Speaking Blessings

Speaking Blessings

Numbers 6:22-27

(Wed. Evening Service - June 9, 2004)

I. GOD BLESS YOU! OR “GESUNDHEIT” EVERYONE HAS HEARD THIS WHEN THEY HAVE A COLD OR HAY FEVER.

1. We all like to be blessed.

. . . . a. How often do we speak blessing to others?

. . . . b. When somebody sneezes we say "God bless you!" Or "gesundheit!"

. . . . c. That's probably about the extent of blessing we speak to others.

. . . . d. Do we really know what it means?

II. ORIGIN OF "GOD BLESS YOU"

1. The phrase God bless you!" is thought to have originated in Europe in 1347.

. . . . a. It was at that time the bubonic plague spread throughout Europe and other parts of the world killing 25 million people.

. . . . b. Every day thousands would die. Horse-drawn carts went through the villages picking up the dead to be buried or burned. Drivers would shout, "Bring out your dead!'

. . . . c. One of the first symptoms of the disease was a sneeze. When a person sneezed it meant they could be dead within a few hours.

. . . . d. Those who heard the sneeze would speak a blessing by saying, "God bless you".

. . . . e. In Germany, they would say, "gesundheit!" which means "health". According to the encyclopedia, in that part of the world, it was believed that sneezing opened up an area in one's body that evil spirits could enter. Gesundheit was a form of a blessing in order to keep out the demons when the body was defenseless.

. . . . f. The idea is, they spoke a blessing over someone else.

. . . . g. You might be thinking that it didn't do any good to say "God bless" you because 25 million people died. That was one-third of the population of Europe. That leaves 2/3's who lived and who is to say that it wasn't the blessing that saved them?

III. THERE IS POWER IN OUR WORDS

Proverbs 18:21, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof."

1. There is power in the words that we speak, especially when we speak the Words of promises out of the Bible. Those are blessings.

. . . . a. Words spoken that are contrary to the Word of God can become a curse.

2. Prov. 26:2 says, 'As the sparrow in her wandering and the swallow in her flight, so the curse does not come without a cause." There is a reason behind every curse and usually, we're our own worst enemy.

. . . . a. God says, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6)

. . . . b. What we don't know about blessing & curses can hurt us. What we do know will bless us.

. . . . c. Cursing isn't just taking the Name of God in vain. You can speak a curse with words that are negative (or contrary) to the Word of God.

. . . . d. EXAMPLES: Parent to child, "You never do anything right, You'll never amount to anything, You're no good, just like your father/mother, etc.

. . . . e. We can bring on curses on ourselves with words. Self-imposed curses can come from words like, "You're driving me crazy". . . "I just can't take it anymore". .or.. "It runs in the family so I guess I'll get it next".. . "I can't afford to tithe" (And you won't if you don't tithe).

1. Faith works both ways, negatively or positively. You can have faith in the Promises of God. That's positive faith which will bring blessings

2. Or you can have faith in yourself and your own abilities, your own reasoning. That's negative faith that can bring on curses.

3. But we're not going to get into Curses. We're going to study blessings.

. . . . a. A blessing can cancel any curse. "Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world." Light overcomes darkness and we are the light of the world when we speak and live the Word of God.

. . . . b. We should be sure to speak blessings instead of curses.

IV. WHAT EXACTLY IS A BLESSING?

1. The first thing God did after creating Adam/Eve was to speak a blessing over them.

. . . . a. Gen. 1:28, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.