The Blood Covenant #17: Redeemed From the Curse of Sickness

The blood covenant means God gives us everything He has, and we give Him everything we are. In this seventeenth week of the series, the pastor teaches that believers have been redeemed from the curse of spiritual death, poverty and sickness, but that those promises stay dormant until the Holy Spirit makes them real through revelation of God’s Word. This message continues from The Blood Covenant #16: The Spirit Reveals What the Blood Purchased and focuses on healing.

Below you will find the full video, a summary of the sermon, the Scripture behind each point (NKJV on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline and practical steps.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was preached at NTC Ministries and posted on April 27, 2021. It runs about 75 minutes and ends with communion. The pastor had thought of ending the healing teaching the week before, but felt the Lord tell him to teach this part first, before moving on to poverty. His core idea: redemption is already paid for, but it has to be received, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes it work in your life through the Word.

The Blood Covenant Is Two-Sided

The pastor opens by restating the definition he has used throughout the series: covenant means to cut until blood flows. It is a compact that puts all of God’s authority and kingdom at our disposal, which is why Jesus could say it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom (Luke 12:32). Romans 3:25 says Jesus was set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood, so we need to understand what that blood has done and what it is worth.

He traces covenant through Scripture. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins (Hebrews 9:22), so God covered Adam and Eve with an animal’s skin. He gave Noah the rainbow as a covenant sign, then found Abram as a legal way into the earth. Jesus came as the last Adam, the final head of authority for mankind.

Why does God send people to hell? The pastor’s answer: He never does. Since Adam sinned, everyone is born on a path to destruction, and Jesus offers another road. Broad is the way that leads to destruction, but narrow is the way that leads to life (Matthew 7:13–14), and that way depends entirely on what Jesus has done, not on our works.

Yet after salvation there is work to do, because the blood covenant has two sides. We receive His protection and His kingdom; He receives our obedience and our willingness to stand up for Him. That exchange runs through the whole message.

Redeemed From the Curse: Potential and Kinetic Power

The pastor recaps the previous week. Redemption means being taken from one thing and brought into another. Satan held us hostage, and Jesus paid the ransom with His own blood. We were redeemed from the curse in three areas: spiritual death, poverty and sickness. We have been delivered from darkness into His marvelous light, and from death, hell and the grave into eternal life.

That eternal life is zoe, which he explains as life as God has it. Eternity is about quality, not only length, and it starts now, because God always is. So there is no need for anxiety: He is already where we are heading.

The main text is Galatians 3:13–14. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, so that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles and we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Galatians 3:29 adds that if we belong to Christ, we are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise. Two things go together: being redeemed from the curse and receiving the promise of the Spirit.

To explain why both matter, the pastor turns to science class. There are two kinds of energy, potential and kinetic. The table below follows his illustration.

Creation itself shows the pattern. In Genesis 1:1–3, everything was there in potential until the Spirit of God moved and God spoke. In the same way, the pastor teaches, we are redeemed from the curse, but without the Holy Spirit we cannot partake of it. Jesus told Nicodemus that no one can see the kingdom unless he is born again (John 3:3), and the new birth is where we receive the promise of the Spirit.

Revelation, Not Just Information

1 Corinthians 2:9–12 is the hinge of the sermon. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, the things God has prepared for those who love Him. For the natural man, the pastor says, those things are potential but not kinetic. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit, and we have received the Spirit who is from God so that we might know the things freely given to us by God.

So he rejects the idea that God sends tragedy to teach us. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus came to give abundant life now, not eventually (John 10:10). So why are some believers not healed? Hearing something intellectually is not enough, he says; “you have to see with the eyes of your spirit.”

We are spirits, he explains, living in a body, with a soul made up of mind, will and emotions. The soul is a doorway between the spirit realm and the earth realm. Fill it with the world and you reap death; let the Spirit speak through the Word and life comes, because His words are spirit and life (John 6:63).

So the pastor urges every listener to read the Bible daily until it becomes a habit. At first it may feel boring, but keep pressing in until you long for it. Then something you have read many times will suddenly come alive, and when revelation comes from your spirit, he says, nobody will ever take it away from you.

He links this to growth. Paul could not give the Corinthians meat because they were still babies (1 Corinthians 3:1–2), and solid food belongs to those who are mature (Hebrews 5:13–14). The Holy Spirit grows us up from the basic principles, not away from them.

