You Can Put Yourself Under A Curse By What You Do

Hello and welcome to Social Media Ministries. My name is Spencer Coffman. Thank you so much for being with us today.

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Today we’ve got a great message for you, so I hope you have your Bible ready and be ready to dive in. In addition, if you’re doing something else — driving or working — and listening to this, that’s great. Come back later, all the verses are going to be referenced in the description as usual.

And I encourage you — to read them, to study them, to talk about them with your friends, your family, and really dive in because these words are important — not my words, not these sermons, but the words of the Bible presented in these sermons.

And we hope that by doing this, you’re gaining wisdom and knowledge and understanding. God has given me a gift, and he’s said to share it with you.

As he has done with you, God has given you gifts, and he’s commanding you and asking you to share them with others. You have influence, and you need to use that to help lead more people to Christ.

Let’s dive into it. “You are under a curse — your whole nation — because you are robbing me” Wait a minute, we’re robbing you?

No, no, no, this is a verse, Malachi 3:9, “You are under a curse — your whole nation — because you are robbing me.”

God is telling this to His people when He is discussing the tithe. What’s the tithe? Well, we’ve had several different sermons on the tithe and tithing and what it is — and we usually get a lot of attention or a lot of arguments with it.

But check out a playlist called “Blessed To Bless” or “Blessed To Be A Blessing.” You can find it on our website or YouTube channel — and we have several sermons in there about tithing and what it is — New Covenant, Old Covenant, New Testament, Old Testament, where your money should go.

But the point is that — this verse is relating to God telling His people that they are robbing Him because why? Let’s go to Malachi 3:8.

Malachi 3:8 says, “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob Me. But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In tithes and offerings.”

Tithes and offerings — you are robbing God. So, are we commanded to tithe? You say, “Malachi was the Old Testament. I’m not — I’m not, ignorant of the Bible.”

Malachi — one of the last books in the Old Testament. The Old Testament means the Old Covenant. Therefore, God says in the Old Covenant, you’re robbing Me. I’m a New Testament Christian. I believe in Jesus Christ — that’s a New Covenant. I don’t need to follow the old Covenant command of tithing.” What does tithe mean? Tithe means tenth.

So that means a tenth of everything I earn. I make 100 grand a year — I wish! I make 50 grand a year. Yeah, no, I make 10 grand a year, whatever you make, okay? $10,000 a year — hopefully you make more than that — but that would be $1,000 would be a tenth.

If you make 100 grand a year, a tenth is $10,000. So, a tithe would be that amount. What do you do with the tithe? Bring your tithe into the storehouse. It’s kind of a recap of all those other sermons. I hope you watch them because they go into a lot of detail — and you’re going to want to know this — a tenth to your local church.

And then God even says, “tithes and offerings.” So, your tithe went to three places. It was 10 percent to a church, 10 percent to the poor — and another 10 percent every three years. So your total was about 23.3 percent each year — local church, poor, and then festivals.

So God told people to be tithing 23 percent of whatever they brought in every single year. So what would that be? 100 grand a year, $23,000 every single year — out to God. Then offerings above and beyond the tithe were what? Well, that was whatever you had in generosity.

Typically, you put another as much as you could. So if you were making 100 grand a year, your $23,000 a year was tithe, then you maybe do another $7,000 to offerings. That’s $30,000 a year.

You say, “Wait a minute, I’m tithing or I’m giving away 30 percent of my income?” Yeah, and guess what? When Jesus came in the New Covenant, he said 50 percent.

So he upped it from about 30 percent to 50 percent and even saying give 100 percent of everything you have if you want to go above and beyond. But Jesus expects you to be giving 50 percent — or not expects, but wants you to — because he wants you to trust him to give you more.

How do you know 50 percent? Watch those sermons, find out how. How do you know 100 percent? You want to be like Jesus? Jesus gave 100 percent — pretty simple.

So God told his people that they were robbing him. Now, whether you believe Old Covenant, New Covenant, separation, together — the point is it comes from the Bible, and the Bible is the word of God.

God is talking to you right now through this — “You are under a curse — your whole nation — because you are robbing me”.

Why is America in such turmoil, such trouble? Why is your nation in turmoil or trouble? Is your whole nation robbing God? How many people are actually tithing?

Go to your local church, ask your pastor, and say, “Hey, how many people attend here? How many people call it their church home?” They say, “I don’t know, 5,000.” They say, “Well, we have an average attendance of maybe 10,000, but only 6,000 of them are members.”

Okay, how much is the average income in your town? “Oh, well, statistics or Bara or these polls or Neil or the Census Data says that in this town it should be $60,000 a year.”

Okay, $60,000 a year times how many regular members? 5,000 regular members, so that would be $6,000 for each of those 5,000 members. Is your church bringing in that amount in the tithe, or 30 percent, or 20 percent, or what?

