LEARNING DAILY

 

Deuteronomy 28:15, “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.”    Moses

 

No one likes to get to the point of hearing what the consequences will be if they do not follow the rules or the instructions.  However, knowing what will happen if the rules are broken can be incentive to making sure the rules are followed.

 

In this section of Deuteronomy, Moses was using the pattern of the first fourteen verses to show the negative of the positive blessings.  In other words, all that was promised for blessings had not now become a threat in the second list.  Instead of prosperity in the cities, produce in the land, increase in cattle and flocks, and being set high above all the nations, there would be confusion and rebuke in everything that Israel set their hand to until they perished.  In Deuteronomy 15-68, “Moses prophesied the consequences of turning away from God: chastisement, destruction, great sorrow, captivity and dispersion among the nations.” (Life in the Spirit Study Bible)

 

Did John Winthrop include anything like this in his speech? Right after asking for God’s blessings, he said this, “The eyes of the people are upon us.  So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.  We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake.  We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us til we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.”  I do not claim to understand everything that he said here; I do believe this is equivalent to Moses saying that disobedience to God’s Word and His commands would bring curses upon them.

 

Choices, right!?  A nation chooses to follow or turn away from following God’s direction; blessings or curses are the natural consequences of that choice.  What did Israel choose to do?  What has the United States chosen to do?  We will examine these questions in the next page of the blog.

 

“For this man who needs amazing kind of grace

For forgiveness and a price I couldn’t pay

I’m not perfect so I thank God every day

There was Jesus

There was Jesus!”   Zack Williams

 

Even when I can’t feel it You’re working

You never stop working!    Michael W. Smith

 

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