Making Blessings Into Curses

Thank you for joining us today on Key to the Kingdom as we talk about the matter of taking blessings that we have received from God and making those things into curses. It seems strange to think that it could be possible. However, sometimes because of the misuse of something or abuse of something that is a blessing, we may in fact turn it into a curse. I was interested recently in doing some reading in the Old Testament and being reminded of an event that took place while the people of God were wandering in the wilderness. They had become dissatisfied with God and that dissatisfaction was showing itself in their complaining. “They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!" Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people. The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.” (Numbers 21:4 – 9).

It is an interesting solution to the problem. If you noticed in the reading, when the people had complained and God sent the snakes among them they asked Moses to go to God on their behalf. What is Moses’ first request? It appears from the text that his first request is “take the snakes away”. But God doesn’t do that. Rather, God said, you make a bronze snake, put it on a pole in the middle of the camp and when anyone is bitten they will go and look at that and they will live. If they don’t, they’ll die.

God put the responsibility back on them. God said I will save you, I will deliver you from this venomous snakes, I will keep you from dying. But if you want to live, you’ll have to do what I have asked you to do, look at the bronze snake in the middle of the camp. Why is that a curse? How could that have become a curse? 2 Kings 18:4

King Hezekiah puts his trust in the Lord and, desiring to please Him, takes down the places of false worship, the Asherah poles and so forth. “He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it” (2 Kings 18:4). Among the things of idol worship is this bronze snake again. Years ago the bronze snake had been used when the people where in the wilderness to deliver them from the bite of poisonous snakes God sent among them because of their sin. And they have kept it. They have carried it with them. There’s been a lot of time in between the time the snake was put up on the pole in the wilderness and the events here in 2 Kings 18.

However, they have taken this snake and, rather than seeing it for what it was, God’s temporary solution to a temporary problem of the venomous snakes, because of 2 their rebellion at that point in their history. God used that snake to turn them around and bring them back to Him, to fix their attention on Him by going and looking at the snake when they have been bitten. But now they’ve made an icon out of it. They have continued to carry it with them and have burned the incense to it. A blessing back in Numbers 21, yes indeed, but now a curse in 2 Kings 18. Here was a good thing, something that was good, something that was useful, but now something that has become a curse.

We don’t have a brass snake to bow before today, though some may bow before “idols” made by man’s hands. That is not the kind of blessings that I’m thinking of today that can become a curse. But rather blessings that we have been given that can be properly appreciated and properly used. Perhaps the greatest blessing we have been given is the invitation to the Kingdom feast of God.

Yet, many have rejected this blessing by letting earthly things stand in the way. “When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God." Jesus replied: "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.' "But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.' "Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.' "Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.' "The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.' “‘Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.' "Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet' " (Luke 14:15-24).

This is one of those parables of Jesus in which He is giving us a lesson about the Kingdom, and the bottom line is that people can get too busy with the pursuits of this life and miss out on the blessings of being in the Kingdom of God. Isn’t it interesting that as this story unfolds its time for the banquet and each of these fellows begins to make an excuse. The first guy says, “I bought a field, I got to go see it.” I don’t know about you, but I’m not about to buy a field that I haven’t seen because the thing might be under water. I remember a few years ago being in Tennessee and talking with the fellow there and when I told him I was from Canada he said, “I own property in Canada.” I said, “Where is it?” He said, “I don’t know exactly. It’s way up in Northern Ontario somewhere. I bought it and I’ve never seen it.” He bought it with the idea that maybe someday the mineral rights on it will be worth something. And he bought it from a fellow he knew. He said, “I understand it’s under the snow most of the time and may never by worth much, but I had the money that I could afford to spend.” That’s fine I guess. He had the money and he wanted to spend it. But it seems pretty strange to me that a person would buy a field without checking it out first. 3

And what about the fellow that bought 5 yoke of oxen? He’s going to use these oxen to do work and he hasn’t tried them out! He hasn’t checked them out and didn’t know if they’d be able to do the job that he wants them to do. And then the third guy had gotten married. Often, cynically, people would say he had the best reason of the three for not going. But still, in the overall picture, that was not a good reason. He was invited to a feast. He should have gone and he most likely could have taken his wife with him. However, he missed his opportunity.

Nothing wrong with these men having a new field, or five yoke of oxen or a new wife. But they misused them and used them as an excuse. A blessing became a curse as they used them to excuse themselves, sadly, from enjoying the wonderful feast of God.

I’m suggesting to you today that we need to be careful that we do not allow our blessings to become curses. And I don’t know what you would call your blessings. There are many things I’m sure that we could talk about as being blessings. Blessings that we misuse. Blessing we allow to keep us from fulfilling our relationship to God. Things that should help us become better servants but they’re do not because we allow those blessings to become a curse to us.