Redeemed From the Curse of Sickness

The pastor then turns to where the curse of sickness is written. Deuteronomy 28:1–14 lists the blessings, and the rest of the chapter lists the curses. The blessings were declared from rocky, jagged Mount Gerizim and the curses from a bare mound. His lesson: in a fallen world it is easier to live under curses, and it takes work to declare the blessings over your life.

He reads Deuteronomy 28:58–61, which speaks of extraordinary plagues. When it says God will bring them, he explains, God is not the delivery boy; He cannot defend those who will not keep their part of the blood covenant. Presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1) is that part.

He compares growth to a child who leaves dishes on the counter and finds them unwashed: Mom has decided it is his job now. Early on, miracles seem to just happen; later the Lord says, now you start doing something.

The central healing verse is 1 Peter 2:24: He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and by His stripes you were healed. The pastor teaches that if you were healed, you are healed, because the curse of sin is sickness and the same verse deals with both. If you sin, ask forgiveness and be cleansed by the blood. If you get sick, declare healing by the stripes of Jesus in the same way.

He also reviews Revelation 19:11–13, where the rider on the white horse wears a robe dipped in blood and is called the Word of God, and connects it to John 1:1–3. Then Psalm 107:20 gives the prophetic picture: “He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” Jesus is that Word, and we keep receiving it by renewing our minds (Romans 12:2) and washing our souls with the water of the Word (Ephesians 5:26).

Why do some people lose their healing? The pastor recalls Oral Roberts saying that, by their follow-up, only about 40 percent stayed healed. God was not too weak; people did not learn how to keep what they were given, even though they were redeemed from the curse. That is why Jesus said that if we continue in His word, we will know the truth and the truth will make us free (John 8:31–32).

Incline Your Ear: Our Side of the Covenant

God’s side of the blood covenant is beyond anything we could ask or think. If He did not withhold His own Son, how much more will He freely give us all things (Romans 8:32)? Our hundred percent is tiny by comparison, but it is still required. From Abraham, God asked for his only son (Genesis 22:2). What does He ask of us for healing? The pastor’s answer is that we go to the Word and commit our lives to it.

Proverbs 4:20–23 is the key text: “My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings.” They are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, the passage continues, because out of it spring the issues of life. The pastor points out that the issues of your life come from your own heart, not from your spouse, your children or the driver in traffic.

To show what inclining means, he uses a wheelbarrow. Pushing a loaded wheelbarrow across a flat floor is easy. Tip the building twenty degrees and you have to put your shoulder into it. To incline your ear is to keep hearing when it is not convenient, when it offends you, or when it confronts sin. Keep hearing, he says, and the Holy Spirit will bring a revelation that breaks your heart and leads you to repentance.

He points to the hard saying of John 6:53–68. Many left when Jesus spoke of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, but the twelve stayed because He had the words of life. They kept their ear inclined, and later even their shadows healed people.

The pastor shares his own story. In 1982 he worked construction 75 miles from home and went to night Bible college four nights a week; a woman called at midnight to say the Lord told her to pay his tuition. When the reading piled up, he taped the textbook to the steering wheel, and the carpool soon dwindled to just him. It was hard on the whole family, but within two years he was directing the night program and ministering in many churches.

Isaiah 55:3 says it in one verse: “Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live.” Then 3 John 1:2–4 links health to the soul: “I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” The soul prospers, the pastor says, by continuing to walk in truth even when the fight of faith is long.

He adds John 15:7–8 and explains that abide is the Greek word meno, to stay in a given place or expectancy. He compares it to staking a claim during the 1849 California gold rush and refusing to let claim jumpers take it. Proverbs 3:7–8 adds that fearing the Lord and departing from evil will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones.

The Lord Who Heals You

Paul says what happened to Israel was written for our admonition (1 Corinthians 10:11). So the pastor turns to the redemptive name Jehovah Rapha, the Lord our healer. He is not the Lord our destroyer. In Exodus 15:22–26, Israel found the waters of Marah bitter, and the Lord showed Moses a tree. When he cast it into the waters, they became sweet, and God declared, “I am the Lord who heals you.”

The pastor connects that tree to the cross. Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, and Jesus hung there for us. When we believe in His blood and incline our ear to what He wants, the bitterness of this corrupted world is changed into the sweetness of life with Jesus. Exodus 23:25 adds that God will bless our bread and water and take sickness away from our midst.

That is why he thanks God at meals for driving sickness far away. Saying grace comes from the blood covenant: Jesus gave thanks, broke bread and said to do this in remembrance of Him (Luke 22:19–20).

