CURSES, COVENANTS AND PROFESSIONS

Dr. D. K. Olukoya

We shall begin our message of this week by briefly examining the meaning of these words- covenants and curses. A covenant is a strong agreement between two parties. It is a contract with its terms clearly spelt out and the sanctions attached to its breach unambiguously stated at the outset. The Bible reinforces this posture in Psalms 89:34: “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.” In Genesis chapter 2, God made a covenant with man, with obedience attached as the condition for its continued observance. In Genesis chapter 9, God made a covenant with Noah that there would not be another flood, and in Genesis chapter 12, God made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants. And because our God is a covenant keeping God, that covenant is still in existence till today. In Genesis chapter 12 we see the covenant where God said, “Those who curse you, I will curse, those who bless you, I will bless.” Now, we have a new covenant, a spiritual covenant of God in Christ with His followers. The day you give your life to Jesus and become born again, you enter into a covenant with God in Christ, as stated in Hebrews 8:6- 7:“But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.”

A marriage is a covenant. Man can make covenant with evil spirits. The Bible tells us that some people even boast about their evil powers simply because they have made a covenant with the spirit of death. This can be seen in Isaiah 28:18: “And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.” A man once made a covenant with death. He was a messenger in an office, and whenever people were promoted in that office, he made sure that those of them who were not children of God were killed. As a result, people preferred not to be promoted. This was the situation until a brother who was a child of God was promoted. This messenger told him that he would die within seven days. The brother ensured that he prayed daily. On the seventh day, while he was asleep, he saw this messenger in a vision with a tall black man (an agent of death). He ordered the tall black man to kill the brother but the tall black man refused, saying that the man was a child of God. He told the messenger that if he failed to kill the brother, he would kill him. My prayer for you is that God will deliver you from every stubborn pursuer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Sometime ago, a “big” man came to me for counseling. He confessed that he went to bed with a strange woman he met at a party and when he went to ease himself at night, he found that the woman put her legs on the wall. He was scared for he had heard that witches behave like that. The demonic association left him with a strange deposit, which he lived with for years. Of course, hospitals became useless and he would have died in that state but for the mercy of God.

A covenant binds two parties together; hence one must be careful of what one says. Immediately God entered into a covenant with Abram, several things began to happen. God changed his name to Abraham and that of Sarai, his wife, to Sarah. Circumcision was the seal and God began to fulfill His part immediately. God did not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah until he told Abraham about it because of the existing covenant between them. It is amazing to know that God instructed Lot and his wife not to look back, but Abraham looked back and watched the ruins but did not become a pillar of salt. Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt; this was because of the covenant between him and God. Abraham appealed to God in a way that would daze the present day believer. He bargained with God from 50 to 10 holy men and God listened to him because of the covenant. God could not forsake the Israelites even after their 430 years in bondage. He had to send Moses to take them out because of the covenant. A covenant can also be described as bondage. God put Himself into this absolute bondage with Abraham. So, as long as the terms of the covenant were kept, there was no problem. Battles were won by the Israelites with ease. Food and water were obtained freely but once disobedience was allowed to creep in, sufferings came fiercely upon them.

CURSES

What are curses? They are the direct opposite of blessings. Nobody wants to be cursed. People prefer blessings to curses. To curse is to say that mischief should come upon a person, a thing or a group of persons; it is to bind a person with a spell. Curses are words put together to torment people with great calamity. They are vehicles of problem and have harassed and destroyed many lives. Curses have their own laws by which they operate. These are:

i. Undeserved curse will not come unless one allows or tolerates it. Proverbs 26:2 makes this clear; “As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.” A curse will not land on a person unless there is a landing place in ii. A curse will continue to operate unless it is broken. The Bible says that a curse can pursue and overtake, that is, it will continue to operate unless it is broken.

iii. A curse is a spiritual problem and can only be solved by a spiritual means.

iv. Where sin remains, curses remain. As long as someone continues in sin. The curses upon his life will continue to operate.

v. Evil spirits enforce and prepare curses. Any curse that is issued has a demon attached to it. When you see anyone issuing a curse or chanting incantation, all he is doing is inviting demons.

vi. Christ has redeemed us from curses by substitution, that is, He made Himself a curse for us. We don’t need to carry any curse unless we are ignorant and we don’t know what to do.

vii. Unjust curses will return to the sender. If you know what to do.

viii. God curses anyone cursing, whom God has blessed.

ix. A curse cannot affect a child of God who is walking in obedience.

x. A curse can be acquired unconsciously.

xi. Curses can only come from three sources; God, man and the devil.

A man can stand in place of God and issue curses, or can stand as a satanic agent and issue curses. The curse of God cannot be lifted from an unrighteous person until he repents and begins to obey God. Any minister trying to cancel the curses issued on an unrighteous person is wasting his time, and taking sides against God. Curses from God can only be dealt with on God’s terms and conditions. When a curse is removed, blessings should be pronounced in replacement. These are the spiritual laws of curses.

