirit. And when it’s there, the next thing it is, is demonic. I'll tell you that there are some people who pray for you that you'd be better off without their prayers. That sounds shocking, but you see, some people, if you're a preacher, for instance, they've got their own ideas of what your ministry should be and where you should go, and they'll try

to pray you there. It may not be at all the will of God, but you have this pressure against you every time you try to do certain things. What are they praying against? All people may just sit and talk about you. Christians criticize one another, talk about one another, run one another down. That generates a negative power that's released against the people you talk about. I'm not going to go into this in detail, but I could spend an hour on it. Understand it’s very important to know where your problems are coming from. Sometimes they're coming

from people quite close to you. There have been men who have been sick for years because their wives had a death wish for them. There are a lot of things in the human soul that we don't fully understand; it's got a lot of power for good or evil. If it’s under the control of the Holy Spirit, it will be for good, but if it’s under other forces, it can be just as powerful for evil. And finally, in this section, another source of these problems is what I call unscriptural covenants. In Exodus 23, verse 32, God

warned Israel about the nations whose land they were about to enter. They were all wicked, idolatrous nations, and God said to Israel, “You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.” You see, if you make a covenant, which is a very solemn agreement, with evil people who are under the power of evil forces, you come under the power of those evil forces. Now, this is particularly true of secret societies. In America, for instance, the Ku Klux Klan, and worldwide, the Freemasons—I just have to tell you that that is a sure road to disaster

for your descendants. I can't estimate the number of crippled, unhappy children whose problems go back to a parent in the Freemasons. You can do what you like about it, but I'm telling you, the consequences are ordered by God, and you can't change them. You are not free to make a covenant with people on the basis of anything but the covenant that's made in the blood of Jesus. That's a very powerful binding covenant, but evil covenants are also powerful and binding. Now, let's look briefly at the forms that blessings and curses take. If you want to

study this in detail, there's one chapter that's devoted solely to it; it's chapter 28 of the book of Deuteronomy. It's got 68 verses. The first 14 verses deal with blessings, and the remaining 54 verses deal with curses. When you've read that list of curses, I think you should want something else, and the source of both blessings and curses is clearly stated, and I'll read them both: Deuteronomy 28, verses 1 and 2: “Now it shall come to pass, if you will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments

which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you on high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you hearken to the voice of the Lord your God.” What is the basic cause of blessings? It's listening diligently to the voice of God and doing what He says. That’s why God blessed Abraham; He said, “Because you have obeyed my voice.” And then it says, “All these blessings will come upon you.” Really, you don't need to chase the blessings; what you need to do

is meet the conditions. God will take care of the blessing. And then in verse 15 and onwards, we come to the curses: “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.” What's the cause of the curses? Not listening to the voice of the Lord and not doing what He says. It’s very, very simple, basically. Now, if you want to, you can read through

that whole list of blessings and curses for yourself. Excuse me, but I will give you my very brief summary, and you check for yourselves; don't just take it because I said so. Here's my summary of the blessings: exaltation, being lifted up, health, reproductiveness—reproducing in every area of your life: your family, your farm, your animals—everything: prosperity, victory, and God's favor. I'll read that once more: exaltation, health, reproductiveness, prosperity, victory, and God's favor. One of the simple statements of blessing is: you’ll be above only and not beneath; you’ll be the head and not the tail. I sat

down and worked that out once, and I thought, what does it mean to be the head and not the tail? It’s like this: the head makes the decisions; the tail gets dragged around. So, which end are you— the head or the tail? Are you making the decisions? Are you taking the initiative? Are you determining the way things happen, or are you at the mercy of... Circumstances under financial pressure, health pressure, family pressure—being just dragged around if you're the tail. It's a curse; if you're the head, it's a blessing. Now, let's look at the summary of

the curses, and as I said, this is 54 verses, so the summary is brief. First of all: humiliation, second, failure to reproduce in any area of your life—barrenness is a curse without any qualifications. Mental and physical sickness, family breakdown, divorce, alienation of children, and so on. Poverty, which is a curse, not a blessing. If you think poverty is a blessing, why do you work so hard to get rid of it? And if you think sickness is a blessing, why don't you go to the doctor to get rid of it? Why involve that poor doctor in

fighting against God and removing the blessing from your life? Defeat, oppression, failure, and God's disfavor. I'll give it to you once more: humiliation, failure to reproduce, mental and physical sickness, family breakdown, poverty, defeat, oppression, failure, and God's disfavor. Now, I'll give you my own little list, which is just based on personal experience and observation over the years. I made it independently of that chapter 28 of Deuteronomy; it's interesting how close they are. I have seven things—seven factors in people's lives—which, when I discover them, lead me to conclude that they're probably under a curse. Number one:

