3-22-26 - I Am Setting Before You Today A Blessing And A Curse

When we started the book of Deuteronomy, I thought we'll read the preamble, and it'll just take a few chapters, and then we'll get into the law of God. That was, like, two years ago or so. And we're finally come to the end of the preamble at the end of chapter 11. So we're gonna be finishing up Deuteronomy chapter 11 this morning. This is the end of Moses recounting of Israel's history up to this point.

You'll remember that do in the book of Deuteronomy is the second giving of the law given by Moses right at the end of his life, right as they're about to enter into the promised land after forty years of wandering in the wilderness. And so Moses has in great detail been recounting Israel's history and their sins and God's faithfulness and preparing them to enter into this promised land to receive the blessing and the inheritance that God had promised not to them first, but to their their father in the faith, Abraham. First, but to their their father in the faith, Abraham. These men and these women, their mothers and fathers and grandparents were there at the giving of the law at Mount Sinai where God thundered and the crown quaked and down came Moses with the law. Down Moses came to them worshiping a golden calf, which Moses broke the law, the tablets of the law, and then pleaded with God to be merciful to this people, to not destroy them, not to consume them, not for their sakes, but for God's namesake.

What will the nation say if you lead them out into the wilderness only to destroy them? And so God relents, he's merciful. He forgives their sins, but he doesn't he doesn't go without disciplining them or judging them. Recounting their histories through the wilderness with no water and with no food. Their grumblings and their complaining.

The land opening up and swallowing them up. The war that they endured as they came up to cross over. And now Moses ends by setting a choice before the people. A choice before the people. And that choice is between God's blessing and God's curse.

And he does call them to choose between these two things. To choose between receiving God's blessing and receiving God's curse. And then he says, you're gonna go into that land. And when you get over into that land, you're gonna set up two altars. And those altars are going to serve as a testimony of the blessings on one mountain and the curses on the other mountain.

And it's going to be as a, as a testimony, a perpetual testimony to you of the bless both the blessing and the curse of God upon those who obey, blessing upon those who disobey the curse. And so as we study this text this morning, my hope is that God will deepen yours and my understanding of his word and it'll help us to choose his bliss and avoid his curse. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy chapter 11. Verse is 26 through 30 COURTIN. Before you today a blessing and a curse.

The and the and the and the and the and the By following other gods, which you have not. And so come about, when the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess that you shall place the blessing on Mount Geras. And the curse on Mount Ebo. Are they not across the Jordan west of the way toward the sunset in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah? Opposed opposite Gil Gal.

So you are about to cross the Jordan to go in to possess the land which

the Lord your God is giving you. And you shall possess it and live in it. And you shall

be And you shall possess it and live in it. And you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the judgments which I am setting before you today. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. One of the questions that arises in discussing Calvinist or or reformed theology versus, Armenian theology is this idea of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.

And it's often expressed or focuses around this question of, of choice. Who has a choice? Does man have a choice? Does man have a choice? Before the Israelites today, a choice.

See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse. And then he outlines what that blessing is and what that curse is. And there to choose. If you keep my law, recipient of God's blessing. If you don't choose to obey, if you choose to disobey, then you'll be the object of God's curse.

And that choice is set before them. That choice is not made for them. He's calling them to decide. Joshua, Moses' successor, declares his choice in his book. Joshua twenty four fifteen says, Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served, which were beyond the river, Lord.

And so, Joshua is putting this choice in front of the people again. And really, this choice is before us bliss, by our actions, or are we choosing God's curse,

by our actions, or

are we choosing God's curse, Or are we choosing God's outcome is yet to be revealed. You remember when Jesus was separating the sheep from the goats? Do you remember what the goats said? Laura, when did we see you and not do these things? We made a choice to serve the Lord the God of our fathers.

We did all the right stuff. And Jesus says to them, no. And they were surprised. They thought they had made the

right choice. But the Lord revealed to them that, in fact, they had made the right choice. But the

Lord revealed to them that in fact they had made the wrong choice. And so this choice ought to be a sobering reality. It ought not to be something that we we run through our theological meat grinder so that it pops out the other end with no more teeth. If that were the case, then the exertion that Moses gives to them, and many exertations like it throughout scriptures, are reduced to simply word games or at

worst lies. None of it really matters.

