Blessed house and a cursed house!
Leviticus 14:34 "When you have come into the land of Canaan, which I give you as a possession, and I put the leprous plague in a house in the land of your possession..”
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The words “I put the leprous plague in a house in the land of your possession”, captivated my attention and set me thinking! We know about the body being affected by leprosy, but can a house be affected by leprosy? Oh yes, it can! When our house is attacked by a leprous plague we are not aware, just read verse 35 with me, ‘he who owns the house comes and tells the priest, saying, 'It seems to me that there is some plague in the house,” We should not try to do first-aid on our own, by plastering the damage with paint but we need to look for professional help, in other words, we need to turn to godly people for advice. We should not try for web-help or friends-help, but we need to reach out for help from God!
Why would God put a leprous plague on our house? To get our attention! Spiritual awakening comes only through affliction, persecution and destruction! We need to get to the root cause of the problem, understanding how it has affected the present, get spiritual counseling and seek God for healing. Let me explain.
When people refuse to accept correction and instructions from God, then God has to send pain to get our attention, Zephaniah 3:2 says, ‘She has not obeyed His voice, She has not received correction; She has not trusted in the LORD, She has not drawn near to her God.’
Just look around friends, you have people who ignore church, ignore the Bible, ignore His Servants and live as they want. The consequences of their erratic and rebellious behavior, brings the leprous plague on their homes. There are still the religious ones who attend church, but follow the mass in committing sins. They chant: ‘everybody is doing it!’ Now listen. Pain and problems in our life is a signal to “check out our life and set it right.’ Friends, God does not want to destroy you, but He is keen on cleansing and purifying us to inherit the Kingdom of heaven.
PLAGUE OF UNRIGHTEOUS LIVING:
I know of some palatial houses with plush interior decorations that are lying idle without yielding any financial benefits for the owner, either they are unoccupied or there may be continuous repairs.
Job 15:28 says “He dwells in desolate cities, In houses which no one inhabits, Which are destined to become ruins. “
In some cases, there may be continuous illness, divorces, deaths , mental illness and accidents may keep attacking the family one by one, thereby darkness engulfs that house. You may wonder, ‘hey, what’s happening? May be a leprous plague has affected the house! Don’t close your eyes to the fact! Dig deep into the past and set right your records, otherwise the plague would never go! Friend, if there is black money involved in the purchase of your palatial, splendid home or if the land value is underestimated in order to make profit on the registration fees,mark it today, it is leprous. Make a thorough investigation of all your past activities and clean the records and remove the stain of sin, if not, curses would eventually hit the home.
Hear God’s warning: Ezekiel 13:11 “say to those who plaster it with untempered mortar, that it will fall. There will be flooding rain, and you, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall tear it down.”
Righteous living is absolutely important to have a blessed home, I am talking about both the physical building as well as our life. Any form of cheating would bring curses on our home, be it medical insurance, vehicle insurance, leave travel allowances, travel allowances, there are many ways people embezzle money through fake vouchers and false claims. Jeremiah 22:3" Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness And his chambers by injustice..” I remember an engineer tell me with pain, “sister, when I read out your devotions that emphasize righteous living, people just close their ears.’ Oh yeah, people don’t want to listen to me! They feel I am just too much; not at all people, God wants us to be holy and clean. Lev 19:13 says, 'You shall not cheat your neighbor, nor rob him.”
Some homes are filled with strife, misunderstandings, quarrels and debts; surely there is a leprous plague that needs to be cleansed. Friend, you may deck up the home with the best of things; nevertheless, the façade begins to peel and crack when there is a problem. No amount of colorful wall-paintings, gorgeous interiors and lush garden, can bring joy to a home; only JESUS CHRIST can bring joy into our life. Give Him a shout of praise! Elegantly and tastefully designed homes are stinking because of sin! I tell you punishment would surely follow sin!
Take the case of B. Ramalinga Raju, former chairman of Satyam Computers who had admitted to an accounting fraud to the tune of 7000 crore rupees or 1.5 Billion US Dollars, he had cheated six million shareholders, some of whom have lost their entire life savings. Though he has been granted bail on August 18, 2010, do you know he still has to hang around the hospital? Raju is under treatment in NIMS hospital for Hepatitis C and the doctors say that he is still running a high risk of infection as the count of his white blood corpuscles was only 2000 against a normal of 12,000. Also he still needs to be administered a weekly dose of 16 injections. Well, it is clearly evident that his home is affected by the leprous plague!
We read of a short man Zacchaeus in Luke chapter 19, though Zacchaeus was rich and an influential man, yet he was not happy. This short man took all efforts to see Jesus. His social status did not deter him from climbing the sycamore tree to have a glimpse of Jesus. Jesus honors a true seeker! Jesus who knows the intents of our hearts, stopped near the tree, looked up and called out to Zacchaeus, mentioning his name. From here, the life of Zacchaeus was never the same!
