Blessing and Curse

Roadmap

What does it mean to be blessed?

What does it mean to be a blessing?

What is the curse?

Why does life often seem like a struggle?

We’re going to look at the meaning of blessing and curse in Genesis 1-3

Then we’re going to focus on the story of Jacob to illustrate some fundamental truths around the topic and why it is that we often need to struggle with God for the blessing.

Beginning Pattern

Blessed

In the first two chapters of the Bible we see no evidence of any curse in the earth.

What we see is the potential for curse/destruction (wilderness/darkness/chaotic waters) is contained and ordered by God and from it Yahweh produces life, solar systems, time, ecosystems, animals, plants, gardens, humans, and rest (believe it or not, rest is created / it is indeed an act of God… we cannot take it for granted for one moment).

There are 3 times when God specifically mentions a blessing:

Genesis 1:20–22 NIV

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”

The animals blessing is to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters and earth.

Genesis 1:26–28 NIV

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Similar to the creatures, the blessing to humans involves “being fruitful and multiplying” to fill the earth.

But then their blessing also involves being made in the “image of God” which means they are given the position of co-rulers with God to “subdue” the land and to “rule” over the creatures previously mentioned.

In other words:

An act of divinity is produce life from death, order from chaos, purpose from wandering.

God can PRODUCE something out of nothing.

Humans and animals then continue that phenomena, but while we cannot PRODUCE something out of nothing, we can certainly REPRODUCE life.

We do when we have children;

When we plant a garden;

When we farm livestock;

We are given the phenomenal responsibility to harness the potential within ourselves and in the earth and STEWARD the blessing of God so that whatever we touch increases in abundance and flourishes for the benefit of both the human community and animals.

So the blessing of God is increasing in number and creating communities and cultures where there is abundance and flourishing and saftey in the “Garden” for both humans and animals and;

the blessing involves being PART of stewarding/reproducing abundance and flourishing in partnership with God to others to ourselves, our families, our communities, our country and maybe even to the world.

We receive to give… and in giving we receive more because we have accounted as responsible and trustworthy people to receive the blessing.

If we don’t do this, we run the risk of being counted as immature humans not fit to be stewards of God’s blessing and in turn distribute a curse in our lives and the lives of others around us rather than blessing.

Genesis 2:1–3 NIV

1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

The Sabbath day has no evening and morning and thus respresents the goal of creation:

Where humans and animals live in a continual cycle of self-giving love and where beauty, abundance, safety, and flourishing, and the worship of Yahweh have no end.

Curse

Now in the middle of the Garden of Eden are two trees:

The Tree of Life

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

To not eat of the Tree of Knowledge is the test of humans whether they can be stewards of the blessing of God.

If they don’t eat of it’s fruit then they have shown that they trust in God’s wisdom that the world they currently inhabit is indeed GOOD and God has not withheld any good thing from them and the blessing will continue.

But if they eat the fruit they have failed to trust in God and have done what is right in their own eyes and they have fooled themselves to believe that God has withheld from them GOOD and as a result bring enmity amongst themselves, and will spread distrust and violence in the land and ultimately, exile and death.

So the first humans have the word of God that they are blessed....

But instead of trusting in God for the receipt and continuance of that blessing, they go about trying to obtain wisdom and blessing in their own ways. They are decieved and eat the fruit and as a consequence of humans doing what is right in their own eyes, they bring violence, death and curse into the land.

Who decieved them?

They were supposed to rule over the animals, but the animal ended up ruling over them.

If we don’t master the animal tendencies within us and succumb to it instead we end up being ruled by them and in consequence bring curse upon ourselves and into the world.

Yes, maybe the snake is representative of Satan in Revelation, but Genesis also reveals that the treacherous serpant is within you!

Genesis 4:5–7 The Message

5 but Cain and his offering didn’t get his approval. Cain lost his temper and went into a sulk. 6 God spoke to Cain: “Why this tantrum? Why the sulking? 7 If you do well, won’t you be accepted? And if you don’t do well, sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce; it’s out to get you, you’ve got to master it.”

Two aspects of the curse:

Genesis 3:17–19 The Message

17 He told the Man: “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree That I commanded you not to eat from, ‘Don’t eat from this tree,’ The very ground is cursed because of you; getting food from the ground Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife; you’ll be working in pain all your life long. 18 The ground will sprout thorns and weeds, you’ll get your food the hard way, Planting and tilling and harvesting, 19 sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk, Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried; you started out as dirt, you’ll end up dirt.”

The essence of the curse is that you will labour in life with little results to show for it because your own scheming and trying to do what is right in your own eyes.

Life seems to be against you and you can never seem to get ahead.

Have you ever felt like this?

The other aspect:

Genesis 3:23–24 NIV

23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

The curse drove the first humans out of the security, peace and abundance of the Garden of Eden into the wildreness.

To be exiled from the dwelling place of God is the same as death… possibly worse...

Because at least in death there is no conciousness, but to be exiled and know that you have to fight against hostile forces in the world all the days of your life is hard man.

BUT… there is hope:

Genesis 4:13–16 NIV

13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” 15 But the Lord said to him, “Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Despite being exiled because of our own foolishness… God never in the Bible abandons people… hence why He is called “Faithful”.

The Deceiver

One of the main objectives in the entire Bible is bring the original blessing in fulness back to humans and to rid the earth from the curse.

So until Genesis 11 God tries to work with humanity as a whole but as a result of doing what is right in their own eyes they degrade themselves further and further until it is said that the “intent’s if their hearts is only evil continually”.

