If you have journeyed this far with us through The IN SEASON Lifestyle’s COME AS A CHILD BIBLE STUDY (which we do every Thursday;) you know that we have been studying the curses of Israel that come through disobedience.
Today we look at the passage found in Deuteronomy Chapter 28 that says: “The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.”
Yikes! Could it get much worse?
REBUKE ISN’T FUN
How would you feel if every single thing you set your hand to do had a curse upon it that meant you would fail and not succeed?
Maybe you go to plant your crops and they get ruined by a fire.
Perhaps you diligently teach your children to work; but they are lazy in spite of it.
You take a job and work hard and long and do good work but you are called into the office and are given a pink slip for someone else’s crime.
These types of things DO happen to totally innocent people (like Job) and sometimes they can serve as tests of our faith and patience and diligence to continue walking down the right road toward God’s best ways to live.
On the other hand; sometimes these things happen because of our own rebelliousness and disobedience.
You planted your crops and looked forward to a good harvest; but did you bring the first and the best to God first?
You were diligent to teach a good work ethic to your children; but did you impress the importance of Sabbath rest and appointments with God on them too?
You are being blamed over and over again for things that you have not done; and it is very costly to your career; but have you also been accusing others of things that are not true?
WE DO IT TO OURSELVES
Whenever we fall into confusion and chaos and nothing we do seems to work out right; we have to stop and look at the fact that we may be reaping the curse of disobedience to God.
It is easy to cure.
Prayer.
Repentance.
Turning around.
These sad circumstances are what God promises to any of his people who chose not to obey His best ways to live.
Has this ever happened to you?
The ironic part of it is that we do it to ourselves. God never brings curses upon anyone; we are the ones that bring the curses upon ourselves for being disobedient to God’s ways.
CURSED IF YOU DO; CURSED IF YOU DON’T
Is there someone in the bible that could give us a good example of being one who was cursed in all of his ways because of disobedience?
When I think of cursed people; Job instantly comes to mind. We can’t consider Job though; because he wasn’t disobedient.
All of Job’s problems were more like tests than curses.
Curses come when people blatantly disobey God and shake their fists in His face and say “I’ll do it my way or die!”
Usually they do too – die; that is.
They die because they chose to curse themselves instead of putting themselves under the blessings of God by obeying.
GOD’S SOCIAL JUSTICE
Do any social justice groups of today’s world come to mind when you read this logic?
Coming out of social justice problems requires change; true change, not just a political dog and pony show.
Social justice groups can’t yell for change in the streets and then proceed to looting and rioting and expect people to listen to them. At some point it becomes obvious that they don’t really mean what they say; they just have a loud voice for anything that causes chaos and confusion.
Sounds a lot like the devil to me.
ISRAEL’S DISOBEDIENT SONS
Israel had some sons who claimed to be mad because their sister was raped. They yelled for revenge and got a huge reaction from a whole community of people who humbled themselves enough to do as they requested.
That wasn’t enough for those boys though; they went into a compromised community (full of compromised men because of these mad sons’ own suggestions.) The newly circumcised community’s men was full of those who were trying to conform to the rules and repent for a mistake one of them had made in the past. Israel’s sons went in and murdered the whole town.
(This is a true story. You can read it for yourself in Genesis Chapter 34.)
Revenge is never sweet for long.
God didn’t approve of the vain and unjust actions of these two renegade sons of Jacob.
Instead of discussing the issue with their Father first, who was truly in charge of the situation; they chose to do things their way.
DISOBEDIENCE IS ALWAYS LOSE/LOSE
No one won.
One well-functioning community was wiped out. In the interest of safety, another family headed by a God-fearing Father, had to pick up steaks and leave the area for a while. This certainly wasn’t what God had sent them into the land to do.
The godly men of Israel were supposed to be setting the pattern for the world’s nations to follow.
This was definitely not how God wanted to teach anyone.
Thankfully, for these less-than-thinking-sons; their father forgave them and moved the whole family away for awhile in order to escape the damage they had done.
However; every action of sin has it’s own set if earthly consequences.
When the Father, Israel, died a very wealthy and blessed man; certain disobedient sons were not included in the will, and/or their inheritance was a lot less than those sons who had been obedient.
This wasn’t just a physical inheritance at stake either; it was an eternal one.
OBEDIENCE IS ALWAYS WIN/WIN
Obedience to God always wins; so why do people fight so hard against it?
We always want to use our human logic instead of God’s logic. Most of us go right on with our own will and ignore the heavenly logic which takes the commandments and statutes of the Covenants of God into consideration.
Our human nature learns the hard way that life is actually pretty simple. Either follow God’s ways and receive blessings; or follow your own ways and receive curses.
We all have a choice.
Our Heavenly Father has given us free-will.
How will you use your choices today?
CURSES UPON NATIONAL ACTIVITIES
Now, let’s try to look back over the last few years of life in our own country.
Stop and do a survey in your mind of how America has handled national calamities.
It surely feels like many curses have come upon our heads for our own rebelliousness against God’s ways.
God also gives nations free-will.
They can chose to follow Him; or they can mock Him and become disobedient in all of their ways.
Do you think America has any understanding of how many of God’s ways we have turned away from?
Have we tried to focus our attention on one thing to teach our children and neglected the rest of God’s scriptures?
This is definitely worth considering.
What is the first step that Americans of today should take to turn back to God?
Please pray that we find those answers.