REDEEMED FROM THE CURSE
REDEEMED FROM THE CURSE
July 27, 2025
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Two weeks ago, I preached on the vision the Lord gave me about His “Gift of the Tithe” to His people for prosperity and power over poverty. I briefly spoke that the curse of the tithe has been broken at the Cross. Later, I felt there were some who might want me to expound on that because many preachers under the Law still preach the Old Testament curse on people who do not tithe. For Christians, we are under the blessing of the tithe, but the curse is broken.
Jesus Christ redeemed us from the “curse of the Law”. He became a curse for us. Once we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, through our Faith, His Blood, and the Holy Spirit in our personal lives, we have have authority over all the curses of the earth.
Gal. 3: 13-14: Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree; That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Sprit through faith.
Rev. 22:3: And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve Him. And they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads; And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light; and they shall reign for ever and ever.
John is describing Heaven, but we who walk and live in the Spirit, live, and have our being seated with Christ in heavenly places (Third Heaven Authority). There is a realm of “no more curse” on this side of the grave. The Christian is to arise out of the lower realms of our carnality into the Spirit and there sit down with Him at His throne and see His face. It is the realm of no more night, no more pain, never crying again. This realm of the Spirit cannot be reached by throwing silver and gold at a people to redeem them. They will be redeemed without money.
Isaiah 52:3: For thus says the Lord; you have sold yourselves for nothing; and you shall be redeemed without money.
The Lord’s work is redemption. He came to redeem us from the curse of the Law and the curses upon mankind due to their sin.
Here is the restoration and redemption of all who will receive and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and receive His Holy Spirit that we may be redeemed from all unholy thoughts, concepts and teaching that put us under a curse. --- Christ even delivers us from this present evil world.
Gal. 1:4: Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father.
Christians are not under the curse. Every curse of the law is broken for the Christian at the cross. However, It is not automatic. It has to be appropriated by Faith, the Holy Spirit of God, and the Blood of Jesus.
As ministers of the Gospel, we fail if we do not teach people to receive this grace into their lives. We must not preach them under the curse but preach Christ’s redemption from the curse by Faith, the Holy Spirit and the Blood of Jesus Christ.
In Deuteronomy alone, there are over 144 curses. Deut. 30:19: I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose life, that both you and your seed may live.
The following is not inclusive of all of the O.T. curses in Genesis and other Books of the Bible (under the Law).
This includes the curse of the woman, curse of the man, curse of the ground (Genesis 3: 10-19) and the curse of the tithe.
1. The curse of the ground. (Gen. 3)
2. The curse of the woman. (Gen. 3)
3. The curse of mistreating widows. (Psa. 68:5).
4. The curse of the widow’s children. (man-made curse)
5. The curse of the man. (Gen. 3)
6. The curse of poverty (tithe). (Mal. 3:9)
7. The curse of the devourer. (Mal. 3:11)
8. The curse of worshipping man-made gods and other gods.
9. The curse of adultery. (Numbers 5:18-20) (bitter water).
10. The curse of not giving glory to God. Mal. 2:2: If you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to My name, says the Lord of Hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings.
11. The curse of backsliding from the blessing of the gospel. Hebrews 6: 6-9: If they fall away, to renew them again to repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh; and put Him to an open shame. For the earth which drinks in the rain that comes upon it and brings forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receives blessing from God; But that which bears thorns and briers if rejected, and is near to cursing; whose end is to be burned.
Our rejoicing must be that the “curses” have been broken off through Jesus Christ. We must return to the Lord and give Him the Glory for our blessings.
Gal. 3:8-9: And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all nations be blessed.” So, then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.
With the promised Holy Spirit coming only by way of faith of Abraham, Israel has temporarily forfeited her exalted position as the heir to this promise. However, this forfeiture did not affect the Gentiles. In his promise to Abraham, God included the Gentiles. Yet, they too would receive the Spirit only as they exhibited the same faith as Abraham. Paul is eager to show that it was God’s intention for all nations to receive the Holy Spirit.
Paul argues: the promise of the Spirit had nothing to do with the Law, having been made to Abraham long before the Law was given, And it is by the Spirit that life and the blessings of God come to men. The Law is a parenthesis between the promise to Abraham and the delivery of the promise by Jesus Christ.
3:10: For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the law to do them.
A curse is the opposite of blessing. The faith-life offers blessing. Life under the law brings only a curse. Law and faith work on different principles. Justification by faith is based on what God does for man, whereas justification under Law is based on what man does for God. They proceed in different directions. The Law requires perfect obedience in all things--- continually. It’s perfection. There is no room for failure.
If you are a penny short in your tithe, under the law, you are under a curse.
Seeking righteousness under the Law is like a man scaling a cliff—one slip and he’s dead—for the Law demands the full penalty for even the tiniest transgression. He who violates any part of the Law is guilty of breaking the whole Law (Ja. 2:10).
Then is everyone under the curse of the law until he receives the Spirit by faith?
3:13: Christ rescued us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”
Paul has mentioned two curses in connection with the Law.
