You can often hear people invoke the benediction; “May God bless you”.  The phrase is a petition, which implies a request & the possibility that God may not bless.

The subject of this article is a difficult matter, which may frighten or repulse some readers – it is the idea that sometimes God may curse us rather than bless.

At the outset we must determine if the premise is even true.  Does God ever curse people…even Christians? Secondly, how would a person know they are under the curse of God & not just victim to some random misfortune?

CURSES OF GOD

It would be easy to point to such things as the plagues upon Egypt or the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah to show where God has indeed cursed whole groups of people but what about individuals?

For many people today, it is difficult to imagine God cursing people since they have so bought into this notion of a nicey-nice, “non-judgmental” god.  A god like that seems so…so “Old Testament”.  But there are many examples of God cursing or appearing to curse individuals.

The classic example is Job.  Here is a man that was minding his own business & from what we are led to believe was fairly faithful (Job 1:1-5).  God specifically points Job out to Satan & more or less dares Satan to test Job (Job 1:8-12).

Perhaps a person would argue that God wasn’t directly responsible for the horrible things that happened to Job…that God only “allowed” Job to be tormented by Satan but not directly curse Job.  But the argument falls flat when we see that even Job acknowledged that whatever he gained or lost was by the will of God (Job 1:20-22)

Another example of God cursing an individual may be seen in the account of David’s loss of a baby son (2 Sam 12:13-18).  Yet another example is Jonah’s predicament in the belly of a “whale” (Jonah 1:12-17).

But if God isn’t blessing you does that automatically mean He is cursing you?  When apparent bad things happen is it always a “curse”?  During a discussion on this topic with a friend, my friend asked the same question & then quickly answered herself saying:  “If God is just leaving you alone, maybe that is because He doesn’t really care about you.”  This would have been a startling conclusion except I know she, like Job embraces the sovereignty of God & so in essence is saying the same thing as Job:

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised."  -- Job 1:21

 
Everything that happens in our lives, “may the name of the Lord be praised!”

With the first premise established, that God can & does curse individuals let us examine the second question.

WHO IS CURSED

Whether it is some catastrophic disaster or individual tragedies in our own lives, we sometimes think that some judgment or curse from God has come.  Without Scripture or inspired apostles to tell the Christian directly when judgment or curse has come, how do we know who is cursed?

Returning to the account of Job, if you recall some of his friends accused him of harboring some secret sin that was causing God to curse him. (Job 4:7)  But Job knew, that relatively speaking there should be no reason God was cursing him in this manner. (Job 10:1-21)  And Job was ultimately correct – God was not cursing Job for some secret sin, but rather was using Job to show; (a) how faithful Job was even through all the trials (b) that God is the Creator & can do what He wants with His creation & it is still “fair”.

On the other hand, both David & Jonah realized that they had done something to cause the curse of God to come upon them.  God cursed David for his killing of one of his subordinates just to take his wife (2 Sam 12:9-13) & Jonah for disobeying the Lord’s command to preach to Nineveh (Jonah 1:1-3).

So, let people examine themselves – setting aside pretension & pride & see if personal calamities are actually curses from God.  If we behave like we can never be cursed or under judgment by God, then we may miss the important correction God is trying to show us.  Just as God showed David & Jonah, we too should be ready to consider that an apparent curse is a correction from God the Creator (Heb 12:5-8).  We may need to consider that either some action we perform or doctrine we hold is in error & God is trying to correct us.

CONCLUSION

Unfortunately many people cannot & will not accept that they may be under the curse of God & instead they will create their own version of God – where He is more of a magic genie in a bottle they can summon & put away at any time.  Rather let us praise God for whatever comes in our lives & pray that He will make clear whatever lesson or correction we may learn from the events in our lives.