Hello everybody, and welcome in to episode 61 of the Bible 2021 podcast. We are reading Deuteronomy 28 today and our focus is on the blessings for obedience and the horrors of disobedience. We are a daily 10 minute podcast, WARNING where we will dig in to the truth of the Word of God by reading one Bible chapter a day and discussing it. Welcome to new listeners in Kashmir, India, . Thanks for listening! Our goal is to encourage DAILY Bible reading, so you can jump in at any time and join with us. We want to invite as many people as possible to join us in daily Bible reading, so help spread the word and share the podcast Don’t forget about our new web-page, Bible2021.com – contact page, show notes, transcript and more – Click here for our reading plan
Obedience. It’s not something we talk about nearly enough in the modern church. Today’s passage is very long, and our commentary will thus be very short, but I need to introduce the passage just a little – we might spill over ten minutes today by a hair or two. In Deuteronomy 28 God gives His people a series of tremendous blessings and benefits for obedience and some terrifying results of disobedience. When I say terrifying, I really mean it. Terrifying and disturbing – like really, really disturbing. Tonight during our family’s Bible reading time, I was shook by reading this passage, and I wouldn’t read vs. 57 because it is just too disturbing. This may be the most horrifying chapter in the Bible. Moses lays out the consequences for disobedience and they are more terrible than you can imagine. Let’s read the chapter – and it is graphic, let me warn you. Probably not a chapter to listen to with young kids in the car.
How did the Israelites do after this most sobering of warnings? Well, much later in their history the prophet Zechariah sums it up:
They made their hearts like a rock so as not to obey the law or the words that the Lord of Armies had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. Therefore intense anger came from the Lord of Armies.
Is obedience just an Old Testament thing? No -as these verse show:
Romans 6:16 Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over,
John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commands.
1 John 5:2-3 This is how we know that we love God’s children: when we love God and obey his commands. 3 For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands. And his commands are not a burden,
Why were the curses so terrible and visceral and graphic? I should point out that some of the consequences of disobedience are directly attributable to God’s intervention – some of them, however, seem to be more attributable to NOT having God’s active protection and blessing while living in a fallen world with evil and bloodthirsty people. Not all of the curses of disobedience are a result of God’s direct action, but more a result of His withdrawing of His blessing and protection – including the most graphic results of disobedience. This is a grim and fallen world. A dog eat dog world, as some say, and they are not referring to dogs. This should sober us immensely, and cause us to prioritize obeying, for, “Our God is a consuming fire.”
End of the Show: Bible memory verse for MARCH!: Hebrews 7:25 “Therefore, [Jesus] is able to save completely those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them.“
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