What are they bringing in? And find out, are all those people actually bringing the money in? I bet you the answer is no, even in huge churches. Now, I’m not saying that churches need to be taking all these people’s money, okay?

I’m not saying that you need to be just giving it all away. You need to know where your money is going. You need to make sure it’s going to a worthy cause.

You need to make sure that it’s not going to some televangelist money scammer that’s just going to take it and buy a Bentley or a house up in the hills or a new yacht, okay? It needs to be going to things that are building the Kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven.

And how do you know that? You need to be praying about it. You need to have discernment, and you need to listen to the promptings and the stirring of the Holy Spirit within you.

If you’re hearing something from someone — and in your mind it’s like, “I need to support them” — that’s the — I need to support them — that’s as far as it goes. There’s no argument there. You need to support them.

Now the question is how? So then you converse with God, “How, God? What’s next? What do I need to do? I know I need to support them.” And it might be you need to share, or you need to comment, or you need to encourage them.

What’s your gift? If you have a gift of generosity, “I need to support them. I have a gift of generosity. Here’s a check, thousand bucks.” It’s, “I need to support them. I have a gift of exhortation, a gift of encouragement. I need to encourage them. I need to make sure they stay fired up and don’t get discouraged.”

If you say, “I need to support them. How do I support them? I have a gift of servitude, a gift of hospitality. I need to host an event for them. I need to.”

So that’s the thing. It’s not always about money. It’s about where is your gift and how can you use that to build the Kingdom of Heaven?

So listen to that prompting, listen to the Holy Spirit within you, and understand that when that happens — you could be hearing me talk, and you could be saying, “I need this — I need to help this guy.” It doesn’t mean you need to give me money, and you’re not giving it to me, you’re giving it to the ministry. Let’s clarify that.

But it doesn’t mean that — it might mean you need — how can — oh, you have a gift of marketing? Boom, help Market. Oh, you have a gift of researching? Maybe research for what, grants?

Maybe research for people to find to reach — you have a gift of analytical data? You have a gift of writing code? You have a gift of — name it. There’s always a place for you.

God wants you to use your gifts and talents to build the kingdom and to serve and help. He told his people that they were robbing him of the tithe, which is to be returned to God — a tenth.

When Adam and Eve were in the garden, let’s back way up, they were given one rule — don’t eat of One Tree. Let’s go to that rule, Genesis 2:16-17.

Genesis 2:16-17 says, “And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.’”

Now, some of the apocryphal texts say that Adam was in the garden for seven years before Satan tempted him — tempted Eve — and then Eve gave the fruit to Adam, and then they ate it and were cursed.

And what happened then was, because Eve was led astray and seduced by the serpent, she was cursed. How was she cursed? Pain in childbirth. But man was not led astray. He was led astray by the woman.

Man himself was not cursed, but the ground that man has to work was cursed. Do you see what we’re saying? Eve was the one who fell. She — the body of woman — woman fell first. Woman was cursed.

Man was led astray by the woman. Man was not cursed, but his work was cursed, and to dust he was made — or from dust he was made, to dust he will go. Same with women — they go back to dust as well.

But the point — what is the point? That’s — that’s outside. Some apocryphal works even say they weren’t even in there a year, and they were tempted, ate of the tree, and as a result, what? They became cursed with the knowledge of good and evil.

They didn’t die, but in the Garden of Eden, they were living with an elevated status. It was literally like Heaven on Earth. They could talk to the animals, they could talk to God. God would walk with them in the garden. This was a paradise.

They didn’t have to do any hard labor. Any work that they did was because they wanted to, because they enjoyed it. Like, “I’m going to harvest this fruit.” That would be work, but they did it because they wanted to enjoy it. “I’m going to put these stones here because I like the way they look.” “I’m going to whatever, move these shrubs.” I don’t know.

I don’t know if they did landscaping, if they worked with their hands, if they had a tool of some kind or a rock as a shovel — I don’t know. But anything they did, they did out of enjoyment.

They didn’t have to pull weeds. The vegetables just grew naturally. The lions weren’t their predators. They were probably talking with lions. They had friends, that were tigers, or panthers, or dragons, or snakes — and all that kind of stuff. How cool would that be? Literally paradise, Heaven on Earth.

But then they were led astray. Why? Because Satan — or Sataniel, as his name — rebelled against God, thought that he could ascend to a higher level of Heaven and be better than God. And his, command and his legions with him went up, and they tried to fight God and take over. A mutiny happened.

God cast them down to Earth, and they said, “This is stupid. I can’t — we were cast out of the presence of God. We hate that. we see that God loves Adam and Eve, humankind,” and they were thinking, “And God loves them, and God created them, and they’re above us, but we’re better than them. We don’t like God.

