Over the years, humans have accepted that their bodies are subject to inherited ageing, weaknesses, and ailments or in general what is known as infirmity.
Unfortunately, infirmities and the other conditions follow the descendants of the human body since Adam and Eve.
Curses and infirmities are specific to families. Some are obvious but others are subtle!
These conditions, irrespective of their origin, affect the quality of life the human soul is experiencing in that body!
The scriptures clearly outline some of the curses that affect the human race.
Genesis 3:19 (NIV) “…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. ”
There are two curses in this one scripture that were pronounced after the first humans were deceived to disobey the Creator.
The first curse is the task of providing for the body. All evidence shows that it was not God’s original intention! Look at the birds and other beautiful animals in the wild and see God’s provision in real time! They eat the best diets and they don’t work the ground for it.
Matthew 6:26 (NIV) Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them…
This was God’s original intention for our free -willed ancestors who chose to live in stubbornness rather than under the guidance of their Creator!
Scriptures reveal that our bodies were not intended for physical death as we know it. Meaning that when our time was over here on earth we could have simply transitioned to the next world without dying!
What evidence do we have?
There are three recorded full-body human transitions to the spiritual world that testify to this fact! These humans went with their bodies! Enoch the great grandfather of Noah was taken away by God, prophet Elijah was taken by chariots of fire and Jesus Himself ascended to the sky with his resurrected body, an event witnessed by his disciples.
The physical body is not needed in the spiritual world. How wonderful could it have been for us if it was destroyed when out of sight in space. It could have been a way of joining our Father without causing grief to those who are left behind to deal with the body of the departed!
This brings us to the second curse, the curse of the body dying by gradually falling apart in a chemical process called ageing. Now, after this declaration, dying was to happen but not so fast because human bodies still lasted for hundreds of years, nearly 1000 years to be precise (Read Genesis chapter 5).
Man continued to displease God further! Then a harsher punishment followed, the curse of accelerated ageing of the body before it dies and the soul leaves!
Gen 6:3 (NLT) … In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years.”
Human bodies that could self repair and live for hundreds of years started crumbling quickly! If you don’t believe me, try to dig out a human skeleton, it will still be intact even after 1000 years in the ground, meaning that it was designed for a long life!
Early ageing is an inherited body condition that pre-flood generation didn’t have. They all lived for many years.
Now, no medical remedy can reverse it. No amount of medication will make your body live longer than 120 years. You may prolong a human body’s age medically but the quality of life may not be worth it!
Why can’t a human body live to a healthy 120 years? There are many factors but all tied to our fallen human nature!
Rebellion towards our Creator comes on top of the list! We mock the very idea about the existence of the Creator through ingrained and inherited thought patterns shaped by formal or informal knowledge acquisition! Our actions, social or religious beliefs do not help either! We continue to heap curses on ourselves by worshiping our human abilities anchored on the background of our ancestral heritage!
Moses was a man who was synonymous with humility. His age before death is a perfect example of how a life of obedience leads to a healthy body living to see 120 years! The bible says that Moses died in good health.
Deuteronomy 34:7 (NIV) Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone
Moses had hit the human longevity ceiling of 120 years that still stands today (Wikipedia, a list of the verified oldest humans).
In contrast, another leader who had also pleased God in other ways could not live beyond 70 years. King David even though he thought that we should all live to 70 or 80 years died younger than he should have been!
He may have written the words in Psalm 90:10 in his deathbed, a logical explanation of why he was toying with the idea that human longevity is between 70 and 80 years! Unfortunately, he didn’t make it to 80.
Psalm 90:10 (NIV) Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
The bible says that David was a man after God’s heart. David became a victim of the curse of premature death due to sexual immorality!
Genesis 6:2-3 (NIV) the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
Given that, fast ageing came from the same thing that David practiced, by marrying any woman he wanted and covering his actions with an official ceremony, and not realising that marriage does not make wrongs right but repentance does! David had many illegal relationships.
2 Samuel 5:13 (NLT) After moving from Hebron to Jerusalem, David married more concubines and wives, and they had more sons and daughters.
This was surely not something that pleased God, no wonder though a celebrated battle hero he could only live to see 70. He fell for the sin that the bible says affect our own bodies, an open or secretive sexual lust or practice!
1 Corinthians 6:18 (NIV) …whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.
Like anyone who has relations with more than one ‘partner’, David could have suffered from a sexually transmitted disease as hinted by the following scripture.
Psalm 38:5,7 (BSB) My wounds are foul and festering because of my sinful folly…For my loins are full of burning pain, and no soundness remains in my body.
Surely, David had an unrestrained sexual appetite! Why else would he go against God’s constitution for Israel that prohibited him from marrying many wives?
Deuteronomy 17:17 (NLT) The king must not take many wives for himself…
The writer who recorded David’s story in the first book of Chronicles reveal that David looked full of years, meaning that he looked old when he died!
1 Chronicles 29:28 (NIV) He died at a good old age…
This was a surprise to me when I researched on his real age at his death. He was a king and therefore had the best health care possible during his time. You could argue that the medical world was not that developed, but I could argue that most of the current deadly diseases were nonexistence! David had only one problem that crashed his body earlier than it was supposed to, the curse of sexual immorality! Moses who lived longer and earlier than David didn’t have that!
It is obvious that sexual immorality make the human body age quickly. Unfortunately people look themselves in the mirror and say ‘I can’t age or die even if I sinned against my own body’. I will use makeup or plastic surgery! You may hold on for a while but you will surely crumble like a paper bag sooner rather than later as the curse strikes! You will then become incapacitated, needing support with daily living, eventually signing yourself into an early death list!
Besides sexual immorality, there are other reasons that point to an early death. Such as, wickedness, foolish living (could be obvious ones like laziness, drugs, alcohol intake, wrong diet or living on bad food for the body), our own cleverness and dishonoring our parents!
See the scriptures below.
Ecclesiastes 7:17 But don’t be too wicked or too foolish, either—why die before you have to?
Proverbs 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Ephesians 6:2-3 (NLT)“Honor your father and mother.” This is the first commandment with a promise: If you honor your father and mother, “things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.”
1 Corinthians 6:18 (NIV) Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.
Let us resist body addictions for they are nothing but wishes of evil beings living in us. We are by default demonised until we get delivered through the Word of God.
If you study how demons operate, you will quickly realise that they will want to use your body to experience the world! This can range from sexual pleasures, alcohol, drugs, to food. In so doing, they destroy your body and they don’t care!
After demons have used your body like a floor rug or a toy until it dies, they jump to the next willing body!
John 10:10 (NIV) The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy…
The devil is a thief and he came to steal, kill and destroy! He will use deception to destroy your destiny and eventually your life!
Let’s never get surprised when a human lives to a healthy 90 or 100 years for they are still short of God’s intended age limit of 120 years!
What is the way forward? We need to humble ourselves spiritually, repent (turn our mindset from open or secretive evil desires), and, in the privacy of our room, seek God. God is Spirit and those who want to connect to Him must do so in Spirit and in truth. John 4:24 (NIV) God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth..
Read more on other curses that affect humans and how to get rid of them!
[Article Author: Joseph GM]
Live In Spiritual Victory 