mental and emotional breakdown, and especially emotional breakdown. Now, if it just happens once in one life, there could be other causes; but if it is a thing that recurs frequently in a family, you can be sure that family is under a curse. Number two: repeated or chronic sicknesses, especially without clear medical diagnosis. When you go to the doctor and he says it's one thing, you go back six months later and he says it's another. Always you have a pain, and nobody can find out why you have a pain—but you have a pain. And especially again,

if these things run in families, I would say almost certainly that family is under a curse. Third: repeated miscarriages and related female problems. Ruth and I have come to the place that if women come for that kind of prayer, which we pray for very frequently, once we hear the diagnosis, we simply treat it as a curse. We don't even do any investigating, and we have seen scores of people dramatically change. Number four: the breakdown of marriage and family alienation. And let me just say one thing that I can't take time to trend: witchcraft is the

homebreaker number one. Wherever that power comes to work in a family, it will ultimately break up the family. Number five: continuing financial insufficiency, especially where the income appears sufficient. You know there are lots of people who always have enough money, but it's never enough. You might be one of them. Well, you begin to check. I got a letter from a lady in the United States a couple of years ago. She said, "I think my husband's family is under a curse." She'd heard my teaching, so I wrote back and said, "Tell me why you think your

husband's family is under a curse." And this was the answer I got: she said, "Well, my husband's estate runs into hundreds of millions of dollars and our annual income is a million dollars, and we never have enough money." I said, "I'm convinced that that's so characteristic. See, if there's a curse over your life, nothing ever really works. You can be highly educated and qualified to succeed, but you never quite break through to success." Prone, and when I meet that, I really don't look any further. You see, that is a statistically diagnosable condition. If you are

accident-prone, an insurance company will put up your insurance premium simply on that basis. Number seven: a history of suicides or unnatural deaths. And I hope I can say this without being offensive, but if you want to look at a very conspicuous family that bears all the marks of a family curse, it's the Kennedy family in America. Now we come to the punchline, the practical: how to pass from curse to blessing. First of all, you have to understand full provision has already been made through the death of Jesus on the cross. That's the way that God

has made provision for every human need, including this one. If you look in Galatians chapter 3, verses 13 and 14—Galatians 3:13 and 14—Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,” that in order that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Notice the exchange: the death of Jesus on the cross; the atonement was an exchange in which all the evil due to

us came upon Christ, that all the good due to Him might be made available to us. Whatever aspect you look at it, He was wounded that we might be healed; He died that we might have life; He was made sin that we might be made righteousness; He was rejected that we might be accepted; and here He was made a curse that we might enter into the blessing. That's the basis of God's provision for the problem that I've been speaking about tonight. You'll notice that in that verse 13, the word "curse" occurs three times: "Christ has

redeemed us from the curse, having become a curse for us. For it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.'" Brothers and sisters, if a curse is so real that Christ had to be made a curse on the cross for us, then don't entertain the thought that there's no reality in a curse. God wouldn't have made provision at such cost for our deliverance from a curse if there was nothing to be delivered from. You understand? But it took the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ to provide deliverance from the curse. So that's the basis

of deliverance. All our deliverance has to be based on faith in what Christ has done for us. the cross. Just as we are made righteous because He was made sinful, so we can receive the blessing because He was made the curse. You see, the law of Moses said in Deuteronomy 21:23, "Anyone who's hung on a tree becomes a curse." So every Jew who knew the law of Moses, when they saw Jesus hanging on the cross, they knew that He had been made a curse. Thank God the reason why He was made a curse was that

we might be delivered from the curse. See that? Now you need to bear in mind that after you've been delivered, you still have to go on meeting the conditions, which are what? Listening to God's voice and doing what He says. Very simple. And that's in the New Testament. Jesus said in John 10:27, "My sheep hear My voice, and they follow Me." So that's the prescription for blessing. But in order to live in blessing, if there's a curse over your life, you must first be redeemed from the curse. You must be delivered. Now, through the death

of Jesus, it's already legally ours. You understand? He's already obtained it for us. What we have to do is move from the legal to the experiential. We have to get it working in our lives. Now I want to tell you how to do that, all right? The legal base is already there; God doesn't have to do anything more. We have to appropriate what God has done for us. Very often, we need to ascertain the cause or the source of the curse—not always, but very often. And that's why I spent quite a long while going over

