Spiritual Realities

I want to open our eyes to the spiritual realities that govern our lives all the time.

Though many think of these realities as superstition and primitivity, I want us to realise that they are as portent as those superstitious characters paint them, sometimes more.

I want us to look at a few practices in our past that may be construed as wicked and immoral when the purpose for them was the inherent spiritual realities.

Not many people have a clue about the causes of some things that happen to them. Not many understand why things happen to them.

Over time, however, a pattern may appear to lead the victim to associating the events to some dark moments in their forebears, a consequence of some of their actions.

Let me start with the Bible.

We really do not know why Canaan was cursed by his grandfather. It is probable that he was the culprit in what happened to Noah and that Ham was just a witness who was unable or unwilling to, like Eli, stop what was happening, whatever it was since Canaan was his last born.

Noah did not curse Ham, the witness and father to the perpetrator (my theory).

He cursed Canaan.

You will of course tell me that this is not in the Bible, and I will agree.

But whoever cursed an innocent person, a grandson nonetheless? Why would he curse him anyway?

As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come. (Proverbs 26:2)

As I have explained many times, curses and blessings are simply consequences of our actions.

Their power lies in the power God has to reward or punish. And He does this as the ultimate judge of everything He created.

What land was Israel promised? Was it not Canaan?

That was centuries later. Yet the Canaanites paid for the sin of their father.

That is what I mean by spiritual realities.

Many Canaanites might have been completely unaware of the curse or the cause of the same. Yet that did not stop the same curse dispossessing and eventually obliterating them.

We have the Gospel and so for much of this post I will not dwell on believers.

In the past, people were very literate about spiritual realities. Though it is called superstition, it is actually a response to the prevailing spiritual realities.

They therefore went to great pains to insure themselves against repercussions of the same.

They knew that a curse must land. They knew that a broken vow must be dealt with. They of course knew that the good done must be rewarded. They had learnt that by observation of the spiritual realities around them.

I do not know whether you realise that taboos, among many other cultural norms were in the backdrop of such realities.

For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. (Acts 17:23)

There are some cultural practices that were guided by the fear of some of those unknown repercussions.

What we now know as open sin was then just a precaution against unseen dangers.

Allow me to give one or two examples.

We are told that agemates shared wives.

But that is not the whole truth.

Remember Jeroboam and Baasha and Ahab? God had determined to clear the whole male population.

It did not stop there.

As communities grew, the reality of such a curse on an individual (who would later become a clan then a nation), such a judgment could be seen by simple observation.

Now, since as I have said earlier nobody really knows what their forebears had exposed them to, it was wise to take insurance against such an eventuality.

That is why for most communities it was advisable for a man to have at least one son who was not of his blood.

Then, in case such a curse existed, there would be someone to carry his name when that spiritual cleansing occurred.

It was not simply a woman sleeping with a random man out there. That man was properly vetted to ensure that he does not bring about another curse and also that he was not in the same clan. And it was also very private so that nobody outside that close circle got to know it since adultery was sin even in the culture and liable to bring about judgment.

Our generation has just poured scum on that practice and made it mainstream and even public because we want to modernize sin as if there are no consequences for it.

It was the same when a man was infertile.

Again, it was in a very private way that a man to impregnate his wife was sought so that the secret never got out and the man be shamed. Nobody outside that close circle ever got to know of the execution of that plan. The fear of the curse was the reason for the same.

Many people associate abortion with the modern times.

But do you know it existed in our cultures?

But it was not because of unplanned pregnancies as we think nowadays.

It happened because of a spiritual breach.

We do not associate our past with incest because there is not the slightest hint of the same.

But we know that our forefathers were not holy.

It means that young men were just like our young men and that however guarded they were ‘accidents’ even then happened.

But incest was an abomination, among the most dreaded causes of a curse.

That is why you will never hear of cases of children born from relatives. They dealt with that curse swiftly.

Have you ever wondered what guided adoptions in our past?

When someone realised he was walking in a type of curse and had no way of reversing it because he did not know its cause he would then resort to making a break with that past by effectively asking to transfer to a family that did not have such curses.

He would then be ‘born’ into that family, requiring a sacrifice of sorts and he would then be a full member of that family.

Incidentally, even whole clans would shift, but then to another spiritual structure altogether, a different nation or what in our days we call tribe. Then they would have made a clean break from any shackles holding them back since the new structure has no spiritual relationship with the old.

These are things I have seen and heard a lot about as I listened to old men.

Incidentally we see the same even in the Bible.

Why is this minister dwelling on the past? I know someone is wondering.

Spiritual realities do not stop existing because we become modern. They do not pause because we become believers. They do not become nonexistent because we are ignorant of their existence.

