Blessing or Cursing? Deuteronomy 10-12

Deuteronomy 12:28 (ESV)

Be careful to obey all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God.

This is a good summary verse for this section of Deuteronomy.   Moses, as his life is drawing to a close, is outlining and reviewing all the commands of God to the nation of Israel.  Joshua will be taking the people into the promise land and Moses is laying out their requirements to continue to worship God.    Moses started these chapters with these admonishments:

Deuteronomy 10:12 (ESV)

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

Deuteronomy 10:16 (ESV)

Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.

God does not want them to enter the promise land and forget who He is.  He is warning them to not take up the gods of the nations He is about to dispossess in the promise land.  Note:

Deuteronomy 12:29-30 (ESV)

“When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’

God is a jealous God.  He does not want us to worship anyone but Him.   There is no need to worship anyone but Him, since He is the only true God.  All other gods are the imagination of man’s evil heart.   Yahweh is the only true God.    In this section He makes it clear that if they obey Him, He will continue to bless them.  But, if they disobey Him, He will bring cursing on them.  That is the essence of God’s plan.  Obedience equals blessings and disobedience equals cursing:

Deuteronomy 11:26-28 (ESV)

“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.

Grace to Win the Inward War - James 4-5

 James 4:3-6 (ESV)

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

In this section of James the Apostle is telling us why we have fights and feuds among us.  He tells us it is because of the “lust and passion” that “war” within us (vss 1 and 2).  As he develops that theme he goes on to say what we read above.   He wants us to be able to pray to God (a topic he uses to close this letter to the churches) but realizes that we can’t hope to pray right if our heart is wrong.   Our heart is wrong when we don’t realize that the heart is in love with sin, expressed by a desire to live like the world.  Throughout the book of James we are being instructed to live unusual non-worldly lives.   James gives us some deep theology when he writes about the fact that we have a spirit in us that “years jealously.”    The evilness that is in us is at war with the goodness God placed in us.   There is a real war going on in our hearts each day.  The evil spirit in us yearns for sin.  The Holy Spirit in us years for godliness (the fruits of the Spirit).   What James is telling us concerns the matter of this on-going war.  The more we ware friends with the world’s ways, the more the Spirit is grieved within us and the more the war between our natural flesh and God rages on.  For the believer that war is finished as to the victory at the end, but it never-the-less is a constant fight in this present world.   What is the answer?   James gives it to us at the end of the above section.   BUT HE GIVES MORE GRACE!  The only answer to this war within us is the grace of God forwarded to us.   God gives grace to the humble.  We can’t fight this war by working harder in our own flesh.  Remember, our flesh is the thing that is at war with God.   The only way to conquer the worldly desires in us is through the grace of God, given freely to those who submit in humility to God.  When we constantly resist God and think we can do this on our own, we look more and more like the world. That is the very thing James wants us to avoid.    The answer for the war in us is the grace of God given freely to us.  When we ask in humility we receive grace to conquer the war within us.  

Keep Your Eye On the Main Thing - Acts 11-12

 Acts 11:27-30 (ESV)

Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

Acts 12:25 (ESV)

And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark.

In the above verses we have a report of a mission that was conducted by the early church to care for those impacted by a natural, geographical incident.   This would have been considered a world wide famine.   (In between 11:30 and 12:25 is another entire story about the church involving persecution).   When Agabus prophesied about the famine, the church took action.   They immediately began to think of the impact this famine would have on new believers, their brothers and sisters in Christ.    God provided them inside information and they did not simply spiritualize it and say that God would simply provide.   God does provide in the middle of world wide crisis and in minor crisis.  But, He intends the Body of Christ, believers, to care for each other.   Barnabas and Saul (Paul) were sent out to complete the mission.  The first missionary journey in the early church history was not to spread the Gospel to the unsaved.  It was the Gospel in action to minister to the saved.  The Church is to care for the Church.   This was and remains one of the primary missions of the Church.   God intends that the hands of the church care for the feet of the Church.  God intends that the eyes of the Church look out for the ears of the Church.  That is the Body serving the Body.  That is the pattern intended in the history of the Church and in today and tomorrow’s Church.   We are to keep our eye on the main THING.   The Body of Christ is the main THING.  

The Wrath to Come - Zephaniah

 Zephaniah 1:14 (ESV)

The great day of the LORD is near,

near and hastening fast;

the sound of the day of the LORD is bitter;

the mighty man cries aloud there.

Here is what RC Sproul writes about this verse and the verses that follow:

“The message is not politically correct in our time. The descriptive terms Zephaniah uses to paint the picture of the day of the Lord include the following:

bitter; devastation; darkness; troubler; refuse; devoured; alarm; desolation; gloominess, distress. wrath; fire; blood  

It seems almost as if the Holy Spirit enlarged Zephaniah’s vocabulary to make the point clear. The litany of descriptive terms leaves little doubt about the horror of this predicted day. And this passage is but a small portion of the prophecy. The full message is even more hair-raising in its graphic declaration of the outpouring of God’s wrath.”

Excerpt From: R. C. Sproul. “Saved from What?.” Crossway Books & Bibles, 2010-07-10. iBooks. 

This material may be protected by copyright.

