Day 6: What Is in Your House
"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." — Deuteronomy 7:26
The Souvenir on the Shelf
Today's lesson is the most physical of the twelve. It will require you to get up and walk through your own house.
God gave His people a duty that has been almost entirely forgotten in the modern church: "They shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the unholy, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean" (Ezekiel 44:23).
Ask yourself honestly — has anyone ever taught you that? Most believers could not name five things Scripture calls unclean. And so our homes, our offices, and even our church buildings quietly fill up with objects that provide legal standing for the enemy in our lives.
The command could not be plainer:
"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." (Deuteronomy 7:25-26)
Note two things. First, the value of the object is irrelevant — God specifically warns against being seduced by the gold on it. Second, the consequence is not embarrassment. It is destruction like it. Whatever the object is doomed to, the household becomes subject to.
Objects Made for Darkness Cannot Be Cleansed
Here is a distinction worth learning carefully, because it saves a great deal of confusion.
Any object made specifically for use in the service of darkness is cursed and cannot be cleansed. It must be destroyed. Idols. Statues of false gods. Occult jewelry and symbols. Ritual items. Charms and fetishes. Objects created for divination.
You cannot pray over an idol and make it holy. Israel was never told to sanctify Canaan's images; they were told to burn them.
Other objects — ordinary things that have been used wrongly or received from the wrong hands — can often be anointed, cleansed, and the curse broken off them in Jesus' name. Discernment is needed, and the Holy Spirit gives it when asked.
A sobering estimate: roughly half of the souvenirs sold in tourist shops around the world are cursed objects, because they depict the local culture — and the center of most cultures is its religion.
Three Households, Three Discoveries
The figurines and the curse of poverty. A Christian family outside Chicago had prospered for years — the husband was a gifted businessman — until suddenly everything failed. Five years later they had lost their home and nearly every asset. Both were working. Nothing stabilized. They had prayed and fasted extensively. They were certain a curse was on their finances and could not break it.
They were asked what cursed objects were in their home. They could not think of a single one.
They were advised to go home, get down on the floor together, and plead with the Lord to reveal what unclean thing was in their house. As they prayed, there was a crash by the front door, then another in the bedroom. Two figurines — expensive gifts from the husband's father, purchased on trips through Mexico, both depicting a beggar — lay shattered across the floor. The larger one had a lead-weighted base and could not tip over.
They repented, asked forgiveness for having them in the house, broke the curse of poverty, and carried the pieces out. Four years later, they had prospered again and everything lost had been replaced.
Were the figurines idols? Probably not. But something had been attached to them — and the Lord in mercy destroyed them Himself.
The bracelet and the dying wife. A young medical missionary couple in Kenya. Both devoted. Within months of arrival she fell ill; no diagnosis could be found in Kenya or at a major American medical center. She was clearly dying and no one knew why.
Talking with her husband, one detail stood out: a braided string bracelet on his arm. Where had he gotten it? From a tribal witch doctor. The clinic leadership required every new arrival to meet the witch doctors and accept their bracelets — to keep relations friendly, to prevent jealousy, to keep patients coming.
Every member of that clinic had been made to partake of an unclean thing. Predictably, the staff suffered an extraordinary rate of trouble. As long as she wore a bracelet given as a token of goodwill toward priests of demons, the associated spirits had legal right to destroy her.
The bracelets were removed and destroyed. They repented of partaking in an unclean thing and broke the curses of destruction.
"Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?" (2 Corinthians 6:14)
The fan on the living room wall. A well-dressed woman in Chicago approached after a meeting. She and her husband had been happily married thirty years. Neither had ever struggled with sexual temptation. Then they took a vacation to Japan, and since returning, both had been relentlessly plagued by lustful thoughts. Neither had fallen — but neither could clear their minds.
The Holy Spirit had drawn her attention to a souvenir: an expensive hand-painted fan hanging in their living room. She saw no occult symbol on it — just a woman in a garden, her face painted white.
A geisha. An object honoring and glorifying a life of paid sexual entertainment. Spirits of immorality had legal right to be attached to it, and as long as it hung in that home, they were in that home.
Handling What Belongs to Darkness
There is a related hazard most Christians never consider: touching the unclean, even briefly, even to remove it.
"If a person touches any unclean thing... and he is unaware of it, he also shall be unclean and guilty." (Leviticus 5:2)
A godly man named David — a leader in a Bible study, a man of prayer — went to help a new believer pray through a rented house where she was being tormented at night. In the yard she showed him the remains of an animal killed and mutilated in a manner consistent with a satanic sacrifice. She asked him to remove it. He picked it up with his hands, bagged it, and put it in the garbage.
That night he came under violent demonic attack. The next day it nearly caused a car accident. He used his authority in Jesus' name and the attacks continued.
The key was found in conversation: he had handled something sacrificed to demons and had never prayed afterward to break the resulting curse. Anything sacrificed to darkness is regarded by demons as holy to themselves — and anyone outside that service who touches or destroys such a sacrifice is immediately cursed.
He could have used a shovel. He should have prayed for protection first and broken any curse afterward. When he did — asking the Lord to cleanse him from touching an unclean thing, commanding the curse broken and the demons out in Jesus' name — the attacks stopped instantly and never returned.
We are not to walk in fear. We are to walk wisely. When we must handle what has been given to darkness, we pray for protection first and break any curse afterward. That is not superstition. It is the same care a surgeon takes with gloves.
Point to Ponder
What you display in your home, you have given a place in your home.
Verse to Remember
"Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it." — Deuteronomy 7:26
Question to Consider
If the Holy Spirit walked through my house today and stopped in front of one object, which one would it be?
Today's Practice
This one takes an afternoon. Do it anyway.
Before you begin, pray. "Holy Spirit, I am asking You to walk through this house with me and show me anything unclean. I want nothing here that gives the enemy a claim on my family."
Then go room by room. Not a glance — a search. Closets, drawers, bookshelves, the garage, the attic, the storage boxes you have not opened since you moved.
Look for: statues, carvings, and images of gods from any religion; masks; occult symbols on jewelry, clothing, wall art, or décor; items brought back from temples, shrines, or sacred sites; charms, amulets, crystals, dreamcatchers, talismans; divination tools of any kind — cards, boards, pendulums, charts; books and materials on magic, spiritism, and the occult; music and media with explicit occult content; and children's toys and media built around occult powers. Look closely at gifts you did not choose and do not love. Look at anything you have felt oddly uneasy about and dismissed.
Watch for the physical signals. More than one family has discovered the object by noticing where they felt ill every time they walked through a certain part of a room.
Then act. Objects made for the service of darkness: destroy them — burn them where safe, break them, dispose of them outside your home. Do not sell them; do not pass the problem to someone else. Handle nothing devoted to sacrifice with bare hands.
As you remove each item, pray aloud:
"Father, forgive me for bringing this into my home. I repent of it. In the name of Jesus Christ, I break every curse that has come upon me, my family, and my household through this object, and I command every demon spirit associated with it to leave my home now and never return."
When you are done, anoint your home with oil, room by room, and dedicate it to the Lord.
Prayer
Father, I never intended to make room for anything unclean. But I see now that intentions were never the point — ownership was.
Forgive me for the things I have brought under my roof out of ignorance, sentiment, curiosity, or vanity. I renounce every one of them. I do not want beauty, memory, or heritage badly enough to keep a door open in my own house.
Show me what I have missed. Make me sensitive to what You call clean and unclean. And let this home be a place where Your presence is welcome and nothing else has a claim.
As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Day 6 of 12 — Some things cannot be cleansed. They can only be carried out.