They don't really mean what they say. So None of it really matters. They don't really mean what they say.

But there are

a couple of questions that come to mind when you're have these choices set before you. The first is, who among God's people would would knowingly choose a curse? The answer is many, actually. Though, they don't often register their rebellion unless they're provoked. The heart of a man is deep water.

Wise man draws it out. The things that we say and the things that we do, when there's not pressure on us, when there's not cost to them, are very easy to say because there's there's there's no there's no there's no consequence to our words. There's no hard evaluation of our actions. But when pressed, you find a different story. When you're when you're persecuted, when you suffer, when you face trials, when you carry burdens, it's in those times that the choice is revealed.

And I don't say that to discourage you or to make you feel as though there's there's no hope. But I mean to tell you, we're most honest when we have to be. When we don't have the energy or the time or the bandwidth to to spin a tail. Where the real words of our heart come out of our mouth. And so sometimes, God brings suffering and trials into the lives of his people to reveal to them their choice.

What are they choosing? When Joshua said, but as for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. And that's the part that everybody knows. Did you hear what he said right before that? He says, you have to choose whom you're going to serve.

Do you want to serve the gods of our fathers? Commanded to exterminate them. There was a real choice to be made. Are you going to literally put your neck on the line in service to your God, or are you going to content yourself with turning aside to serve the gods that you haven't known? The gods of the Amor.

And so when Joshua says, but as for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. He's not saying that from his comfy chair. It's not a pretty picture on his wall. It's a wall. It's a military declaration that cost many their lives.

And so we have choices even in the midst of battle and in the midst of burdens and difficulties. We have to choose each day who will serve, whether we want to be the recipients of God's blessing or whether we want to

be the objects of his curse.

Now, who wouldn't choose his blessing? We understood the the the the gravity of it, we wouldn't choose his curse. God's people would not choose the curse. Instead, they would choose God's blessing. But what we see is that the blessing comes with responsibilities and obligations that we have to be aware of, particularly when those responsibilities are being ignored or neglected.

As we've worked our way through the the these early chapters of Deuteronomy, this theme of careful obedience, and we've preached on it a couple of times, it just keeps coming up and it just keeps coming up. And again, it shows up in this passage at the very end. You shall be careful to do all the statutes and the judgments which I'm setting before you today. I think one of the the the real difficulties of living in our time is that we don't see grace as having any cost to the one extending it or any obligations to the ones receiving it. It's just free.

It's like it's like it's like manna, but it's grace. Just fell down to be to be picked up every day without any work or cost. But that's not true of Grace. It's a The Grace of God came family. And when you come into a family, you have obligations to that family that are set by the father of the house.

And that are set by the father of the house. If someone who wasn't one of your children was adopted into your family, what would there be obligations for them? Absolutely. You're going to be a part of my family. This is, this is this is how we do things.

This is how we speak. This is where we go. This is how we dress. This is this is this is what it means to be a part of my family. And you being brought into it are now under all of those obligations just as my own children.

And so the blessing that's promised or offered to the, to the, to the Israelites comes with obliques that you listen to the commandments of the Lord, that you carefully obeyed. And so choosing God's blessing means choosing to live by faith in obedience to all of his commands. Those who choose to disobey are choosing God's curse, whether their choice is explicit or implicit. But it gets harder still with this choice. Given the terms of receiving God's blessing, bliss?

If careful, obedient to all of God's commands are the condition for receiving his bliss, how can it follow that any one, that all will receive. Us. And that however much you've done, heart and in your soul, desires and your actions don't align. To bed at night saying, tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow will be a righteous day.

Today was an unrighteous day. And you comfort ourselves as we go to sleep or perhaps as we wake up in the morning with this idea. But as we get to making our choices for the day, faithfulness, so much love. It's left on the table. And then when we come to this question of choosing God's blessing or God's curse and we look at what's left on the table, we go, how can I even expect to receive any good thing from God's hand?

