DEAD WORKS AND THE CURSES OF THE LAW
A. Introduction: Why do we suffer when we sin?
Sin is “the breaking of the Laws of God.”
And the word of God declares that all sin leads to death.
Death comes into our lives when we sin because the word of God declares that our sins put us under the curses of the Law of God.
Such curses will automatically follow us and overtake us when we sin and do not repent.
(A curse is an event that brings disease, defeat, destruction, disasters and death to our spirit, soul and body and to all that we do and to all that we have).
The curses of the Law will follow us as long as we sin and do not repent, even though we may be unaware or ignorant of our sins.
Such curses give a legal right to the devil to enter into our lives to kill, steal and destroy us.
And the devil will not stop attacking us until we repent.
And neither will God stop the devil until we repent.
No amount of fasting and prayer will move God to set us free from our curses as long as we do not repent.
It is thus critical for every believer to know what the curses of the Law of God are and to seek God when he is suffering from such curses.
He needs to seek the Lord as to the sins in his own life that has brought curses upon himself, so that he may repent and be blessed instead.
B. Objectives of this lesson
The objectives of this lesson are as follows:
- To teach a believer what the curses of the Law of God are.
- To teach a believer the legal right of the devil to destroy us when we sin.
- To teach a believer the futility of prayer and fasting when we do not repent.
God has declared in His word that when we sin by disobeying God’s commands, we will produce dead works and come under the curses of the Law of God (Deuteronomy 28:15-22).
All dead works will bring us under the curses of the Law of God.
A curse is an event that brings disease, defeat, disaster, destruction and death to our spirit, soul and body and to all that we do and to all that we have.
A person, even a great prayer warrior, will come under the curses of the Law when he sins (Deuteronomy 28:15-68).
No one is exempted, no matter how great he may be in the kingdom of God today.
He will continue to suffer from the curses of the Law until he repents of his sins.
These curses will overtake everyone who breaks God’s laws, whether they willfully or ignorantly break God’s laws.
These curses of the Law of God are backed up by the word of God Himself and God’s word cannot be broken.
DEUTERONOMY 28:15-22The complete list of the curses of the Law in Deuteronomy 28:15-68 that comes upon God’s people when we sin includes the following:
15 However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all His commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
16 You will be cursed in the city and in the country.
17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed,
18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.
20 The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking Him.
21 The LORD will plague you with diseases until He has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess.
22 The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish.
- Curses everywhere we go.
- Curses on our food supply, where we will always not have enough.
- Curses on our body, resulting in infertility and barrenness.
- Curses upon our livestock.
- Curses of oppression, confusion, despair and madness in our mind.
- Curses on all the work of our hands, so that we always suffer failure.
- Curses of diseases of every kind, old and new.
- Curses of drought and famine.
- Curses of defeat at the hands of our enemies.
- Curses of fear of every kind.
- Curses of calamities and disasters which are never-ending.
When we sin and produce dead works, God will no longer protect us.
Instead, our sins will open a door for the devil to attack us in every area of our lives so as to destroy us.
The devil cannot be stopped by God as long as we have sin in our lives.
No amount of prayer can move God to stop the work of the devil in our lives as long as we do not repent of our sins.
The devil in fact has the legal right to destroy us because we have come under the curses of the Law of God when we sin and do not repent.
The devil knows the word of God better than any believer and he knows that he can legally attack us when we sin and do not repent.
EPHESIANS 4:26-27E. Dead works stop God from hearing our prayers
26 In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,
27 and do not give the devil a foothold.
1 JOHN 3:8
He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning
Our God is a holy God.
He hates sin and does not tolerate sin in His presence.
When we sin and produce dead works and still do not repent, we have no access into His presence and God will not hear our prayers.
He will not deliver us from the curses of the Law and we will die from these curses unless we repent.
Prayers do not have to be long-winded, because God is not deaf.
Prayers do not have to involve large numbers of people or take long hours for them to be effective, because God is not powerless.
Prayer needs only be simple and be prayed in faith for God to answer, for God is waiting to answer the cries of His children speedily.
If an answer is not forthcoming from God when we pray according to His promises, it is because there is sin in our lives.
Our sinful works separate God from us and He will not answer our prayers until we truly repent from our heart (Psalm 66:18; Isaiah 59:1-2).
PSALM 66:18It is futile to worship and pray to God when we have sin in our lives.
If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
ISAIAH 59:1-2
1 Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save nor His ear too dull to hear
2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
As long as we live in sin, God will not hear us (Mark 11:25-26).
Jesus wants us to first repent of our sins and be reconciled with others before we worship or pray to God (Matthew 5:23-24).
It is also futile and useless to pray further for others when they suffer from curses of the law and God has not answered their prayers immediately.
What they need is to be taught to repent and to obey the commands of God. (This is the true definition of disciple-making, according to Matthew 28:19-20).
MARK 11:25-26 NKJLet us no longer live even one more day under the curses of the Law.
25 And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.
26 But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.
MATTHEW 5:23
23 Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,
24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift.
Let us allow the Holy Spirit to point out any sin in our lives so that we may quickly repent and live under an open heaven.
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TESTIMONY
Infant Healed Of Constant Crying
More than 5 years ago, a sister in the Lord I met through serving in the committee of a Christian mercy ministry contacted me for help concerning her grandson's problem.
The infant was only a few months old but had been crying non-stop for 2 weeks, and therefore had also not been sleeping at all, despite lots of medicine prescribed by doctors.
I met her at her home and told her that objects of idolatry and witchcraft will open a door for demons to oppress the household, as that was what I sensed concerning her grandson's case.
She then told me that she had stayed at her present home for more than 10 years, and the people in the house have been seeing shadows of people in their kitchen and passing by their rooms all these years.
I then checked through her rooms and kitchen and removed many photographs and many sets of porcelain plates and teapots and teacups with images of idolatry and witchcraft, her possessions since the day she was married many decades ago.
She repented of her sins done in ignorance and I prayed for the cleansing of the house by the blood of Jesus.
I also prayed for the infant to be set free and healed.
The sister later reported to me that her infant grandson was completely healed after the repentance and house-cleansing.
Hallelujah!!! All glory to God!!!
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