If you continue to read through chapters one and two of Zephaniah, you read more and more of these words of devastation.  God takes sinning against Him seriously and will, at some point, pour out his wrath on mankind.   For those who believe we are not to worry:

1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 (ESV)

For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

There is a “wrath to come.”   It is not intended for believers.  But, those who continue to worship the creation and not the Creator will be fully consumed by His wrath.  

Pursue More than Wealth and Power - Ecclesiastes 3-4

 Ecclesiastes 4:7-8 (ESV)

Again, I saw vanity under the sun: one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business.

Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes, is in pursuit of the meaning of life.   He is striving after something that will give Him meaning and understanding of the important things of life.   We have to remember that Solomon was rich enough to pursue whatever he wanted to pursue.  He was powerful enough to not deny himself any pleasure, adventure or enterprise that he so wanted.   That is what makes this journey for the meaning of life so powerful.  You can write about finding the meaning of life if you have the meanest to leave no rock unturned.    

In the above passage we read just one more conclusion has has drawn from this search.  Solomon has stated that the person who decides to remain alone, no wife or family to be obligated to, cannot find meaning of life in his toil, no matter what the volume of that hard work.   One of the great privileges we have is to work hard for the ones we love.    Solomon states in the above verses that what good is it to deny yourself pleasure (and work hard) if you have no one to share the fruit of your labor?   

Solomon is checking off the boxes as to what is vanity and simply chasing the wind.  Those who decide to live alone, be obligated to no one and to acquire wealth and power, are, according to Solomon, simply living a vain life.  He states boldly that this, too, is vanity under the sun.  God has designed the meaning of life and Solomon will summarize it at the end of this book.   But, one thing is sure in his mind, pursuing wealth and power, just to pursue wealth and power, is vanity under the son.   The only thing that matters is:

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 (ESV)

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Abundant Blessings - Psalms 125-127

 Psalms 126:1 (ESV)

When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,

we were like those who dream.

Psalms 126:4 (ESV)

Restore our fortunes, O LORD,

like streams in the Negeb!

In this short song we have the celebration of those returning from exile after the rebuilding of Jerusalem.   The nation of Israel had been in captivity for 70 years and Jerusalem had been devastated by the carnage when they were taken into captivity by the Babylonians.   Several nations had pillaged the city and deteriorating walls had allowed the inhabitants that remained to further bring about the cities destruction.   But, God allowed them to return and under Nehemiah rebuild it.  It was not like before, but it was, never-the-less, something to celebrate.   This is the tangible evidence of Israel’s fortunes.  Just like the city was restored, so too was the nation.   While Nehemiah rebuilt the city, Ezra the priest rebuilt the worship systems.   God was restoring their “fortunes” because they were now back in fellowship with God.  This is all the meaning of verse one.  It was a dream come true that they were back in their land. 

But, in verse four we read that they are not satisfied with simply being in the land.   They wanted more.  They wanted their fortune to be like the winter rains that appear in the Negeb (the surrounding plains of Jerusalem).   Those flowing streams provided refreshment, repose and beauty to the land and the people.   They wanted more of God.  That is the essence of this song.  They wanted more of Him and the feeling of His presence.    That should be the hearts desire of all believers.  We should be both satisfied with what God gives us physical blessings, but want more of God in who He is and His presence.   That is the word picture of this poem.    In the New Testament we read Paul’s writings on a similar vain of thought:

Philippians 3:10 (ESV)

that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

Our hearts should sing an equally passionate song of wanting more and more of Him.  He is more than we can fathom and should be the focus of our praise and adoration:

Romans 11:33 (ESV)

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

Power Comes From God - 2 Chronicles 29-32

 2 Chronicles 32:15 (ESV)

Now, therefore, do not let Hezekiah deceive you or mislead you in this fashion, and do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand!’”

In the above passage we have the summary of what is wrong in the world around us.  This is the world's view of God.  He is just one of many.   He is insignificant to mankind’s plans and power.   Men believe that their sovereignty controls all gods and all gods start with a little “g.”   

The context of the above passage has to do with King Hezekiah and his reforms over Judah.   The king has restored the worship center and fortified the cities, especially Jerusalem.   When Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, attempts to besiege the city, he uses taunting to persuade the people of Judah living in Jerusalem to surrender.   He attempts to undermine Hezekiah’s leadership and faith.    This is what the world does.   The world attempts to dissuade the believer by causing them to compare God to the gods and lump them all into one pot.    But, note what Isaiah (who is alive and on scene at this exact moment) states to the king who will eventually take down Sennacherib, Cyrus, King of Persia:

Isaiah 45:5-7 (ESV)

I am the LORD, and there is no other,

besides me there is no God;

I equip you, though you do not know me,

that people may know, from the rising of the sun

and from the west, that there is none besides me;

I am the LORD, and there is no other.

I form light and create darkness;

I make well-being and create calamity;

I am the LORD, who does all these things.

He states, though you don’t know me, I will equip you.   God is going to use Sennacherib but not in the way he thinks.   God is the only true God and will, in a moment, show him that.   God is not to be compared to the world around us and their gods.   We alone is the God of the universe and will not allow anyone to defame him.