The life of this short man is surely enthralling and never fails to draw tears from my eyes, each time I read about him. His instant heart-change is amazing! The Bible quotes, ‘he received Jesus joyfully..” Wait a minute, this is no small gesture, a person who receives Jesus has to go through the next step of leaving the world! Most of the Christians unflinchingly compromise with the world and its ways. As you walk towards Jesus, you need to walk away from the world and its ways! I am speaking to someone out there! This is a staggering statement of Zacchaeus: Luke 19:8’Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold." Phew! This obedience and immediate surrender of Zacchaeus brought salvation to his entire family, on one single day. Amazing! Many of us are dragging our feet too long and that is why plague lingers in our home, hindering blessings from flowing into our homes.
After salvation, I heard of a police officer who walked away from his palatial home, which had been built through corruption money, and moved into a small rental home, to start his life afresh with God. Merlin R Carothers, author of ‘Prison to Praise’ book, flushed fresh dollar bills in the toilet, because they were illegal money. Such should be our conviction and action against sin. Are my words making any impact? I wonder!
Psalm 146:8 says ‘The LORD loves the righteous.’ Ah! This is just lovely! God loves the righteous! Should we not clean up our lives, in order to have our God love us?
If the plague persists, Verse 44, 45 says, “He shall have the house torn down, its stones and timber and all the plaster of the house, and taken outside the city to an unclean place.” The house needs a thorough revamp. The whole house needed to be torn down. God can not tolerate half-hearted obedience. Half-hearted obedience is no obedience at all! Sin has to be torn down!
If you are living with a married man, who belongs to another woman, you cannot stay with him and look for solution; you need to walk out of that home. After a meeting, a lady who had been receiving monitory help from a married man, with whom she has been living, was convinced after my message, that Jesus was her ‘source’ of blessing. She decided not to accept money from him anymore, but cut off the unholy connection immediately. It was a bold decision but she took a step of faith and did that. If you are involved in a business which is against the teachings of God, come out of it immediately. Isaiah 1:16 " Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil..”
PLAGUE ON THE WALL/ IDOL WORSHIP:
Leviticus 14:37’And he shall examine the plague; and indeed if the plague is on the walls of the house with ingrained streaks, greenish or reddish, which appear to be deep in the wall.’
Unwanted pictures are plague on the walls! The walls of some Christian homes are adorned by paintings that depicts idols, dragons, which they might look harmless, but this would bring curses into our homes. Beware! We need to be careful about some paintings that we buy. When you visit countries deeply immersed in idol worship, be careful what you take back home as a souvenir. They may be symbols of idol worship. For instance did you know dragon, swastik are symbols of worship? Be careful! You can check out my website and look into the sermon column, where I have given the many symbols of worship.
When we moved to Hyderabad, we found it tremendously difficult to find a house without idols engraved either on the main doors or on the wall outside the main gate. Would you believe if I tell you that we scanned at least 100 houses before we finally settled? Not many bother to go to such extents, though. Living in an idol worshipping country, it is extremely difficult to be choosy, however, our God commands us to flee from idols. (1 Cor 10:4) Observe the word ‘flee’ here, which emphasizes the importance to stay far away from such contamination! This message comes as a warning alarm!
Deuteronomy 7:25, 26”You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the LORD your God. Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.”
Friends, there are some people who would remove the idols from their home and give it to their relatives. This is wrong, thereby, you are transferring the leprous plague into another home. Let us not look at it as a thing of value, they are idols and they need to be thrown into the garbage. We walked into an idol worshipping family who were suffering for many years from witchcraft. The father had been murdered by his relatives and they had done witchcraft to the wife, son and two daughters in order to grab their property. Though all three of them were graduates, but none of them were working, but they stayed locked up inside their apartment, for fear of the relatives. I offered each one of them a Bible and prayed for them. The word “Redeemer’ touched the eldest son and the entire family accepted Jesus. We collected around five sacks of idols from their home and through it into the gutter. The leprous plague was cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ! Leviticus 14:53”…..make atonement for the house, and it shall be clean.”
We were asked to pray for a married woman with two small children, who was suffering with advanced cancer. When we visited their home, we found that her mom and dad followed different faith; the mother was a Christian, while the father was a hindu. They celebrated the hindu festivals as well as the Christian festivals, but God’s wrath came on the eldest daughter who was attacked with cancer. Though we warned them to purge sins and consecrate their lives to God, the family besides idol worship was also highly into worldly pleasures and were actively going the broad way. The father was against Christianity and was against the family coming to our prayer meetings. Shortly the lady died after going through excruciating pain and struggle. I was there for the funeral! Even after this, the father nor the family did not change their ways, though. Within a year the father shockingly died of heart attack, I was there for the funeral. Within the next six months, the mother had a paralysis attack on the right side of her body, which left her immobile. I literally witnessed the family wither, shrivel and shatter! Leprous plague consumed their home! Deuteronomy 13:17”So none of the accursed things shall remain in your hand, that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of His anger and show you mercy, have compassion on you and multiply you, just as He swore to your fathers..”