Now that we have briefly dealt with the meaning of covenants and curses, let us see how they affect some professions in our environment. There are demons and evil powers attached to each profession no matter what you call it. This is why we call the topic “Curses, covenants and professions.” There is something popular in our environment which we call “Freedom ceremony,” which in the real sense should be called “Bondage ceremony.” This ceremony is usually performed after a person has gone through a period of apprenticeship on a certain trade and wants to stand on his own. He would be asked to bring kolanuts, a cock and other items. Members of his family and friends come and pray, kill the cock and share the kola nuts. What that ceremony does is to ensure that the person is not freed but only forms a new and fresh covenant with that profession, even though it is called freedom ceremony. If the master who taught you the trade is a thief, you form a covenant with him. If he is an adulterer, you form a covenant with him and begin to do like him. Unless you break it, the covenant stands. This is the strongest backbone of poverty in the black race.

In the book of Proverbs 11:1, God used a strong word there “abomination.” It says, “A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight. “The best way to do freedom ceremony is to sit down, pray and go back home. God wants you to organize what you are doing along the line of righteousness. If the way you make your money or do your business is abomination to the Lord, you form a covenant with the spirit of false balance or the spirit of mammon. The intention of people to get rich through dishonest means is evidence that there is something within them, which has formed a league with the demon of mammon.

There is wealth from above as well as from below. There are true riches and there are false riches. The Bible says that a man shall receive nothing except, he is given from above (John 3:27). If anybody takes anything from anywhere apart from above, he will vomit it. The Bible says it is the blessing of God that makes one rich without adding sorrow to it. You can have money that is not from God. If you do your business in a crooked way, you form a covenant with the spirits that cause poverty and render yourself an abomination to God.

Bus Conductors: Sometime ago, I took a bus to Oshodi in Lagos. The bus conductor stole some money not knowing that the driver saw him through the mirror. On getting to Oshodi, the driver demanded for the correct amount of money but the conductor lied. The driver conducted a search on him up to his underwear but found nothing. Yet he insisted that the conductor had not given him the total amount. Suddenly, he forced the conductor’s legs apart and the currency notes dropped from the conductor’s anus where he hid the money. This is why most bus conductors are poor. They steal, eat anyhow and go into fornication with the money they steal, because of the demons attached to the profession.

Mechanics: They lie to car owners. In most cases, they claim to have changed some parts without having done so only to pocket the car owner’s money. This is why many mechanics are having problems. Some of them commit fornication even in stolen vehicles with possessed girls. This is double tragedy. If you do things correctly, God will bless your efforts. I always counsel Christians to anoint any second-hand material they buy because sometimes these items are stolen goods that could bring evil repercussions on the buyer. Please, pray like this; “I break every unconscious evil covenant, in the name of Jesus.”

Tailors: A tailor who steals clothes from his customers brings curses upon himself. Tailors who sew indecent dresses bring curses upon themselves.

Drivers: There are a few Christian drivers in public transport business because of the behaviour of commercial drivers. Many of them are dishonest. They use their ill-gotten money to over-eat, and patronize prostitutes hence curses are always on them.

Teachers: A lot of teachers are harassed by the demons of poverty because of curses issued on them by students.

Doctors: Many doctors carry out abortions for young girls. Many keep their patients admitted for longer periods than necessary to enable them charge higher fees. They frighten patients with verbose medical terminologies to make their ailments look big.

Nurses: Many nurses abuse their patients and lack the spirit of love, which is very important for their profession.

Bricklayers: Many of them divert their clients’ materials to their own sites and end up doing unfinished jobs for them.

Plumbers: They lie to get money.

Refrigerator Technicians: To them all faults have to do with burnt compressors so that they can charge exorbitant fees.

Spare-part dealers: They lie that one item is fake and the other original while all of them are fake products.

Bankers: Many bankers are married to the spirit of mammon.

Carpenters: They also steal.

Contractors: Most contractors are liars and many women among them contract their bodies to get jobs and money.

University workers: In our universities, you find satanic agents; people possessed with the spirit of sexual perversion and cult spirits. Poor lecturers compromise standards in order to make money; some even form evil covenants with their lives.

THE WAY OUT

The first step to take is repentance. When you repent and ask God to forgive you, then you start in the way towards divine blessings and the yoke of poverty upon your life will be broken. There is no profession without curses and covenants attached to it which will in turn magnet poverty. When things are done righteously, these covenants and curses give way to divine blessings. The fact that we have money today does not mean that it will last forever if acquired unrighteously. Seek true prosperity and it will last. The Bible says that a little that the righteous has is much in the eyes of he Lord. Allow the blessings of the Lord to bombard your life and stop running after fake riches.

PRAYER POINTS

1. I dissociate myself and my family from every territorial blood covenant, in the name of Jesus.
2. I dismantle every tribal blood covenant, in the name of Jesus.
3. I dissociate my blood from every satanic blood bank, in the name of Jesus.
4. Let the blood of any animal shed on my behalf lose its covenant power, (say it three times then you say,) lose your covenant power, in the name of Jesus.
5. Every evil blood covenant formed with any organ of my body, be nullified, in the name of Jesus.
6. I release myself from every curse attached to blood covenant, in the name of Jesus.
7. I release myself from every evil collective blood covenant, in the name of Jesus.
8. Put your hands on your head and pray this seriously, I release myself from every conscious and unconscious blood covenant, in the name of Jesus.
9. I break every anti-prosperity covenant, in the name of Jesus.
10. I break every curse of poverty, in the name of Jesus.
11. I drink to overflowing from the well of blessings, in the name of Jesus.
12. Let my business be too hot for any demon to sit upon, in the name of Jesus.