And many of God's people live their lives discouraged by this fact or these questions and they never get pasted. And so we reason to ourselves that either the terms are not real. Meaning, that obedience doesn't actually bring about blessing. Along. Or we come away saying, I actually can fulfill these terms.

The terms are real and I I can do it. But neither one of those are true. Obedience is the the mechanism by which blessings are received. And we don't possess the ability. And that's a tough quandary to be in for any period of time, let alone a lifetime.

It becomes very burdensome on you. Time. How are we to resolve the tension? Paul says this in Galatians chapter three section and I'm going to read it I'm going to read it slowly so we can track with it. But he is answering this very question of if we're to receive God's blessing and we're to obey the law and we can't, how does that all work?

And what's the point of the law? So in Galatians three, picking up in verse 15, it says, Brethren. I speak in terms of human relations, even though it is only a man's covenant. Yet, when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it. Now, the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.

And he does not say and to seeds, as referring to many, but rather to one. And to your seed. That is, and so I'm gonna pause for a second and explain. Paul is dealing with this idea of the covenant that God's made with Abraham. Happen after they've made that that initial agreement don't change the initial agreement.

And we understand that even when that's just a contract in in business, so to speak, that new circumstances don't just nullify the old the old contract. That contract is intact. And so this covenant that was made with Abraham and with his seed after him is intact. About seed. Says with Abraham and his seed, and he says, but not and to his seeds, meaning to all of the of us, to all of God's people, but to his seed, singular.

And that seed is And so there's a covenant between God made with Abraham and with his seed, singularly, Jesus Christ. And that promise, that covenant

is intact, and nothing is going to abrogate. And nothing is going to abrogate. And nothing is going to abrogate. And nothing is going to abrogate. And nothing is

going to abrogate. And nothing is going to abrogate. And nothing And nothing is going to abrogate. Meaning, get rid of that What I'm saying is this. I'm going back now.

What I'm saying is this, because he knows that we're trying to sort through the promises to Abraham and the law, the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant, if you will. What I'm saying is this, the law, which which came four thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. For if the inheritance Now listen carefully here. We were talking early, the blessing. Moses has set before them a question.

Do you want the blessing, which is to receive the inheritance? Or do you want the curse, which is to is to just just to give up your blessing, your your inheritance. Promise. But God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise. Why the law then?

They're feeling the tension that we, you and I are feeling. We have this covenant made with Abraham to be his God and to be a God to his children after him, to his seed and to redeem them and to give them this land that they're about to go into. But they're going to receive all of those blessings, not through the law, but by means of the promise. God promised to give it to them. And so then you're left scratching your head being like, well then why do we have to deal with the law?

And why is Moses talking this way? If actually all of the good things that we received that they're, you know, them getting this land and and and all this stuff. If it doesn't have anything to do with their behavior, why does Moses frame it that way? Why the law then? That's the question.

Why the law then? The answer is this. It was added because of transgressions. Through angels by the agency of a mediator until the seed, right? Christ the seed, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.

To the promises of God? May it never be? And so we have this tension between the the heavy pressure and weight of obedience placed on God's people that's real. And the blessings of the inheritance being tied to it in the law. And you've got a contract or covenant that predates that arrangement.

How's it all work? Able to impart life, which is stated differently, is that there is no law that's able to impart life. If there was a law that was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. But the scripture has shut up everyone under sin. So that the promise by faith in Christ in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

We're reading something now that's 2,000 years old. And we're reading about something that happened thousands of years before it was written. Abraham promises that he's received from God and then Moses as they're coming out of slavery and into the promised land. But these promises, this covenant that was made with Moses, the giving of the law, is properly understood to have have have not been the means of salvation, but the path or the roadmap to salvation. Most of what the law does for us now is reveal that we're lost.

And by lost, I mean that we are sinful. That we have fallen short. That we do not do nor do we deserve because of our actions to receive any of the good things that God has promised to his children. Describe this way. I'll end with this this section, verse 25.

