Accepting Blessing, Rejecting Curse [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Blessing is really important to God because it's a thread that goes all the way through the Scripture. We're really talking about a positive vision over someone's life that is spoken with faith in accord with God's Word.

That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear today's message in a series titled The Power of Blessing, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. You ready for some good news this morning? There's a way in which you can live your life, in which to every blessing that is spoken to you, forecast over you, and issued towards you, that you can receive it fully in your heart. And for every negative forecast, every curse, you can reject it, because you can be assured that in Christ there is no curse that remains for you that has any cause. And so today we're going to learn how to let our hearts gravitate towards blessing and reject curse.

It's one of the most important things we could ever learn in life. And I want to turn you to Numbers chapter 13, and then we're going to go over into Joshua just briefly to contrast two of the most pivotal moments in the life of Israel. And to see the difference that happens in the life of Israel based on who the people listen to.

Who do you listen to? Numbers chapter 13 and verse 25. Numbers 13, verse 25. Here is the report that comes back from the spies that have been sent into the Promised Land, into Canaan, to go and spy out the land. Remember, their mission was to go in, spy out the land, really to see the sweetness of the fruit and to come back with a favorable report about their strategies for taking the land.

That's not what ends up happening. Verse 25. At the end of 40 days they returned from spying out the land, and they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh, and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told them, we came to the land to which you sent us, it flows with milk and honey and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there.

The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negev, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites dwell in the hill country, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan. But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it. Then the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are. So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, The land through which we have gone to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak who come from the Nephilim, and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.

And so it was that the people listened to the negative report, and they didn't go forward. And what it meant was that they wandered in the wilderness until the generation died off. And it was a later time after that generation had died off that a man named Joshua was going to lead them in. And we pick up this part of the story in Joshua chapter 2, and Joshua also sent spies into Canaan. Joshua is as clear of a figure in the Old Testament to prefigure Christ as any because the name Jesus is the name Joshua. His name, Hebrew name, was Yeshua, which if you take it over, transliterating that into Greek becomes Iesous, which we render Jesus.

So the name Joshua is the name Jesus. So Yeshua leads the people into the promised land, and it goes in a completely different way than it did a previous generation. He sends in these two spies. They go in, they're helped by the prostitute Rahab.

They come back and bring their report. And we're at Joshua 2, and this is verse 23. Then the two men returned. They came down from the hills and passed over and came to Joshua, the son of Nun. And they told him all that had happened to them. And they said to Joshua, Truly the Lord has given all the land into our hands, and also all the inhabitants of the land melt away because of us.

I just want to make this point as we start out that these spies were spying out the same land that had already been promised to the previous generation. Nothing had changed. The only thing that changed was the report. The only thing that changed was the forecast. And the only thing that changed was who did the people listen to. And it meant the difference in whether you went forward into the promised land or stayed in a wilderness. It meant the difference in stagnation or moving forward with destiny. In the end, it meant the difference in life and death.

And that's how much is at stake when we talk about blessing and curse. There was a really cute commercial some years ago, a couple years ago, with Peyton Manning, the NFL superstar quarterback, who is in some city that they're going to be playing. The Broncos are going to be playing some opponent. And so everybody's against him. He's at the hotel, and everybody's cursing him. He meets, so he gets into the elevator, and the bellboy is there and says, You're going down, Manning. And he looks over and says, You're right. I'm going down to the fourth floor.

I'm going to get a massage today. Nice day. Thank you. And then he is seen in the room, and room service comes and has a basket of fruit that somebody has brought for him. And the attendant says, Don't choke on it.

He said, Good call there. Thanks. I think I'll just chop it up and put in a little fruit salad.

Good idea. Thank you. And then the next scene, he's out on the balcony. It's a beautiful morning.

And he's out in his robe just stretching. The housekeeper on the other balcony looks over, and she says, Go take a hike. And he said, That's a good idea. I think I will. Beautiful day. Thank you.