The Gospel does not kill spiritual realities. The Gospel is a spiritual reality. It operates as a spiritual reality at all times.

Understanding the Gospel is actually understanding spiritual reality. Understanding the scriptures is the key to understanding spiritual realities and knowing how to live.

Many preachers have abused the ignorance of their flocks about spiritual realities to mint a tidy sum from them. This is what guides this post.

What is a generational curse? What is the solution for a generational curse?

I have explained how culture dealt with the whole topic of generational curses.

Allow me to repeat that a curse is the consequence of an action, actions, behaviors, attitudes, etc. someone has done. It is a judgment from the spiritual realm for something someone did.

This means that only spiritual intervention has the capacity of dealing with them.

And since it is directed at a person or the structure a person created, only that person or a person in the structure has the authority to deal with it. No proxies have the authority to deal with a structure they are not a part of.

The truth is that those imposters calling themselves experts on deliverance and generational curses are simply charlatans feeding on the misery of the ignorant.

Only, and I repeat, only Christ has the authority to deal with those spiritual dynamics, and not through proxies.

The exciting truth is that He dealt them a death blow on the cross.

That victory is available to everybody who has believed in Christ and walks in obedience to Him. It is not the preserve of a few or chosen ones who must sell that power to the needy believers.

Reading the scriptures and living according to that revelation is the route to accessing that power.

One time I was called to someone who was experiencing a lot of spiritual oppression or whatever people would want to call it.

My response was walking them through the scriptures to show them not only what Christ had accomplished on the cross but to also show them how possible it was for them to access that victory. I led them to Christ and gave them materials to help them grow in their Christian lives.

It is interesting that they were not very pleased with my ministration because I did not have the drama many associate with such ministry.

But I do not do things because people are doing them. I do them because I am convicted by the Holy Spirit through the scriptures that it is the cause of action I should take.

Teach obedience and you will deal with the worst the devil can release.

Stray however little and you will be led into a maze of incessant drama that will never allow you the smallest rest because of all the busyness those activities will require.

The same applies even to what people call generational curses. A surrender and submission to the Lordship of Christ is the antidote, the only one.

That is why, apart from exposing God’s people to His word, the next thing I do is teach lordship, the Lordship of Christ.

You see, nothing else has any chance at dealing with the spiritual realities I have been talking about.

We will see that even in the Old Testament there were very many people who did what I have explained and got rid of the curse that was part of their being.

Ruth is one of them. She was able to get into the mainstream of God’s people because she trashed her gods and the security they represented.

Another one was Rahab the harlot.

As I have said many times, she was a despicable character in a condemned city. Yet she was able by her choices to connect to the God of Israel.

In David’s army were many such characters who had disconnected from their gods to become Israelites, among them Uriah the Hittite.

And the Bible treats them as the Israelites their conversion (since that is what happens once someone leaves their gods) had made them to be.

Is that different from the adoption that used to happen in our cultures?

The greatest highlight in this is the single non-negotiable present whichever situation you look at.

When someone changed tribes, for example, they left everything; name, language, family.

When an adult was adopted as I have earlier said, they also left everything; relatives, family.

They did not have any vestiges of their past apart from the fact that they came from somewhere.

I was shown a subclan in the clan I come from that was born into our clan. Nothing but the past distinguishes them from the rest of us.

From my understanding, it is the spiritual vestiges of the past that are the cause of generational curses.

What I mean is this; someone has not made a clean break of the past when making their commitment to Christ. In short, they are not born again because they did not die to their past.

Let me explain.

What was Abraham ordered?

Make a clean break with your past so that I can make a new thing out of you. It even took the death of his father for him to realise the enormity of that order.

It was not ‘negotiate a separation or departure’.

Yet that is what we are always doing, especially with our spiritual roots.

One or two times I have been made a spokesman in the dowry negotiations and it is astounding how low believers can stoop.

The most memorable I can remember is when all of us introduce ourselves and basically everybody in both teams is a believer.

Then the demands start streaming and you wonder the kind of Christ we were confessing.

That time I stopped the discussion (I represented the boy).

Then I asked a simple question.

I thought from our introductions that we are all believers. And our children are also believers.

Why then are we going back to things that have no bearing with our confession?

Then the whole dynamic changed.

It is those spiritual vestiges I am talking about.

The early church did not deal with them because it was clear to everybody coming to Christ that they had to spiritually disconnect from their spiritual roots.

That is why there is not a single instance of deliverance in the Bible.

My faith demands that I completely detach from my spiritual heritage and sink into God’s swamp of forgiveness and its resultant holiness.

Otherwise those spiritual tentacles that I refuse to excise from me will eventually finish me.

But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell. (Numbers 33:55)

I hope I have made my point.