For example, I would suggest to you that one of those blessings would be our time. I’m told that we have more free time now than ever before. I’m old enough to remember when farmers worked without the modern pieces of equipment they use today. They spent long, long hours. I suspect there is a big difference in the time needed to milk 50 head of cattle by hand and to milk that 50 head of cattle using milking machines. There’s certainly a big difference between going out with a horse-drawn mower and cutting, raking and going about the process of gathering hay compared to doing so with balers etc. So, even farmers have more time on their hand these days than they did at one time. And what about the rest of us? Many work fewer hours than in the past and have more free time as a result. We have more vacation time. We have more down time.

To me, that means we should have more free time to do the service of God. More time to study God’s Word and more time to visit and to minister. More time to be helpful to people around us. However, often, we become very selfish about our time and all of a sudden our time is totally used up. Not in serving God, not in doing the things of God, not in trying to please God. But rather, we feel that my time is my time. It’s mine, I earned it. I have gotten what I have because of my time at work and my years of service and so it’s mine and I’m going to use it for myself.

Often when people come to retirement, when they should have more time to be a blessing to people around them, they often become very selfish about their time and spend all looking after themselves, never willing to share their time with others. Paul reminds us, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving 4 thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:15-20).

But you know, sadly, many people when they get to the point when they have that time that they could be spending in ministry, in serving, even in spending time with God’s people in worship and activities, rather, like to spend their time laying around, relaxing, playing golf or doing whatever. Not that there’s anything wrong with those activities. I enjoy playing golf. And yet, if I become so much involved in recreation that I don’t have time to reach out to people, to minister, to share the love of God to those around me, I believe I have allowed the time that I have to become a burden and a curse rather than a blessing.

If you have time to use then us some of it in service to God. Don’t be one who hordes it all for yourself. But rather, use your time to be a blessing. The sad thing to this is that I have talked to people who have said, “You know I just look forward to the time when I have a little more time on hands. I can help out a little bit more in the church’s activities and I can be a little more involved in visiting people that are shut in and so on. And all of a sudden, they have that more time in their hands. But then, they’re just so busy in their recreation and their pleasure and their resting rather than using some of that precious blessing to God’s glory.

Secondly, one of the things that we have been blessed with is family. And often we allow our family to become an excuse for not doing what we need to be doing. Remember this instruction from scripture. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”Honor your father and mother"—which is the first commandment with a promise— "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:1-4).

We, as parents, need to recognize our need to bring up our children in the Lord and seems to me that part of that is giving our children an understanding of how valuable the Lord is in our lives. Sometimes we get so involved in trying to do things with our family in recreational nature, and we become so concerned in providing all the physical things for our children that we forget to teach them the importance of God. We hear people say, “My children are not going to suffer like I did. They’re not going to be deprived like I was when I was a child. I’m going to make sure that my children will have everything they need.” Often, however, we forget to give them what they need most and that’s an appreciation of God.

At our congregation in Toronto, Strathmore, our theme for this year is “Bearing fruit in every good work”. One of the greatest work you can do as a parent is lead your children into a relationship to God. Our family should be one of the greatest blessings we had rather than our excuse to fail to do God’s work. Rather than using our family as an excuse for not living the life that we need to live. 5

Thirdly, I think, we have to talk about just plain riches and blessings, the possessions that we have. These are blessings. We live in one of the richest nations in all the world here in Canada. We have fine homes. We have plenty to eat. We have clothing to wear. But these things that are wonderful blessings from God can become a curse when we put those things before service to God, when we put those things before genuine love, when we put things before people.

It’s been suggested that some people love people and use things while some people love things and use people. We need to use the blessings that we have, possessions that are ours to the glory of God. We need to use our homes as a tool in our service to God. We need to understand that our possessions can become a curse if we don’t use them.

And think about the blessings that we have that are not material things. Some of the blessings we have received because we are living in this country. People who live in this country, who are raised in this country take advantage of the school system are able to read. But how many times do we waste that blessing by reading trash and spending all or our time with things that are not useful and up-building. We have that ability to learn but we spend all of our time learning those things that are bad and evil and ways to do wrong rather seeking to learn to know God’s will. We have the ability to teach and yet we don’t teach people to draw closer to God but rather we teach them to seek the evil things and to look to the physical things as being most important.

The greatest blessing we make a curse is our failure to accept the invitation of God for forgiveness through His son. Remember we talked about the serpent that they put on the pole and when they looked at it they were healed. Sadly, the brass snake became a useless icon. Something they burned incense before in the days of the kings.

John writes, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14- 15). I am afraid that some many today, Jesus becomes an empty icon. He becomes simply someone who hangs on the cross rather than seeing Him as the Saviour whose blood cleanses us from sin. Some see Him simply as someone that they look to from time to time… and when it’s convenient, they worship Him. “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will” (Hebrews 2:1-4).

How shall we escape if we neglect this great salvation. What is the greatest blessing you’ve ever received? It is the death of Jesus for your sins. Are you willing to respond to Him in faith, confessing Him as Lord, turning from sin in your life, being born of water and spirit to walk with Him. Don’t let this greatest blessing of all become a curse because of your failure to respond.