Even when God reboots humanity with Noah, he has his own fall in a garden and becomes naked and announces a curse on one of his sons.

We then get to Babel and humanity again defy God and oppose Him and his counsel with their own wisdom and they are scattered throughout the land.

So then God announces blessing with one person and his descendants… Abraham.

God says to Abraham that he will greatly multiply him into a nation, he will inherit the land and through him, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

The nations forsook God, but God is still interested in blessing them because that is is who He is!

While humans are in exile as a result f their own choices.... God never abandons them!

You read the story of Abraham and you see times when he is totally in tune with God and is living the Eden blessing....

Sitting under trees while nations around him are fighting.

Making covenants of peace with other nations around him.

Having abundance of livestock and wealth.

Hosting angels in his tent.

Meeting with God on high places.

But then there are other moments when he totally fails and actually acts the role of the serpant

Abimelek acts the part of the first humans seeing something and desiring it (Abrahams wife)

And Abraham acts the part of the serpant by lying and saying she is his sister and not witholding her from Abimelek.

As a result God warned Abimelek that he and everything he owned would die if he didn’t give her back to Abaraham.

So you read about Abraham being the steward of God’s blessing in the world and it seems he sometimes does awesome and sometimes he does the opposite....

BUT

What if the blessing will end up with someone who is described like the serpant from the womb?

How will that play out?

Heel Grabber

God promises before birth that Jacob will be the one to carry the blessing into the world.

Genesis 25:19–23 NIV

19 This is the account of the family line of Abraham’s son Isaac. Abraham became the father of Isaac, 20 and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean. 21 Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. 22 The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. 23 The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”

Jacob literally means “heel grabber” which indicates someone who trips someone else on purpose. They’re a deceiver. A supplanter.

Instead of trusting in God’s promise of blessing, Jacobs schemes a way to get the birthright from Esau by selling him a pot of lentil stew for it.

Then in Genesis 27 the pattern is set up the same as in Genesis 3 where:

Isaac is blind | The serpant implies to the woman that they are blind until they eat the fruit and their eyes are opened.

Food is used as a means of deceiving.

Curse is pronounced upon Esau along with a blessing (Genesis 27:39-41)

As a result of the deceit and the fury of Esau Jacob is exiled from his homeland and goes to the “wilderness” and lives with his uncle Laban.

While he has the “blessing” he has not gone without suffering the consequences of his deceit and scheming.

While with his Uncle Laban the deceiver is himself deceived by the swapping Rachael for Leah.

There ends up being this rivalry between Jacobs wives which causes division in his household.

The wife he despised was the one who bore the sons (including Judah) through whom the blessing would continue in the Messiah while Rachael was barren.

Once everything goes pear shaped with Laban Jacob desires to come back to his homeland… the land promised to him and his ancestors.

But he still has to get through the fury of his brother for deceiving him and again tries to scheme a way to pacifiy him by sending him gifts of wealth.

He put Leah and their children first in case while Esau would slaughter them Rachael and her children would be able to escape.

And then Jacob goes on his own to pray and wrestles all night until sunrise with a man who he ends up perceiving as someone divine and won’t let go until He blesses him.

Just as there were Cherubim standing at the gates of the Garden of Eden, so before Jacob can back to the Promised Land he first has confront the angel and prove his intention are pure to partner with God in being the vehicle of blessing to the world.

(Genesis 32) Then the man punches Jacob in the groin area and dislocates his hip and asks him,

“What is your name?” Jacob… Deceiver.... Schemer.... Heel grabber

Genesis 32:28 NIV

28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

Genesis 32:30–31 NIV

30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” 31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

To wrestle with God is to confront the Spirit when it reveals your own treacherous ways to you.

And you will never enter into rest and indeed into the Promised Land, into the Garden until you learn what it means to wrestle with God.

Until you realise that despite you bringing more curse than blessing into the world an dbeing exiled in the world and I would even say exiled in your own mind!, God has never abandoned you!

You know what… it is far better to strive for the blessing of God even if doing it badly than to not strive at all!

Go spend some time on your own this week and learn what it means to wrestle with God and have some dignity in fact that your striving with God and with man and stop feeling sorry for yourself because of how bad you did it… at least your doing it!

… because that is far better than not striving at all and wondering aimlessly in this world being prey to the predators, ideologies, culture wars that exist out there in the wilderness.

Zechariah 8:11–17 BE:NT

11 But now I’m not acting towards the remainder of this people as in earlier days (a declaration of Yahweh of Armies), 12 because the sowing will be in peace, the vine will give its fruit, the earth will give its produce, the heavens will give their dew, and I shall let the remainder of this people have all these things as a domain. 13 As you became a slighting among the nations, Yehudah’s household and Yisra’el’s household, so I shall deliver you and you will become a blessing. Don’t be afraid. Your hands are to be strong.” 14 Because Yahweh of Armies has said this: “As I schemed to do something bad to you when your ancestors infuriated me (Yahweh of Armies said) and didn’t relent, 15 so I have again schemed in these days to do good to Yerushalaim and to Yehudah’s household. Don’t be afraid. 16 These are the things that you’re to do. Speak the truth each to his neighbour. Exercise authority with truthful authority that makes for peace in your gateways. 17 Don’t think up something bad in your mind each person against his neighbour. Don’t love a false oath. Because all these are things to which I’m hostile (Yahweh’s declaration).” ’