He says, therefore, the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ.

So that we may be justified by faith.

But now, So that we may be justified by faith. But now the faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. So what is a tutor? A tutor is a teacher. A tutor is an instructor.

A tutor is one who takes a pupil, a young one, an insufficient one who lacks knowledge and understanding and capability, and they train them up. They raise them up. And they do that. A good coach or a good teacher has a red pen. Or if they're a coach, they have a whistle.

And they write with their red pen, and they blow on their whistle. And what is it that they're communicating when they write with their red pen and they blow on their whistle? Not good enough. And how often do they blow on their whistle and write with their red pen? All the time.

All the time. All the time. If you had a coach whose hold is positioned toward coaching you was to say,

I know you tried so hard.

You you you just did such a good job. It's okay we didn't win and you got all those penalties. It's okay. I can tell you at least from from my part and for my boys who've played sports, they'd want off that team. Actually, they would they they despise coaches like that.

They'd rather have a coach that make them run till they puke than to have a coach who lies to them. And that's what it is. Is it's lying to them. Because effort, sewing,

actually produces what you reap. And it matters that someone tell you what you're sewing. Yeah. And

you're so and that's what and that's what and sometimes we're so and sometimes we're so things by his

law.

And so the law is just blowing its whistle at us every day. There's Moses blowing their whistle whistle. You remember the Pharisees saying, we have Moses. You can have him. His way doesn't lead to life.

Some point, every analogy breaks down, and the analogy that if that that that blowing the whistle can eventually produce enough good effort and enough quality, exertion as to win. The analogy breaks down when it comes to Abram the promise with Abraham. Because Abraham wasn't given a covenant of works, but a covenant of grace. A covenant by which he would receive all of the good things promised to you know, yeah, promised to him on the basis of the promise, on the basis of the faithfulness of the one who promised. And so when we come to the law of God, when we come to Moses setting before us a curse

and a

blushing, and we see our in a blurr to take your own the right track. You have an arrived yet. But you're headed in the right direction. It's meant to lead you to Jesus Christ. Carry his burden?

And to where does he carry it? He carries it to the cross and there, his burden, and then and there, his burden and He didn't even know he had a burden on his back until he left the city of destruction. How awful was it that somebody came to someone who

was unaware of the burden they were under and exposed the burden they

were under and exposed the burden. Of the burden they were under and exposed the burden and showed them? And then they began to feel it and and crumple up under it. If that's all that that evangelists had done if that's all that Moses and his law were to do for us, then there's no then then we're the most pitiable of all people. Because we're told that we have a

terminal condition, then there's no then then we're the most pitiable of all people.

Because we're told that we have a terminal condition, condition, and there's no But praise God that there was a promise that he made to Abraham four thirty years before any of this stuff. And the terms of that covenant are still intact. And that the people who are hearing Moses' choice will receive or be given those blessings, not because they've kept the law well, but because they receive them by means of a promise. Only feel like it's a word game if you won't deal honestly and truthfully and and in-depth with your own heart. It's not a word game.

These things are complex. There's more to it than you can understand in just a few minutes of of half hearted attention. There's more to it, but it's not a word game. What ancient Israel didn't know or didn't understand at the time they received this, they would have understood it much more practically, much more literally than we do. There were still those among them who were faithful, who understood in their bones by the by the grace of God that the law was not meant to lead them to salvation, but to expose their need of and their in a bit to a And so when they made sacrifices, rudimentary form of what was going on, but now has been revealed to us in its entirety through Jesus Christ.

And so where they may have been ignorant, or they may have been short sighted, or they may not have understood, we don't have the option of being so childish and our understanding. They, like we, were under the curse because of Adam sin. On top of that, they've added to it their own sins as we have. And so when Moses sets the choice before them between God's blessing and God's curse, We have to understand what's really going on. If they could choose the blessing, they would have to believe that they could keep the law.

You remember the rich young ruler? What do I have to do to inherit eternal life? Do you remember the lawyer? What do I have to do to inherit eternal life? They come with this superficial understanding of the law.

