a godforsaken condition

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Jefferson Vann
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a godforsaken condition

Deuteronomy 28:20-24(JDV)

Deuteronomy 28:20 Yahveh will send against you curses, confusion, and rebuke in everything you do until you are exterminated and quickly destroyed, because of the wickedness of your actions in abandoning me.
Deuteronomy 28:21 Yahveh will make pestilence cling to you until he has exterminated you from the land you are entering to take possession of.
Deuteronomy 28:22 Yahveh will afflict you with wasting disease, fever, inflammation, burning heat, drought, blight, and mildew; these will pursue you until you are destroyed.
Deuteronomy 28:23 The sky above you will be bronze, and the land beneath you iron.
Deuteronomy 28:24 Yahveh will turn the rain of your land into falling dust; it will descend on you from the sky until you are exterminated.

a godforsaken condition

The consequences of Israelites turning their back on God were spelled out in painful detail as part of their covenant. God would do more than simply withdraw his hand of protection. He would actively send affliction, and turn the land below them into unproductive iron, and put a shield of bronze in the sky to prevent their rescue.

The Israelites would become the picture of rebellious humanity. Such is our condition apart from the grace of God in Christ. He sent his Son to reconcile all of us from such a godforsaken condition.

Thank you Lord, for redeeming us from the curse we brought upon ourselves by rebelling against you. Thank you for your amazing grace.

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loyalty matters

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Jefferson Vann
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loyalty matters

Deuteronomy 28:15-19 (JDV)

Deuteronomy 28:15 “But if you do not obey Yahveh your God by carefully following all his commands and prescriptions I am giving you today, all these afflictions will come and overtake you:
Deuteronomy 28:16 You will be afflicted with a curse in the city and afflicted with a curse in the country.
Deuteronomy 28:17 Your basket and kneading bowl will be afflicted with a curse.
Deuteronomy 28:18 Your offspring will be afflicted with a curse, and your land’s produce, the young of your herds, and the newborn of your flocks.
Deuteronomy 28:19 You will be afflicted with a curse when you come in and afflicted with a curse when you go out.

loyalty matters

The Israelites did not pronounce this curse upon their enemies — people who were not part of the Mosaic covenant. No, this curse was upon the sons of Israel who did not live up to their promise to obey God’s commands. The curse was to be a way of knowing who was true, and who was pretending. Loyalty mattered.

Likewise, today, there are lots of pretenders, and Jesus did warn us of that.

So, how do we know whether people are just going through hard times, and in need of our prayers, or if what they are suffering is God’s way of getting their attention — seeking their loyalty? It will not be easy to know. We should not presume — as Job’s “friends” did, that all suffering is punishment.

But we should also be open with one another, and look for ways to help our brothers and sisters “come clean” because loyalty to Christ matters.

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heads or tails?

Posted on May 10, 2020 by Jefferson Vann
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heads or tails?

Deuteronomy 28:13-14 (JDV)

Deuteronomy 28:13 Yahveh will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward if you listen to Yahveh your God’s commands I am commanding you today and are careful to follow them.
Deuteronomy 28:14 Do not turn aside to the right or the left from all the things I am commanding you today, and do not follow other gods to worship them.

heads or tails?

The Israelites had a simple choice. God had offered them a covenant with himself, deliverance from their bondage, and a life to live that was superior to the lives lived by everyone else on the planet. Would they choose to be heads and not tails? It meant being faithful to that covenant by following the commands associated with it, and it meant being loyal to God alone and refusing to follow the other gods the pagans were so fond of. But that was really not a hard choice to make. Nobody in their right mind would want to move downward. Downward is the wrong way.

Lord, you have offered us a WAY to be heads and not tails. Through the covenant with your SON, Jesus Christ. That is the WAY we want to walk. Make us wise and strong so that we stay faithful to you.

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missing variable

Posted on May 9, 2020 by Jefferson Vann
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missing variable

Deuteronomy 28:11-12 (JDV)

Deuteronomy 28:11 Yahveh will make your prosperity survive with offspring, the offspring of your livestock, and your land’s produce in the land Yahveh swore to your fathers to give you.
Deuteronomy 28:12 Yahveh will open for you his abundant storehouse, the sky, to give your land rain in its season and to empower all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.

missing variable

If the Israelites wanted to be independent of the nations around them financially — lenders instead of borrowers — then they would have to learn dependence on God. He is the missing variable. He is the One with the power to make them prosperous and productive. He is the rain maker. The Israelites would have to work, but without God, their work would not have the power to meet their needs.

Lord, we want a relationship with you that will empower all we do.

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bearing his name

Posted on May 8, 2020 by Jefferson Vann
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bearing his name

Deuteronomy 28:8-10 (JDV)

Deuteronomy 28:8 Yahveh will command for you an empowerment on your barns and on everything you do; he will empower you in the land Yahveh your God is giving you.
Deuteronomy 28:9 Yahveh will establish you as his sacred people, as he swore to you, if you watch the commands of Yahveh your God and walk in his ways.
Deuteronomy 28:10 Then all the peoples of the land will see that you bear Yahveh’s name, and they will stand in awe of you.

bearing his name

The miracles God did for the Israelites to get them out of their bondage in Egypt had resulted in a certain respect, and sometimes a downright fear of them among the Canaanites and other nations who were possessing the land. It was as if every Israelite was branded with God’s name on him, and that commanded respect.