I think I'll take a hike. I love that conversation. Wouldn't it be so nice if every curse that was spoken against you, you could somehow just turn it into a blessing? And yet, real life, it's not quite so easy as that.

What do you do? Uncle Stanley, who Anne's uncle was a pastor for so many years, and he had a parishioner one time, that she would literally, if she got into a negative conversation with somebody, and they were just spewing all those negative things and negative about her and curses and everything, and she would literally, after it, go over and stand in the corner, and she'd just wipe herself off like this. So that's kind of a joke in our family.

If you ever see somebody start doing this, we're just like, What do you do with all of this? See, when we were little kids, you'd see this as a scene on the playground. Johnny says to Freddie, You're a meanie. And Freddie says, I am not.

And Johnny says, I am not. What's going on there? That's a little child's spirit that is trying to find a way to reject curse. Because in a sin-broken world, it's just filled up with so much negative forecast. And so what we want to do today is take a look at what we're really talking about with the idea of blessing and curse, and at least take some beginning steps to let your heart recognize and gravitate towards blessing and recognize and reject curse. The idea here is that blessing is really important to God because it's a thread that goes all the way through the scripture. And we're really talking about a positive vision over someone's life that is spoken with faith in accord with God's word.

That's really what we're talking about. And in the beginning, God blessed Adam and Eve and then said, be fruitful and multiply. He taught Aaron and Moses to tell the priests that they're to bless the people.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The patriarchs learned to bless their children. We've seen how Jesus, when he was born, there was a prophetic man named Simeon came and blessed him that Jesus at his baptism was blessed before he began his ministry. The last thing Jesus did as he was ascending to heaven was he blessed his disciples.

Jesus blessed the little children. Paul and Peter teach us about blessing and say you should even bless those who persecute. So the idea of blessing is a very important thread that runs all the way through the scripture.

And the other side of this, the opposite, the antithesis of the blessing is curse. And this also is a theme that runs through the scripture. So one of the ways to look at the drama of the whole big story of the Bible is blessing and curse. Will this people that God so wants to bless, will they live in that blessing and receive it or will they live under a curse? And what we see in the old covenant is that there's put before them blessing and curse according to their obedience. But in the new covenant, something dramatic happens in the person of Jesus Christ.

That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Wouldn't it be nice to set your mind on God's blessing instead of the curses of the world? This month's special offer from Alan Wright Ministries will help. Coinciding with the release of Pastor Alan's new book, The Power to Bless, we have created a flip style devotional for your desk or kitchen counter. The beautiful spiral bound devotional offers 28 days of inspiration utilizing some of the most moving excerpts from the new book. Use it day by day for four weeks so you'll keep the promises and assurance of God's blessing right in front of you. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, whatever is true, noble, right and pure, think on these things. So make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today and we'll send you the inspirational flip style devotional as our thank you for your partnership. Each spiral bound devotional comes with a convenient easel style stand so you can keep the day's inspiration in front of you and fill your heart with God's blessing. Call us at 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright.

And I want to show you some of that today. First, let's just try to think about what curse is. This is such a complicated subject and we could literally just spend hours talking about some of the theological nuances of what we mean by curse. And for our purposes, I want to just kind of think of it in a broad term and start out by saying, let's avoid superstitious ideas when we think about the curse.

In fact, a lot of people in modern Western mentality would immediately say there couldn't be anything such as curse because that is just silly superstition in the stuff of fairy tales. One of my favorite shows, of course, Andy Griffith and one of my favorite episodes is Barney Fife and the Man with the Jinx. Barney is playing checkers against Floyd at the barbershop and he loses the checker game and he blames it on Henry who's standing behind him. He says, Henry, you're a jinx.

And next thing you know, Barney's going around watching every place that Henry goes. Barney can find something that goes bad around Henry and so he calls him a jinx. Andy tries to prove him wrong by saying, no, he is no such thing as a jinx and Henry's not a jinx, Barn. He said, we're going to take him out in the boat with us on the annual fishing contest day because Andy's got the best fishing spot in the whole lake. He's guaranteed to win.

