Are We Paying the Price of Disobedience Today that Moses Warned Israel About? -- Deuteronomy 28:15-68

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Bottom Line: "Righteousness exhalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people¨ (Prov. 14:34)

WARNING: What you are about to read is not at all fun. It is not intended to scare anyone. It is hoped that by reading it, you will be fully aware of the choices that each nation, each family, each individual has in life. There is a God. He loves us. But He doesn't kid around and will not be taken for a fool. Read on with care.

Yes, this was a warning to Israel. I understand that. But the people of Israel are His chosen people. If God who loves them so much would do that to them because of wilful disobedience, I am not ready to think that He would deal with me differently because of my wilful disobedience.  That is what we are talking about here.  We are not talking about being good enough to earn God's favor and certainly we are not talking about being good enough to earn salvation. That is a free gift. But rejection of that free gift and wilful disobedience of God has its consequences.

If we get nothing else out of all of Deuteronomy 28, let's get the basic law or message that God wanted the Israelites and now us to understand. We are to pursue righteousness, but our sin can destroy us. As long as a nation pursues God, it will be blessed. Stop pursuing, leave God out of the nation's decision-making, and it will be cursed. Many of us, if not all of us, reading this today, are living in such a nation. Perhaps it is time to look a little closer at the kinds of things that may lie ahead for us.

Moses took just 14 verses at the front end of this chapter to go into detail about the blessings a nation can expect if they obey and do God's commandments diligently. But it seems he needed 54 verses to describe the curses that could befall a nation that does not. [If you're in a hurry, at least read the parts below in red.]

As you would expect, many of these verses in this passage are the opposite of the first 14 verses. But there are number of new ideas and thoughts provided and those are the ones we want to look at more closely. If a nation, a family, or a person disobeys God, here are more details of what we can expect:

Note: In the material that follows I have used the personal pronouns "we, us, etc." The text was not written to us. It was written to the Israelites. I know that. But I wanted us to put ourselves in their shoes listening to what Moses is telling them. And in so doing, if we think there's a word of caution or a parallel for us today, let's apply it to us, today.

Verse 20 -- lives will be ones of confusion and rebuke in all we try to do, until we are destroyed, until we perish quickly, on account of our evil by forsaking God.

Verse 21 -- pestilence will cling to us until we can't live on the land God has given us. I don't know about you but I'm starting to feel that now. Pestilence is defined as a fatal epidemic disease, especially bubonic plague. I think considering this passage was written thousands of years ago, I would say "Covid-19" is close enough to that and qualifies.

Verse 22 -- the Lord will smite us with consumption (a wasting disorder not unlike tuberculosis), fever, inflammation, fiery heat, the sword, blight and mildew (two atmospheric influences fatal to grain), all of which will pursue us until we perish.

Verse 23 -- our skies will be bronze (dark with no sunshine which we need) and the earth iron (hard and impossible to work).

Verse 24 -- our rains will be like dust and powder (tornadoes and sandstorms).

Verse 26 -- our carcasses will be food for the vultures and no one will scare them away.

Verse 27 -- we will be smitten with the boils the Egyptians suffered in Egypt, with tumors, scabs, itching, with no healing in site. Is that a reference to cancer?

Verse 28 -- we will be smitten with madness, blindness, and bewilderment of heart. Our mental institutions are full, mental illness cases are out of control, and more and more people are committing suicide.

Verse 29 -- we will grope at noon, fail to prosper, be oppressed, robbed continuously, with no one to save us.

Verse 30 -- our wives will be violated by strangers, we will build houses but not be able to live in them, we will plant but see no fruit. How many people have had their wives and daughters violated by guerrilla soldiers throughout history, something that still goes on today? And if not soldiers, just evil gangs. How many homes have been taken by illegal immigrants and refugees and migrants in Europe? And how many harvests have not been realized because of the way we treat our world, or the politics that does not allow farmers to produce and freely sell their goods?  We are living in the days of curses.

Verse 31 -- our farmers won't do too well. Their ox will be slaughtered in plain view, they won't be getting any of the meat, their work animals will be taken, and their sheep given to their enemies, and they'll have no one to save them. If this isn't a picture of total anarchy and lawlessness, I don't know what is.

Verse 32 -- now this next one really hurts. The verse says our sons and daughters will be taken from us and given to another people. Hello, is this not going on today as more and more of our children lose their love for God and are given over to other gods worshipped by other people? Think about it. And there's nothing we can do.

Verse 36 -- God says ultimately our leaders (with us) will fall prey to other nations that neither of us knew, to serve other gods. Who will that be -- is it China, Russia, Iran, or is simply Islam?

Verse 43 -- the 'alien' among us will rise higher and higher above us, and we shall go down lower and lower. Isn't that exactly what is happening. Look at the demographics in our business boardrooms, and worse still in our governments. I have no problem with people of all nations who have fully adopted our culture having access to all institutions. But sadly, the majority of those who rise are not fully committed to their new land and they have dreams and visions of bringing their cultures to their new lands. One only need to look at the so called "squad" of Congresswomen in the U.S. Need I say anything more?

Verse 48 -- we will serve our enemies, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and lacking all things, until we perish.

Verse 49 -- the Lord will bring a foreign nation against you from afar with a language we do not understand. Again, who will that be?  China, Russia, Iran?

Verse 50 -- they will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young. The evil powers, the elite, the globalists, the godless, the liberals, and so-called progressives are doing that right now. Look at all the commotion and progress in euthanasia laws to facilitate the elimination of elders. Look at all calls for increased abortion right up and even after the point of birth.  We need to wake up. We have disobeyed. And we're paying the price as a nation.

Verse 53 -- things will get so bad that you will have to end up eating your own offspring.

Verses 54-55 -- those who are richer among us will turn against their own families, giving them nothing to eat to live.

Verses 56-57 -- richer women will behave likewise and end up starving and eating their own children.

Verse 62 -- certainly Israel's numbers would return to a very small number. I think the number of true Christians will be much fewer than all who claim to be Christians today.

Verses 66-68 -- we will not be assured of our lives from morning to night, and we will offer ourselves to be sold as slaves to our enemies in order to survive, but no one will want us.

We cannot become perfect. Nor will we reach that state in this life. But we can diligently seek a continuously improved relationship with God. We can diligently want to love Him more, please Him more, obey Him more, and serve Him more. That we can and must do. I don't know what God will do if we don't with precise accuracy. But through this chapter I know what He promised to do to His own chosen people with whom He had a covenant.

Clearly there is much to be argued here. Does this all apply to us or was it just for the Jews? Am I stretching the point when I draw the inferences to what is going on in the world as I did above? You'll have to decide that for yourself. But let me call on Matthew Henry to come and help us out as we ponder these questions. I can certainly live with his words on the matter of this passage as a whole:

• (1.) The accomplishment of these predictions upon the Jewish nation shows that Moses spoke by the Spirit of God, who certainly foresees the ruin of sinners, and gives them warning of it, that they may prevent it by a true and timely repentance, or else be left inexcusable.
• (2.) Let us all hence learn to stand in awe and not to sin. I have heard of a wicked man, who, upon reading the threatenings of this chapter, was so enraged that he tore the leaf out of the Bible, as Jehoiakim cut Jeremiah's roll; but to what purpose is it to deface a copy, while the original remains upon record in the divine counsels, by which it is unalterably determined that the wages of sin is death, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear?

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