How can we hurt God? How can we hurt them? We will take dominion of the Earth from them. We will make them our slaves. We will rule this world.” And that’s what they did. They were cursed. Adam and Eve were cursed, not only with the knowledge of good and evil, but also pain in childbirth and to work the ground. Let’s go to another verse, Genesis 3:22-23.

Genesis 3:22-23: “And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’

So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.” The Garden of Eden is probably still somewhere on Earth. If we could find it — which we can’t — you could enter, eat from the tree of life, and live forever.

Someday, when God comes back and we have the millennial reign, we could live for a long time. And when we go to Heaven, we will live forever and eat from the Tree of Life there in the presence of God.

But because Adam and Eve knew right from wrong, they became like us — like who? Like the messengers, like the spirits. They must not be allowed to be in that garden anymore. But they were cursed.

They were cast out of the garden exactly like Satan was cast out of Heaven. Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, the Heaven that they knew. They entered into the world — the world of sin, Satan’s dominion. They became subjects. They became cursed. We are cursed. We became cursed.

Now, if you are under a curse because you are robbing God of your tithe — of His tithe — that’s an additional curse. He doesn’t want additional curses. I don’t. So tithe. Adam and Eve took something that wasn’t theirs to take.

They ate from a tree God commanded them not to eat from, and they placed themselves under a curse. We have a sermon called “Cursed Generations.” Check it out in a card up here. Go to our website, type in ‘Cursed’ in the search bar.

They took something that wasn’t theirs to take, and they became cursed. When you keep the tithe, you’re keeping something that’s not yours to keep. You’re placing yourself under a curse. God isn’t cursing you.

You are actively and willingly choosing to withhold what belongs to God — and by doing so, you step out from under His blessing. You remove His favor from your life. And when that happens, you become cursed. Let’s go to Genesis 3:14–19. Let’s read that story.

Genesis 3:14-19: “So the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this — ’ What did he do? He led Eve astray. ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!

You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.’

To the woman, he said, ‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’

To Adam, he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, “You must not eat from it,” cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil, you will eat food from it all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

A lot right there. We get an entire sermon on that. If you want to discuss it, comment below. But basically, the serpent led them astray, cursed was the serpent, off with his legs, he’s going to slither on the ground like a belly, no more talking, eat the dust.

Humankind will always be at war with snakes and serpents. We will crush their heads, they will bite us, probably sometimes kill us, maybe we don’t know.

But then to the woman, she will be very painful in childbirth, she’s going to have a lot of pain, she will desire her husband, the husband will rule over her, head of the household.

And Adam, because he listened to his wife — he was the ruler, Adam was in charge, Adam was the first created, he had dominion over that Garden — because he failed to do his job and listen to his wife, he did not take responsibility for his actions, cursed is the ground because of him.

The ground was yielding perfect fruit without work. Because he failed to do his job, boom — cursed is that ground. Now because of him, through painful toil and the sweat of his brow, it will happen. So they place themselves under the curse.

In the same way, when it comes to your income, you have one rule — tithe the first tenth back to God. “Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year.” Deuteronomy 14:22. We have a card, “First 10 Percent To God.” Check out that sermon.

You can choose whether or not you follow the rule. It’s very, very simple. The Bible tells you exactly what to do with a tenth of your income. Malachi 3:10, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.”

We have another sermon, it’s called “Tithing To Test God.” Check that out. It means that you have to bring your tithe to God’s house, your local church, and beyond that, you need to give even more.

Watch those sermons, comment on them if you have questions. Don’t keep what’s not yours because if you do, you are placing yourself under a curse.

Let’s pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you so much for this powerful message.

I pray that each and every person out there would grasp this, that they would understand that as a nation, not tithing, not giving to you what is yours, we are removing ourselves from the blessing.
We are taking the curse upon ourselves, that exactly like Adam and Eve who chose to disobey you, they put themselves under a curse.

They cursed themselves because they refused to be obedient. They didn’t do their duty. They didn’t do their job. They didn’t listen to you, and a curse resulted.

Lord, that this would really sink into people, that they would realize that “Hey, I don’t want to be cursed,” and that they would understand that it’s not you cursing them, that that you’re giving them a choice.

They can live under a blessing, and they can live under a curse, and if they want, they can be blessed, and if they want, they can be cursed. If they want to keep 100 percent, good luck living on 100 percent.

But if they want to keep only 90 percent, then that 90, they will be way more blessed than if they were on that 100, that they will trust in you and that you will give them more and that they would be generous, that they would use their gifts to build your kingdom here on Earth as it is in Heaven, and that they would live in blessings, not under a curse.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

I hope this sermon was impactful to you. If you have any comments or questions, please post them below. I strongly encourage you to take a look at all of those other sermons referenced.

They will be a source of excellent knowledge for you. Dive into the Bible, dive into the word, and understand what is going on in there.

And if you have any questions or comments, please post them below, and we will help you out as much as we can. Have a great week, and God bless.