Day 79: Deuteronomy 28-29

Welcome to 5 -Minute Bible, your daily guide for your daily reading. Today's March the 20th and we'll be looking at Deuteronomy 28 -29.

Now today we arrive at one of the most dramatic moments in Moses' final sermon.

Deuteronomy 28 -9 presents the covenant blessings and curses that will define Israel's future in the promised land.

Now just in case you're not familiar, a covenant is comprised of multiple different elements.

There is the stipulations, which means these are the terms that God wants the people to obey.

And if those terms are obeyed, then there will be resulting blessings. But if the terms are disobeyed, then there will be a resulting curse.

And Moses lays out before the people these two paths. Obedience that brings life and blessings, or rebellion that leads to judgment, exile, and annihilation.

And Deuteronomy 28 begins with an extraordinary promise. If Israel faithfully obeys the

Lord, then blessing is going to overflow in every area of life. Their cities and their fields will prosper, their families will grow, their enemies will be defeated, their nation will stand as a visible testimony to the power and the goodness of God among all the nations of the earth.

But then the chapter turns sharply. If Israel abandons the covenant, then the blessings that they once enjoyed will wither up and be gone.

Instead of prosperity, there will be famine, there will be defeat, there will be disease. Instead of security, there will be fear and instability and madness.

Moses even warns that persistent rebellion will ultimately lead to national exile, scattering the people among the nations.

And eventually it will lead them to a place that is so horrific that you can barely even stomach reading it.

And ultimately these two paths, the path between blessing and curse, will unfortunately define

Israel for the rest of her existence. There will be moments where she goes through great blessing and then there will be moments like in the exile when

Nebuchadnezzar and his armies burned the city to the ground or when the

Romans came in and burned the city to the ground. A second time where you will see dramatic and palpable curses being poured on Israel.

The final of which in AD 70 was the final straw, the covenant breaking curse where Israel was cut out of the covenant forever.

Now Deuteronomy 29 then renews the covenant terms itself. Moses gathers the nation from the leaders all the way to the laborers and he reminds them of God's faithfulness through the wilderness and how the covenant is not limited to a generation who is standing in front of him, but it extends forward to their descendants and it establishes the terms of Israel's relationship with God forever.

So as you read today, I want you to ask the following questions. What happens when a people either honor or abandon the covenant that God has given them?

And Deuteronomy 28 through 29 shows that covenant life carries real and lasting consequences.

You see the dominant patterning in these chapters is blessing contrasted with judgment. Moses presents obedience and rebellion as two diverging paths that are leading in the exact opposite directions.

The future of the nation will depend upon which direction they ultimately choose.

And this tension reveals an important truth about God's covenant because his commands are not arbitrary.

They're the framework for life under his rule and under his sovereignty. When his people walk within that framework, they flourish because they're actually literally living within the grain of reality.

But when they reject his covenant, the structure of society begins to collapse into chaos and madness.

The warnings in Deuteronomy 28 also reveals something stark about the history of humanity.

Nations rise and fall not merely through their economic or military prowess, but through their relationship to the moral order that is established by God.

God does still today put down nations who are immoral and cursed.

And God still does today raise up nations who are going to proclaim his gospel to the ends of the earth.

This is what happened to America when we are founded. And the decline that we are seeing is explained by the decline in our morality.

And in that way, Deuteronomy 28 through 29 ultimately points forward to Jesus Christ. The blessings and the curses of this covenant reveal humanity's deepest problem, that no nation, no individual has ever obeyed

God perfectly. And all of us deserve the curses of the covenant. Israel's history will eventually confirm the warnings that Moses speak when they are cut out of the covenant in AD 70.

But the gospel in that also reveals an astonishing solution to the problem of human sin.

Jesus becomes the faithful covenant keeper who obeys where humanity failed.

At the cross, he bears the curse that the law pronounced on sin, so that all those who belong to him may receive the blessed promise of God, the blessings of the covenant through Christ.

And yet all who are apart from Christ will follow after Jerusalem in being burned and destroyed, but not temporarily, but forever in the flames of hell.

So as you read Deuteronomy 28 through 29 today, I want you to notice how clearly that Moses lays out the stakes.

The future of Israel and the future really of all people hangs upon their loyalty to this covenant keeping

God. Tomorrow, we're going to see how Moses begins calling the people to choose life by turning their hearts fully to the

Lord. But until then, read your Bible carefully, devotionally, and joyfully, and may the

Lord use his word to sanctify you completely, and we will continue our journey tomorrow.