Faith is a noun, he says, like idle energy; belief is a verb, active toward the blood of Jesus. Then he reads Luke 4:16–21, where Jesus read Isaiah 61 in the synagogue and said, Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Healing, deliverance and freedom are yours today, he tells the church, and next week he will turn to being redeemed from poverty.

He warns against treating freedom as permission to do whatever we want: “Liberty only comes from doing what God wants.” It starts with confessing Jesus publicly, because the blood covenant leaves no room for a secret Christian life. He closes with the ten lepers in Luke 17:12–19. Nine were cleansed, but the one who returned to give thanks was made whole, with no lasting marks of the disease. That is what God wants for His people, and then the church shares communion.

Living the Blood Covenant This Week

Here are practical steps drawn directly from this blood covenant message on healing:

• Read the Bible every day. Keep at it until it becomes a habit you crave, even if it feels dull at first.
• Go back over familiar truth. Hear and meditate on the same promises again until the Holy Spirit makes them revelation for you.
• Declare blessing, not curses. Watch casual sayings, and speak the goodness of God over your life and body.
• Respond to sin and sickness the same way. Ask forgiveness and be cleansed, and declare healing by the stripes of Jesus from 1 Peter 2:24.
• Incline your ear when it is hard. Keep listening to the parts of the Word that confront you, and stay in fellowship with believers.
• Give thanks at the table. Thank God for blessing your food and taking sickness from your midst, as a reminder of covenant.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 Week 17: covenant means to cut until blood flows
• 1:14 Two sides of covenant, from Adam to Noah
• 2:11 The last Adam and why God sends no one to hell
• 4:20 Recap: redeemed from the curse
• 5:32 Zoe: eternal life as God has it
• 7:46 Galatians 3:13–14 and the promise of the Spirit
• 8:45 Potential and kinetic energy
• 10:00 1 Corinthians 2:9–12: revealed by His Spirit
• 13:14 Spirit, soul and body
• 15:25 Read your Bible every day
• 17:26 Deuteronomy 28: Gerizim and the curses
• 22:05 Deuteronomy 28:58–61 and our part of covenant
• 26:39 1 Peter 2:24: by His stripes you were healed
• 29:08 Revelation 19 and Psalm 107:20
• 36:18 Why some people lose their healing
• 41:38 What God asked of Abraham
• 42:56 Proverbs 4:20–23: incline your ear
• 46:40 The wheelbarrow on a slope
• 50:32 Bible college in 1982
• 56:10 Isaiah 55:3 and the ten lepers
• 1:00:48 John 15:7–8: abide and stake a claim
• 1:03:04 Jehovah Rapha and the waters of Marah
• 1:07:12 Luke 4: today this Scripture is fulfilled
• 1:12:11 Made whole, and communion

Blood Covenant Series

This message is part of a long teaching series at NTC Ministries. Start from the beginning or continue where this one leaves off:

• First message: The Blood Covenant
• Previous: The Blood Covenant #16: The Spirit Reveals What the Blood Purchased
• You are here: The Blood Covenant #17: Redeemed From the Curse of Sickness
• Next: The Blood Covenant #18 — Redeemed From the Curse of Sickness and Disease

Frequently Asked Questions

Does God put sickness on people to teach them a lesson?

No. The pastor says that is not what the Bible teaches. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, while Jesus came to give abundant life. When Deuteronomy says God will bring plagues, he explains, it means God allows them because He cannot defend someone who will not keep their side of the covenant. His redemptive name is Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals, not the Lord who makes us sick.

Is it a lack of faith if my healing does not come right away?

The pastor encourages people not to measure by the calendar. It may be a battle and it may take a long time, he says, but it does not matter how long if the outcome is victory. Keep walking in truth and keep the Word before your eyes. He testifies that he kept his own healing by getting into the Word.

Why does this message end with communion?

Communion remembers the body and blood of Jesus, the very blood that made the covenant. The pastor connects it to giving thanks at meals and to the cleansed leper who came back to praise Jesus and was made whole. Before the church partakes, he thanks God for redeeming lives from destruction and for healing every sickness and disease.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Galatians 3:13–14 — redeemed from the curse of the law
• 1 Corinthians 2:9–12 — revealed to us through His Spirit
• 1 Peter 2:24 — by His stripes you were healed
• Psalm 107:20 — He sent His word and healed them
• Proverbs 4:20–23 — incline your ear to my sayings
• Isaiah 55:3 — hear, and your soul shall live
• 3 John 1:2–4 — prosper and be in health
• Exodus 15:22–26 — I am the Lord who heals you
• Luke 4:16–21 — today this Scripture is fulfilled

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

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