Deuteronomy 27:1-28:14

Deuteronomy 27:1-28:14

Moses’ speech continues in Deuteronomy 27, but the focus is no longer on the long lists of laws that the Israelites were expected to keep. Moses now shifts to the results of obedience and disobedience. First, he tells the Israelites that when they cross the Jordan they must immediately build an altar to God, lest they forget how they entered the land. Moses did not want them to lose sight of who was really in control. It was not anything that they had done from the time that they lived in Egypt to the time that they would enter the land. If it was on account of their actions, they would have never made it. They constantly disobeyed God, doubted God’s leadership, and tried to do things their own way. Despite all their struggles and moments of disobedience, God remained faithful to the promise He had made and was ready to lead them into the Promised Land. Therefore, Moses wanted to make sure that they understood who was leading them there, and that He would get all the praise and glory for it.

The remainder of Deuteronomy 27 lists a series of curses. God expected obedience from His children, which is quite obvious from the last several chapters, but how can there be obedience if there are not also consequences for disobedience. If we were given a series of instructions, and these instructions would cause us to not be able to enjoy our favorite hobby or activity, would we follow these instructions if there was not a set of consequences? I would dare say that we would not. Since there are no consequences, we have no reason to follow the instructions, and we would end up doing exactly what we would want to do rather than obey the person in authority over us. Therefore, God had to give Israel a series of consequences so that they would understand why they should obey. Now obviously, when it comes to God we should want to obey Him no matter what. He is not just some ordinary hobby or activity; He should be our life! We should want to obey Him period; however, this is not always the case. We are all tempted, and we all fall, and when we do, God has laid out consequences.

Just as there were consequences for disobedience, there were also blessings for obedience. Once again, we should want to obey God anyways, but God promised the Israelites that they would be blessed if they were careful to follow His commands. Deuteronomy 28 lays out what those blessings would like. The biggest blessing mentioned is found in the opening verses. God promised Israel that if they would remain obedient to Him that He would make them greater than any other nation on earth. They were the nation that God was using to reach all the rest. God had specifically chosen them for this task. They were the light to the other nations, and the other nations would see God through them if they chose to remain obedient.

We tend to want to disregard the long lists of laws in the Old Testament thinking that they no longer apply. In reality, many of them do not apply anymore because they were given specifically to Israel under the Old Covenant. I wonder then how many people would want to say that the beginning of Deuteronomy 28 does not apply any longer either. Probably not many. The reason for this is that everyone wants to be blessed. We tend to think today that as long as we follow God, our lives will be easy and prosperous. We will not ever have to worry about anything in life because will supernaturally take care of any of our problems and worries. The reality is, however, that this is not true. We experience difficulties just like anyone else. It would be easy to try and apply the beginning of Deuteronomy 28 to our lives today and say that God is going to make us the most prosperous and wealthiest people on the earth due to our obedience, but I wonder if this only applied to the situation that Israel was in at the time. Maybe this promise of blessing was for them so that God could use them to reach out to the other nations. Nowhere in the New Testament under the New Covenant do we see that being a Christian will bring us prosperity. On the contrary, we see people being persecuted and suffering. Now do not get me wrong and think that God no longer blesses us, because He certainly does! But do not think that being a Christian will bring about a perfect life either. We are still blessed, just in different ways. We may not be made the greatest among the nations like Israel had been promised, but we have a Savior who is with us through every situation in life, the good and the bad. He provides for us, protects us, and stays with us through it all, and we can always call on Him when we need Him. That is the greatest blessing we could ever have, Jesus!

Matt