Now, Moses says there will be two additional ways in which the Israelites will bear God’s name. Their lives will be governed by God’s commands, which will set them apart morally from the other nations, and that will result in an obvious difference in their productivity and prosperity.

These three blessings were like a three-legged stool, enabling the Israelites to witness to God’s glory. But the witness did not work unless all three legs of the chair were present at the same time. If the people disobeyed God’s commands — not walking in his ways — they would lose both the prosperity and the awe of being associated with the God of the exodus.

Lord, we want to bear the name of Christ. Burn his commands on our hearts so that we represent him among the nations.

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within the contest

Posted on May 7, 2020 by Jefferson Vann
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within the contest

Deuteronomy 28:7 (JDV)

Deuteronomy 28:7 “Yahveh will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you from one direction but run away from you in seven directions.

within the contest

The fact that the Israelites will have enemies is a given. God does not promise the absence of adversaries. He promises that he will intervene to give them victory. It is within the contest that the Israelites will learn faith in their God. They will learn to trust that he will keep his promises.

Lord, some of us are within the contest right now. We ask you for victory, not so that we can be self-sufficient, but so that we can give you the glory that you deserve.

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better homes and gardens

Posted on May 6, 2020 by Jefferson Vann
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better homes and gardens

Deuteronomy 28:1-6 (JDV)

Deuteronomy 28:1 “Now if you faithfully obey Yahveh your God and are careful to do all his commands I am commanding you today, Yahveh your God will put you far above all the nations of the land.
Deuteronomy 28:2 All these empowerments will come and overtake you, because you obey Yahveh your God:
Deuteronomy 28:3 You will be empowered in the city and empowered in the country.
Deuteronomy 28:4 Your offspring will be empowered, and your land’s produce, and the offspring of your livestock, including the young of your herds and the newborn of your flocks.
Deuteronomy 28:5 Your basket and kneading bowl will be empowered.
Deuteronomy 28:6 You will be empowered when you come in and empowered when you go out.

better homes and gardens

The Israelites, as the Mosaic covenant community were to be empowered so that they could demonstrate God’s power to the nations. Their empowerment consisted of better crops, better livestock, better homes and better cities. That was not code for “going to heaven when you die.” The betterment was the actual outcome to obedience to the Mosaic instruction.

There are additional blessings under the new covenant with Christ, but the principle of empowerment for the purpose of witness remains the same. We who are saved by grace are to be a city set on a hill, advertising God’s goodness to a world who needs him. The means of this betterment is also the same — obedience. When we obey the commands of Christ, he empowers our lives, so that we demonstrate his goodness, drawing others to him.

Lord, thank you for saving us by your grace. Show us how to obey your commands so that others can experience this grace as well.

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final affliction

Posted on May 5, 2020 by Jefferson Vann
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final affliction

Deuteronomy 27:26 (JDV)

Deuteronomy 27:26 ‘Anyone who does not put the words of this instruction into practice is afflicted with a curse.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

final affliction

The final affliction is a catch-all that includes every part of the covenant instruction. The Israelites were expected to live by the whole counsel of God, not to cherry pick certain parts of it. When Jesus condemned the religious parties of his day, it was mainly because they had decided which parts of the law were important to them, and ignored the weightier matters.

Only in Jesus do we find a heart so pure and a life so disciplined that he was able to put all of God’s words into practice. For all of the rest of us, we were caught by this catch-all, so we needed our savior’s work on the cross.

Lord, thank you for providing rescue from the final affliction.

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caring for lives

Posted on May 4, 2020 by Jefferson Vann
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caring for lives

Deuteronomy 27:25 (JDV)

Deuteronomy 27:25 ‘The one who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent throat is afflicted with a curse.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

caring for lives

A soldier in an unjust war, an official who is bribed to look the other way, a judge who ignores a case because it is not politically expedient… these are just a few of the ways that this passage has relevance in today’s culture. All around the world today people are dying because it is financially expedient for them to do so. It is not God’s will for that to keep happening. It is Satan who is the murderer from the beginning. Jesus came to give us life, not to take it from us.

Lord, make us people who care about the lives of those who are in danger, whether it is the child in the womb, the elderly, the poor, the refugee or the drug addict.

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getting away with it

Posted on May 3, 2020 by Jefferson Vann
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getting away with it

Deuteronomy 27:24 (JDV)

Deuteronomy 27:24 ‘The one who secretly kills his neighbor is afflicted with a curse.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

getting away with it

The murderer who gets away with it might think he or she is free and clear, but these words would haunt. God sees all and knows all. The blood of the first murder victim cried out to him from the ground. Nothing really happens in secret.

The God who challenged the Israelites to love their neighbors watches closely for evidence of that love. He takes vengeance on the murderer.

Lord, may our love for you and those around us be evident — especially to you.

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