the various possibilities because I was trusting the Holy Spirit to speak to many of you and open your eyes, as we prayed at the beginning, that you could see suddenly the reason why you've struggled all your life. You understand? Maybe it'll come by supernatural revelation; many times it does. Now I'm not saying you have to know, but in many cases, God wants us to know what we are being delivered from and how it came upon us. If God shows you, then you act on what He shows you. Now, the process of release—the basic pattern—is stated

in four words which begin with "re." This just happens to be so: recognize, repent, renounce, and resist. Recognize your problem and its cause, repent of anything that ever opened you to it, renounce the curse, and resist every attempt of Satan to keep you under the curse. Okay? Recognize, repent, renounce, resist. Now, more in more detail—specific steps. First of all, establish a clear scriptural basis. I've given you one: Galatians 3:13-14. "Christ has redeemed us from the curse, having been made a curse for us." There are other scriptures which I’ll just mention: Ephesians 1:7, "In Him we

have redemption through His blood"; Colossians 1:13-14, "God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love"; 1 John 3:8, a beautiful short scripture—the second half of the verse—"For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil"; and Luke 10:19, "Behold, I give unto you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." That's good news! All right? Now this is what you need to

do very simply: confess your faith in Christ because He's the high priest of our confession, commit yourself to obedience because that's the condition for continuing in blessing, confess any known sins of yourself or your ancestors, like, "My aunt was a fortune teller" or "My grandmother was in Christian Science" or "My father was a Freemason." Many, many different possibilities, and you have to identify yourself with the sin in your family that brought it upon your family. You understand? You confess it on behalf of your family, forgive all other persons, and maybe the very person that is

the cause of the curse, because if you don't forgive, unforgiveness acts as a barrier to the answer to your prayer. Jesus said, "When you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anybody." Okay? That leaves out nothing and nobody. Remember, forgiveness is a decision; it's not merely an emotion. It's simply tearing up the IOUs. Number six: Renounce all contact with the occult or with secret societies, and get rid of contact objects. You cannot keep in your house anything that in any way binds you to the occult—images, charms, Buddhas, Ouija boards, tarot cards—a whole host of

things! Moses warned Israel; he said, "If you take an accursed thing into your house, you become accursed like the thing." I think of a lady judge in the United States who was miraculously healed when I prayed for her. She'd been in pain for 10 years, night and day, with an intestinal problem. She had huge adhesions, and her insides had been sewn up with plastic clips. When God healed her, not merely did He take away the pain and heal the adhesions, but He removed the clips. That's what you'd call a miracle! But the interesting thing is,

in a sweepstakes, she won a free holiday in Mexico. So, she and her lady friend went and came back, and the next day they phoned Lydia and me in desperation. They said, "This lady tried to commit suicide! She tried to drown herself in the bath last night. Come over quickly!" So, Lydia and I went over. They said, "We don't know what's happened. Everything was wonderful! I was saved! I was healed!" I said, "You've been to Mexico?" They said, "Yes." I said, "Did you bring back any souvenirs?" And they thought for a while and said, "Yes."

I said, "Was any of them in any way connected with religion?" And they said, "Well, yes, one of them was a portrait of the sun god." I said, "You'd better get rid of it, and now!" That dear lady judge got up, went down to the basement, and broke... It in small pieces, in the next five minutes, and when she did that, there was no more problem. You see, she had exposed herself by bringing an accursed thing into her home. Ruth and I were in Norway this past summer, and I was invited to talk on spiritual

warfare. How many of you know what the word "troll" means? Well, it’s a Norwegian word; it's the Norwegian word for a witch. And I will tell you, Norway is permeated by trologum. I mean, they have trolls in every shop window in Oslo. I had to tell those dear people, "If you have a troll in your house, you are asking for trouble." One lady came up to me in tears afterward. She said, "I just want to thank you; after all these years, I understand the problems in my house." She was a well-educated spiritual woman, but she

didn't realize that she had forbidden fruit in her house. Finally, step number seven: release yourself in the name of Jesus, because the Word of God says, "Whatever we release on earth shall be released in heaven." All right? Whatever we bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Now, I'm going to give you those steps again, and then we're going to do it. Number one: establish a clear scriptural basis. Number two: confess your faith in Christ. Let me say, if you've never done this before and you don't know Jesus as your personal Savior, you can get

to know Him when you do this. I'll word the prayer in such a way that if you were unsaved when you started to pray, you'll be saved at the end. Okay? That's not difficult; it doesn't take God half a second to save somebody. All right? Confess your faith in Christ. Number three: commit yourself to obedience. Number four: confess any known sins of yourself or your ancestors. Now, when we come to doing that, I'm going to lead you in a general statement, and I'm going to give all of you an opportunity, quietly to yourself, to make

the appropriate confession. You don’t have to do it out loud. Okay? We'll have a pause while you do that. Number five: forgive any other persons who have harmed you or wronged you. Again, I'll lead you in a general statement, then I'll give you time to name Uncle Harry, or the pastor of my church, or my school teacher, or my wife, or my husband. All right? It's usually the people closest to us that it's most important to forgive. All right? You don't have much problem with the milkman, but the man who shares your bed—that's your problem.