He wins every year. So he's just like, I'm going to prove this wrong, put Henry in the boat, and we'll go over to my favorite fishing spot. We'll still get a boatload of fish and win.

Well, they get over to the favorite fishing spot and then a hole comes in the boat and the boat sinks. And Barney's just totally convinced that Henry is a jinx and so he says, incum bincum nodimus rex, protect us all from the man with the hex. My favorite line, my favorite line, though, with Barney has another incantation. He says, fly away buzzard, fly away crow, way down south where the winds don't blow. Rub your nose and give two winks and save us from this awful jinx.

This is Barney, and we laugh at this because we say, this is ridiculous. And no such thing as a hex or a jinx. I've been watching football this week, a couple of games with my father-in-law, and the people we pull for lose. So we're like, we're jinxing them here.

We've got to quit watching them. All that stuff is just silly superstition. And so part of us wants to say there's no such thing as a curse. It's the fairy stuff of fairy tales.

It's a witch cursing Snow White that she'll prick her finger on a spinning wheel. And all that stuff just does it. And yet it doesn't take away the fact that this theme just kind of runs through the scripture. And then in Galatians 3, Paul says that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law because the Bible says, cursed is the man who hangs on the tree. There's something hugely important about this because it is said this is a big part of the reason Jesus came, to redeem us from the curse.

I want to use a broad definition and understand that I know there are many nuances and I've thought about this whole issue for a lot of my life. And are there demonic issues? Are there generational curses?

All of these nuances, I'm not really addressing that today. I want to look at this in this more broad sense, which I think we should define curse. The Anchor Bible defines it this way. To curse is to predict, wish, pray for, or cause trouble or disaster on a person or thing.

I'm going to give maybe even broader than that. Here's how I'm going to define it for today's purposes at least. I would call a curse this, an ungodly negative forecast that when believed and received leads toward the negative vision proclaimed.

An ungodly negative forecast that when believed and received leads toward the negative vision proclaimed. I'm not going to take time to talk about this much today, but last week we talked about faith. And just understand that everything in this world operates and gets released through faith. And there can be a faith that is rooted in God's word and there can be the antithesis of that, which is also faith, but is a form of belief that something bad is going to happen, which is in essence fear. You understand that fear and faith are both forms of belief. And however God set up the world, something powerful happens through what we believe.

And nobody could deny this, right? Essentially curse is something that registers in your heart that makes you feel like that because of your own failings, sin, inadequacy, inability to keep the law, measure up to a standard or whatever it might be that you are therein doomed in some means. And that's what God wants us to reject. Now there is a wonderful proverb that we should keep in mind when you rethink about curse. Proverbs 26 verse 2, which says, Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, a curse that is causeless does not alight. A curse without cause, the proverb says, cannot light. What does this mean? It's like if a bird darting around looking for a place to light is like, curse is like that, but if there's no cause, if there's no reason, no substance, no reason that you should be cursed, then the curse can't land. So therefore, and this would be the point where I want to take you today, if you could find out and understand deeply why there's no cause for curse for those that are in Christ, then you'll be able to reject every curse.

And that's a hugely important thing in life. Okay? So these people listen to a negative report that comes from fearful spies.

What happened? What happened was that the people were already afraid. You know, inside the heart of people at any given moment, there's the potential of faith for a positive outcome, for a win, and there's also potential of fear for a potential loss. And so there's already inside the sinful human heart, there's already a struggle that's going on.

And what happens when ten of the spies, the majority report, came back with a negative forecast, what did that do? It just linked, it partnered, it bore witness to the part of the hearts of the people that were already predisposed to be fearful. And so fear connected to fear. And so it was a witness of their fear and so immediately they began to believe it. In other words, there are things that can be going on in our soul that make us predisposed to believe ungodly things that are spoken over us. And this is what happened.