(1) Upon all failing to fulfill the Law’s conditions.
(2) Upon those hung upon a tree.
While Jesus did not break the law Himself, He accepted the total guilt of us as Lawbreakers. For “the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6b). Thus, both curses fell on Christ. The first which bespeaks the guilt of sin, and the second, which bespeaks the punishment for sin.
And why did he become this curse? 3:14: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
When a man comes to Jesus, two amazing things happen:
(1) He is baptized into Christ.
(2) Christ indwells him.
This is precisely as Jesus said it would be. In the days of his earthly ministry, He told His disciples repeatedly that, even as He stood before them, His Father was in Him and He was in His Father (John 14: 10, 11).
Then he said a coming day (Pentecost) would find Him in them and they would be in Him, in exactly the same relationship (John 14:20). Paul is saying that believers have the justification which Abraham enjoyed and also the Holy Spirit which was promised. For the Spirit was not given until Jesus was glorified (John 7:39).
Do I believe that prophets and chosen men of God had the Holy Spirit in the O.T.? Yes, because the Bible says so. However, once Jesus was glorified, by faith, we all receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. That is, all who receive Jesus.
After Pentecost, Jews and Gentiles alike could receive Christ (in the Spirit) to experience both justification and sonship (1 John 3:2).
What, if anything, did the Law do to the promise God made to Abraham?
3:15-16: Brethren I speak after the manner of men; (everyday life) though it is but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannuls, or adds to. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He said not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one. And to your seed, which is Christ.
If God’s promise to one man can be voided, because He later makes an agreement with different heirs, then God’s honor is in question. God cannot be untrue to His own nature. The promise to Abraham is as valid as the fact that God will not lie to Himself.
3:17-18: And this I saw that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of no effect. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.
God promised this inheritance to Abraham with no strings attached. The promise was not made to Abraham alone, but to one other Person, his Heir. The promise was to a sole heir, Christ.
This means that the promise cannot be separated from Jesus in any way. As the solitary heir, he becomes the universal Heir, inheriting the promise for His people. It follows then, for anyone to participate in the promise, he must be “in Christ.”
How does one get there? He is baptized (placed—immersed) there by the promised Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13).
Any Jew or Gentile who receives the Lord via the Spirit is born into the family of God. Christ, the Head of the spiritual family inherited God’s promise to share it with all who are in him who are “joint-heirs” (Rom 8:17).
3: 19-20: Why then was the law given? Wherefore then serves the law? It was added to the redemption program because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.
The entrance of the Law into Israel’s history was a business deal. First God made definite proposals to the people. Then they formally accepted His conditions vowing, All that the Lord has spoken we will do (Ex. 19:8).
Thus, it was a binding agreement between two parties. A will on the other hand is executed solely by its maker and designed to carry out his wishes alone. His heirs receive the benefits simply because he is pleased to bestow them.
God’s will (promise) freely pledged the Spirit to all exhibiting the Faith of Abraham. However, it didn’t become effective until the death of Christ (Heb. 9:16).
Paul says there is as much difference between the Law and God's (3-fold) promise as there is between a will and a contract. The Law, an entirely separate instrument was executed long after God’s promises were made to Abraham and the Law had no effect on them whatsoever.
God appeared to Abraham in Person (a theophany) making His promises directly. This is the way God likes to deal with people. But in giving the Law, which had to do with sin and punishment, He stayed in the background and worked through agents. Angels (Heb. 2:2) represented God and Moses represented man. That way the very giving of the Law dramatized the separation between God and man due to sin. God is not pleased to have mediators separating Him from His people. He prefers to bring them into immediate fellowship with Himself. But sin made it necessary, so Moses and the legal priesthood were used to keep man at a distance from God. The gospel too has a Mediator (1 Tim 2:5). Not one of separation, but of reconciliation. He, Himself, Jesus represents both God and man. So that all parties can meet in Christ. Yet even his role as the Gospel mediator is temporary, for when He has reconciled all things to God, He will vacate the mediator’s office.
1 Co. 15:24: Then comes the end, when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father: when he shall have put down all rules and all authority and power. For He must reign, until he has put all enemies under His feet.
Gal. 3: 23-24: Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up to the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
What then is our inheritance? The promise or the possession into which an heir enters upon the death of his ancestor. We are a partaker with the saints in light because Jesus has died and left us His Will (the New Testament or New Covenant). He is raised from the dead to become the Executor of His own will! God has an inheritance in us and we have an inheritance in Him. Note that our inheritance is incorruptible. Our inheritance is not based on the Law, but on “Faith.”
Heb. 1:4: Being made so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
Heb. 1:2: In these last days has spoken to us by His Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds: Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.
As Christians we are commissioned to bless those who persecute us; bless and do not curse (Ro. 12:14).
Luke 6:28: Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Eastgate Ministries Church, 10115 West Hidden Lakes Lane, Richmond, TX
Scripture from K.J.V. I entered into the labors of C. S. Lovett’s Lights on Romans; if there are others, I have long ago forgotten for I have preached this message over many years.