All right, number six: renounce all contact with occult objects or secret societies. And again, we'll give you a little pause. Understand, when you’ve done all that, you are legally entitled to full release from every curse over you or your family. When you say the prayer as the representative of Jesus Christ here tonight, under the authority of the local leadership, for whom I thank God, I will say a simple prayer breaking every curse. Okay, I cannot break the curse if you haven’t met the conditions; you understand that, so that’s up to you. Now, when we say

this, and this happens, nothing dramatic may occur. You may not feel any immediate change at all, or on the other hand, sometimes the results are quite dramatic. Sometimes people fall down; sometimes they are released from some evil spirit and a scream or something else comes out of them. Whatever happens, don’t focus on the manifestation; focus on the reality of Christ and your prayer. But if there are manifestations, don’t let them upset you. If you’re the one with the manifestation, just thank God that you’re getting results, and if you’re next to somebody, it’s their problem, not

yours. Don’t get distracted from your problem. Okay, now I think it would be good if we were to say this prayer together. Now, nobody here has to say this prayer; it’s entirely voluntary. But I’m always glad to say it. I’ve said it dozens of times, and I always like to make absolutely sure that everything is clear in heaven above me. I find it’s a real privilege to say the prayer. So what I’m going to do now is ask you to stand, and I’m going to lead you in this prayer. Okay? I suggest that you say

it out loud—not very loud, but loud enough to hear yourself so that you know you’ve said the prayer. And remember, you’re not praying to me; you’re praying to the head of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, I want you to say these words: "Now, Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that you are the Son of God and the only way to God; that you died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead. I renounce all my sins and I turn to you, Lord Jesus, for mercy and for forgiveness, and I believe

you do forgive me." [Music] "And from now on, I want to live for you. I want to hear your voice and do what you tell me in order to receive your blessing, Lord, and to be released from any curse over my life. First of all, I confess any known sin committed by me or by any of my ancestors or others related to me." Now just put in anything that you need to confess in that context, just quietly between you and God. Just let the Holy Spirit show you what you need to specify. Okay, we’re going

on now. "Lord, I thank you that I believe you have forgiven everything that I’ve confessed. And, Lord, now I want to say that I also forgive all other persons who have harmed me or wronged me. I forgive them all now, as I would have God forgive me. In particular, I forgive you," and now you name the persons that you need to forgive to yourself, but be as thorough as you can. Now, we’re going to continue. Furthermore, I renounce any contact by myself or anyone related to me with Satan or with occult power. In any form

or any kind of secret society, also Lord, I commit myself [Music] to remove from my house [Music] any kind of occult objects [Music] that honor Satan and dishonor Jesus Christ. With Your help, Lord, I will remove them all. And now, Lord Jesus, I thank You further [Music] that on the cross You were made a curse, that I might be redeemed from the curse and might receive the blessing. And because of what You did for me on the cross [Music], I now release myself from every curse, and every evil influence, and every dark shadow over me

or my family from any source whatever. I release myself now in the name of Jesus. Amen. Now, Lord, because of Your people's prayer tonight, I, as Your representative, break every curse that has been over any of these lines or any of these people. I revoke those curses now, and I release them from them in the name of Jesus, the Son of God. In His all-prevailing name, I declare these people released. Satan, I declare to you that you have no more claims, no more access to their lives, to their families, to their businesses. They have been

lifted out of the domain of darkness and translated into the Kingdom of the Son of God's love. Thank You, Lord Jesus. We praise You, Lord. We give You the glory; we give You the thanks. Amen. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Praise Your wonderful name. Praise Your wonderful name, Lord Jesus. We give You thanks; we give You praise. Amen. Amen. [Music] [Applause] Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Amen. Now, I'd like you to do one more thing. It's good to make your confession to God, but it's also good

to make a confession to another human being. So wherever you are, I suggest you turn around to somebody near to you, look them full in the eyes, and say, "Jesus Christ is Lord." All right? [Music] Praise God! If there's one thing that really upsets the devil, it's praise of Jesus. Okay, if he's still hanging around anywhere, just dispel him with a time of praying. You...