The first thing that Founder of CBN(Christian Broadcasting Network)Pat Roberson did after an encounter with Jesus was to remove the nude picture of a woman that decorated his living room, next he emptied barrels of beer bottles that were stored in the shelf. He poured into the sink. Friend, obedience to His Word is to purge the sins from our life and not cover them.
I quote here a few scriptures:
Job 4:19 “How much more those who dwell in houses of clay, Whose foundation is in the dust, Who are crushed before a moth?”
Lev 11: 44 “For I am the LORD your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy.”
Everything from the pictures on the wall to all the things on our shelves, the music on our CDs, the videos that we watch everything needs to be cleansed. As long as you have fake passports, ration cards, fake educational/experience certificates, anything that is not truth, then the house is leprous. After salvation, we smashed the audio and video movie CDs and threw them in the garbage. We did not retain a single one. We stopped reading magazines that would mar our holy life. Anything big or small, which would tempt you to sin needs be purged. We deleted every single pirated soft ware in our computers. Every single item in our home needs to be purified and purged from sins, be it mobiles, music instruments, whatever, they belong to God!
LEPROUS PLAGUE OF HATRED AND BITTERNESS:
Do you know hatred and bitterness also is a plague that attacks our home? Our homes have to be filled with the love of Jesus. There is no fun in carrying a giant size Bible if you cannot love others. There are people who have a religious look on the outside but they gossip and speak ill behind the back of people. This is an absolutely toxic behavior which brings plague on your home. We need to love our church as well as our church members. No fun in calling each other brother and sister, if true love does not exist.
Jesus said “This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.”
Love your people at home. God hates to see brothers and sisters fighting in the court for property issues. There are church-goers who call themselves elders of the church, but who do not talk with their own family members. This is a leprous plague, let us repent and change.
PLAGUE OF SPIRITUAL STAGNATION AND BARRENESS:
Many of the Christian homes have failed to inherit peace, joy and health because they have been complacent in spiritual growth. Do we love Him enough, so as to aggressively separate time to be with Him?
Ecclesiastes 10:18 “Because of laziness the building decays, And through idleness of hands the house leaks.”
Our homes should not only be cleansed of idols, corruptions, immorality, bitterness and sins, but it should also be filled with worship. We need to set aside time for our living God who blesses us. Let’s get this straight, God dwells not in the midst of our materialistic abundance, but in the midst of our praises. Glory to Jesus! We may even give our tithing diligently, but we fail to seek God wholeheartedly, then we will fail to reap blessings; a leprous plague would linger in our home. A husband and wife would diligently attend our weekly meeting, week after week, yet the woman was struggling from demonic attacks. Spiritual laziness and complacency were the reasons behind the demon’s attack on the family. Family prayer as well individual worship is very important to keep away the enemy from our home.
A Christian family with two children called us to pray for their home. Both husband and wife were very well educated and placed in good jobs, however, they had a peculiar problem in their home; midnight they would hear odd sounds in their bedroom and the woman would have bad dreams. This happened night after night. One particular night, they heard the noise of a heavy rod being banged against their bedroom, the family thought that it may be thieves and they even called for the police, but the police after a thorough search found nothing and left the place. One particular night, the woman was dragged out from her bed, by a tall man dressed in black. (She gave me the exact description of the entire event of that night, including the long black robe that the man wore) She tried showing the rosary, but the man pulled the rosary and cut it into pieces. The woman felt all this was happening in a dream, however, when she woke up, she actually found the rosary in pieces on her bed. This was proof that whatever happened that night was no dream! I know this sounds eerie! We started visiting their home regularly and sharing the Word. This family has a big statue of Mary in the living room; however, they personally admitted that they do not spend time reading the Word diligently. Friends, without true passion for Jesus, we cannot protect our home. A leprous plague in the form of demons had attacked their home, because they failed to truly worship God. They had statues decorated with colorful flash bulbs, flowers and they had the rosary but failed to honor Jesus with their time and love. Alas, the devil had an easy access into their home because the aroma of Christ was not inside that home. Beware!
Many of us are dashing in and dashing out of our homes, with leisure time spent in front of TV. We have ignored God and that’s why our homes are infected with plague. Just one look at the flourishing business of the medical shops and the numerous hospitals, reveal that money is going into the drain. God promised us: Exodus 15:26, "If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you." This is no fairy tale or electoral promise, but the promise of God, claim it.
Let us give heed to the servants of God who advice us but many times people are looking for blessings rather than correction:
2 Chronicles 36:15,16 And the LORD God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy.
Here is the promise for a wise man:
I want to quote the familiar, but powerful words of Jesus:
Mathew 7:24 "Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
Proverbs 21:20, 21 “There is desirable treasure, And oil in the dwelling of the wise, But a foolish man squanders it. He who follows righteousness and mercy Finds life, righteousness, and honor.”
God bless you!
