Dominion Over Curses by Apostle Joshua Selman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Light Without Understanding Produces the Same Outcome as Darkness

There is a class of spirit called rulers of darkness — their dominion is sustained by the absence of light, or by an inaccurate understanding of how to apply that light.

Misunderstanding and ignorance are the same thing in the realm of the spirit. One who possesses light but cannot apply it adequately, and one who is entirely barren of that light — both are destined to have the same outcome.

It is not enough to be possessors of light. We must also be possessors of understanding.

The Bible says: "We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth." There are certain realities that, as far as our walk with God and work in the kingdom is concerned, if we do not pay attention to them and sustain the grace to bring them under the feet of Jesus, we will live absolutely defeated lives. One of those realities is dominion over curses.

What Is a Curse?

Lamentations 5:7 — The fathers sinned and are not, and the children bear their iniquities.

"They are not" means they have left the scene. Something started with them, and whatever it was, the children inherited it. The word translated "born" in related texts carries the meaning of inherited.

Proverbs 26:2 — "As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come." A curse without legal cause will never even manifest in the first place.

It is significant that the first person in the Bible to reveal that a man's life can be programmed to experience woes was not Satan — it was God himself. In Genesis, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit:

• The serpent was cursed to crawl on his belly and feed on the dust of the earth.
• The woman received pain in childbirth.
• The earth itself was cursed: thorns and thistles would come forth, and man would labor in the sweat of his brow.

The second recorded curse was upon Cain after he killed Abel: "A fugitive and a vagabond shall you be."

1. A curse is a mystery — its operation cannot be studied intellectually; it must be studied from the standpoint of the realm of the spirit.
2. A curse is a spiritual force.
3. A curse has magnetic characteristics — it can attract certain things to its victim.
4. A curse is always negative in its manifestation — there is no such thing as a positive curse.
5. A curse is an invocation, a programming designed to attract woes and calamities to the life of its victim.

A curse can be made manifest through utterances and pronouncements. Utterances and pronouncements have prophetic implications, whether from a positive or negative dimension. Every time an utterance is made — whether in ignorance or intelligently — it has an effect that is supported in the realm of the spirit. This is why the Bible says, "Say not to the angel, I made a mistake."

If you study world religions, you find many that function like a legal system — mantras, manuals, invocations — and when these are engaged in a certain dimension and manner, they carry capacity to program woes upon the life of a people.

How to Identify the Presence of a Curse: Patterns

The classic indication of both curses and blessings in the Bible is patterns — a track record of frequent happenings regardless of conditions. Just as you can recognize that an individual or place is blessed by consistent outcomes, you can identify the opposite.

The patterns are a message. They are not the curse itself — the curse is spiritual.

A curse is like an atmosphere, like a cloud, like a mantle that an individual can carry. It has capacity to break barriers and to follow a person. It can pursue and overtake.

Deuteronomy 28 — God listed blessings and then curses, and stated that the curses will pursue and overtake — travel to any city, follow through marriage, through education, wherever one goes.

A curse is not failure, not barrenness, not regression in itself. These things are symptoms — messages and symbols that signify the presence of such an atmosphere upon a life. Just as a boil is not the root problem but a sign that something is wrong internally, the visible patterns signal a spiritual root. Apply an ointment to a boil and it may seem to go, only to reappear elsewhere — because the cause has not been addressed.

Joshua 7:1, 10–12 — Achan smuggled prohibited items from Jericho. The Bible says the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel — not just Achan — and God said "Israel has sinned," for they had taken of the accursed thing. Because of one man's action, innocent people died. God did not simply forgive; he required the accursed thing to be removed entirely.

Being under a curse does not mean one personally and consciously sinned. One can be a victim of a story that predates one's own existence.

Patterns That Indicate Curses Are Real

• Families where the men never rise or advance — not because they are irresponsible, but because of a pattern that vetos their efforts.
• Families where someone must die every year regardless of how sincerely they serve God.
• Families where poverty persists even among the highly educated — degrees from prestigious institutions, yet every business venture collapses.
• Individuals where a pattern of sickness repeats monthly without natural explanation.
• Families where children never know their grandparents — either through exile or early death.
• Pastors and ministers where everyone they raise eventually disappoints or betrays them — it is not coincidence when the pattern is consistent.
• Patterns of failure in business that do not correspond to the person's intelligence, diligence, or opportunity — businesses that crash at exactly the moment others succeed.

What kind of coincidence keeps repeating itself? That is not coincidence — it is a programming.

Even genetics supports the reality of trans-generational transference. The fact that one looks like their father or mother should communicate something about the realm of the spirit. When you approach spiritual things, you must be open-hearted and sincere — willing to acknowledge patterns rather than explain them away.