They came back and they were essentially just bringing them a negative forecast. And so every time they said, we can't overtake them, we are like grasshoppers, they were speaking of all the people. So translate that in your mind as they're saying, you can't take them, you can't do it, and you are like a grasshopper. So there's some good examples of curse. And I just want to kind of, we're dealing with some pretty deep things.

Let me deal with it sort of playfully, but you'll see the depths of this because we all can probably identify with. I want to just identify three of the ways here, but these are three ways that you're going to have curse come at you, these negative forecasts over your life. And the first thing I want to just note is that verse 27, they came back to give their report. We came to the land to which you sent us, and it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit, verse 28.

However, the people who dwell in the land are strong and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Enoch. They thought they saw these descendants of this breed of half-human, half-god, half-angel, giants, and all this stuff. They start inflating all of that.

So in other words, what's the first form of this curse? They came in and they said, yeah, well, there is something good about it, but it's not enough. It's good, but it but. One of the best animated films in recent years, a film called Despicable Me. And the star of Despicable Me is a notorious villain whose name is Gru. And it's pretty funny when they kind of flashback to Gru's childhood to try to let you know why it is that Gru became so bad. And the funniest scene, I think of the whole movie, is little Gru, his little boy, his little smart little boy, and he comes to his mother. She's out watering the flowers, and he says, look, Mom, I've drawn a picture of me landing on the moon. And she goes by and said, eh. And then he comes back later, and he said, look, Mom, I have made a macaroni prototype of the rocket ship that will take me to the moon. She looks up from the paper and goes, eh. And then he comes back later and said, look, Mom, I've built the real rocket ship built on the macaroni prototype that will take me to the moon. And the thing starts launching up off the ground. You know, little kids built a rocket ship, and she goes, eh.

There's a first form of curse you've got to watch out for in life. Eh. You know what eh means? Eh means, well, you did something there, but it's not enough. It's not good enough. It's not that great. It's just, yeah, you brought home a couple A's, but look at these B's and C's.

Eh. Allen Wright. Today's good news message. Accepting blessing, rejecting curse. It's from our teaching series, The Power of Blessing. And Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment.

Wouldn't it be nice to set your mind on God's blessing instead of the curses of the world? This month's special offer from Allen Wright Ministries will help. Coinciding with the release of Pastor Alan's new book, The Power to Bless, we have created a flip style devotional for your desk or kitchen counter. The beautiful spiral bound devotional offers 28 days of inspiration utilizing some of the most moving excerpts from the new book. Use it day by day for four weeks so you'll keep the promises and assurance of God's blessing right in front of you. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, whatever is true, noble, right and pure, think on these things. So make your gift to Allen Wright Ministries today and we'll send you the inspirational flip style devotional as our thank you for your partnership.

Each spiral bound devotional comes with a convenient easel style stand so you can keep the day's inspiration in front of you and fill your heart with God's blessing. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAllen.org. Back here in the studio with Pastor Alan, author of the new book, The Power to Bless. So it goes hand in hand with this particular teaching series. And I got to say with our teaching today, it reminds me, the book is really divided into three main parts. Believing the blessing, part two, receiving the blessing, and part three then is giving the blessing. So this, in my mind, this is pairing up exactly with part two and receiving the blessing.

You have several chapters devoted to this. Why is it so hard to receive a blessing? Well, you know, I think we're all a little bit, just somebody pays you a compliment.

It's a little bit hard to know what to do with it. And as Christians, we're trained to be humble. You know, so often what we do is we say, oh, no, you know, it's nothing. And yet I think God wants to be able to do something more than that and to be able to really, if someone's blessing your life, to really be able to receive it and gravitate towards it and to do likewise when someone's cursing us and telling us all that we can't be, we need to learn how to reject that. And so as we'll see in today's message, no better place than the story of the people of God as they spy out the land and some of them feel like grasshoppers and some of them feel like they can take the land. So learn to receive. We teach all about it in the book, Daniel. Learn to receive and also learn to recognize what curse is and reject it. A lot of curses that have been spoken over our lives and they don't have to light. They don't have to stay with you. You can learn more about it in today's message and in the book. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.