Three Sources of Curses

1. Curses from God — the sinner's curse. Everyone who has not acknowledged Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is under a curse. The dominion of evil perpetually remains above the uncovered life. Mortality itself is a curse. The moment one is outside of Christ, one qualifies for the very curse that came upon creation.

2. Ancestral curses — products of trans-generational violation. These are products of violating the terms of agreement that constituted the basis for mutual relationship between men and deities. They operate on legal ground. Righteousness and justice are the foundations of God's throne — curses operate by legal principle, not by accident. One can be a victim of covenants made by ancestors without personal knowledge or participation.

3. Self-inflicted curses — products of ignorance and disobedience. Disobedience to kingdom laws opens legal doors. For example, a believer who does not tithe closes their own heavens — that is the law.

It is foolish to believe that sickness is real and poverty is real, and not believe that curses are real. The same source brought all of them.

Machines cannot diagnose curses. They can only detect the effects of their presence — not the presence itself.

The goal is not only to identify the problem for oneself but to break patterns before passing them to the next generation. Every error the fathers could not correct must be corrected in this generation, before children are brought into the world to suffer from what could have been resolved.

Kingdom Systems Designed to Break Curses

Psalm 102:13 — "Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come."

The Mystery of Mercy

Mercy is not an attribute exclusive to sinners seeking salvation. Mercy is part of the very nature of God's person. It is a system in the kingdom where guilty people are made free.

Although righteousness and justice are the foundations of his throne, in his dealings with mankind God introduced a mystery called mercy.

Mercy is the attribute of God that provokes his help to your life regardless of your satisfying the condition for it.

Mercy only works in time — it cannot operate in eternity. That is why his mercies are new every morning, and it is also why Satan remains where he is.

The nation of Israel understood this. When they sinned and were given over to their enemies, the cry of intercession was not a song — it was an invocation: "You are good and your mercies endure forever." That cry turned battles.

• Samson lost his strength, his eyes, and his hair. He was taken to the temple of his enemies to be mocked. Everything was over. But as he leaned against the pillars, he cried for mercy — and God had to come.
• Blind Bartimaeus did not cry, "Heal me as you healed the others." He cried, "Thou Son of David, have mercy on me." And Jesus came.
• Of the two criminals crucified with Jesus, one continued in pride and noise. The other invoked mercy — "Lord, remember me" — and received the promise of paradise that day.
• Moses was a murderer. By the mercy of God, a murderer became a deliverer.
• David committed sins whose wages were death. When David asked for mercy, God said: "The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die." Mercy changed the entire calculation.

The pride of men is the reason they never qualify for mercy. A broken and contrite heart is the condition. For as long as a person believes they are deserving and self-sufficient, they will not receive it. Arrogant people are never qualified to be beneficiaries of God's mercy.

The worst witchcraft that can operate in a life is to prevent that person from receiving God's mercy.

Applying Mercy as a Weapon Against Curses

Proverbs 26:2 confirms the principle: a curse causeless shall not stand. If the blood of Jesus removes the legal access — the legal ground — then the effect of the curse must also leave.

The blood of Jesus is the instrument of mercy. When you plead the blood, you are invoking mercy. The Bible speaks of "blotting out every handwriting" — there are records kept in the realm of the spirit. Records that testify to iniquity. Records that provide legal access for the curse to operate. But the blood speaks and cancels those records.

• A covenant made with an idol in ignorance — the blood speaks against it.
• Involvement in fraternities or blood covenants from the past — the blood cancels the legal ground.
• Neglect of kingdom laws such as tithing — the blood invoked in repentance closes the open door.
• Any pattern operating in your life on the basis of ancestral sin — render that curse causeless by the blood of Jesus.

The awesome thing about mercy is that when it is invoked, it does not only take away the current problem — it also lifts and promotes. It qualifies the unqualified. It places people among those whose skills and years would normally have taken them there — but mercy gets there first.

• Begin to mention the things in your life that did not come as a result of your prayer life — things that are pure attributes of his mercy and benevolence. Thank him for them.
• Now use mercy as a weapon: Satan, I know you are supposed to have access to my life. But I present to you the mercy of God. I present to you the blood of the eternal covenant. I present to you the advocacy of Jesus at the right hand of the Father. I present to you Calvary. The blood speaks.
• I invoke the blood over every pattern operating in my life. Every pattern — you are blotted out by the blood of Jesus. I render every curse causeless by the blood of Jesus.
• I begin a new order — dissociated from the past, alienated from witchcraft, curses, and yokes, by the blood of the eternal covenant. In Jesus name.