This understanding that they can keep it. So Jesus asked them, well, how does it read to you? And they say, well, you're supposed to do this and love your mother and all these things. And he goes, yep. Do those things.

Do that and it will be given to you. But with the rich young ruler, Jesus added just this one thing to it. Right? Have treasure and Why did Jesus say that to him? He said that to him because that man thought that life came through the law.

And he was proud and thought that he had kept the law. And Jesus exposed, whether to him or not, certainly to us, that he had not kept the law. Of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself. And all Jesus said was love your neighbor and this way. And we're told that that rich young ruler went away discouraged because he owned many things.

A similar story with the with the lawyer right before the Good Samaritan. We talked about it in Sunday. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Oh, well, how does the law read to you? Oh, this is how the law reads to me.

And then he in his brazen pride says, and who's my neighbor? So Jesus tells him the story of the Good Samaritan. The very thing that this proud and unbelieving man expose us and then to lead us to the one who can cover us.

To the one who can to the one who can to the one who can So if you choose

if you're to choose the blessing that Moses sets before you, you are not choosing it based on your ability to keep the law because you have already failed at it. They had already failed at it. There they stood as Moses said this, Sojourners and strangers with no land and no place, having been under God's hand of discipline for forty years. And as much as we might wanna start a fresh in the morning and act like all of the past failures are in the past and no longer consequential, that's not how God sees it. Adam sinned, so many thousands of years ago, is still intact and on us and in us, in God's sight.

And so however much we want to forget about those things from day to day or week to week, however much we want to go to bed at night and say, I had a good day today. I'm not going to worry about the terrible week I had last week because I had a good day. By my judgment today, I had a good day, which means I did a little better than that terrible week last week. Count. He doesn't reckon the way we reckon.

And so to choose life, to choose the blessing, to choose to listen and to carefully obey is something that's done by faith in Jesus Christ. Something you do because you looked in the mirror and thought, I think I can win this one. It's because you looked in the mirror and go, I'm supposed to look to the one who can win this one for me and has won this one for me. Tru and so when they see their failures, and And so when they see their failures, they're ashamed of them. They're embarrassed by them.

They're sorry for them. Perhaps, at least in time,

we hope. But they're growing in their

sorrow over their sin. That they're growing in their sorrow over their sin. But they have a firm foundation, a solid rock, Jesus Christ, whom when the storms of life, which could be described as our own sins sometimes, we often take that analogy as like storms coming at us from other places. But many times the storms we endure, the ones we spun up are But to the Christian, even for the storms they've spun up themselves, they have a firm connection to a solid foundation, which is Jesus Christ, so that they're able to stand. That's what it means to live by faith.

Attractive. To

me, we have plenty of sins that we stir up in our own lives, plenty of carry for ourselves, not to mention the ones that come to us from other people. How sweet it is to have a promise made so long ago that the blessings that we're to receive come to us not because of how we behave in every single situation, but because God has been gracious and merciful to save sinners from all of the mess, theirs and what others have brought to them. So then how wicked would it be to choose the God who's cared for you and known you and born with you and instructed you. How wicked is it then to trade away that one for an unknown God? That's what the passage describes as the curse.

You did not listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, but you turned aside from the way which I am commanding you today, personal, I, you, Why would a man give up his wife for the strange flesh of the adulterers? It's idolatry. It's blasphemy. With regard to God. And so when we refuse when he is refused, the one doing the refusing has traded a certain and known, a gracious and faithful God for an uncertain God who's unable to save or do anything for them.

Then Moses goes on and he tells him, you're going to set up alters about this. You're going to I'm I'm speaking to you, but there's going to come a time not long after this where they're going to have a response. Okay? It's a bit veiled in our text, but I would explain it. So it's a bit of a doubt when the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering the it's like, what's that about?

What do you mean? Like, you mean so we're supposed to sort out who the blessed ones are and put them over here and we're supposed to sort out the the the cursed ones and we're supposed to put that doesn't sound delightful at all. And that's not what's going on. The the account of this actually being, accomplished is in in Deuteronomy chapter twenty seven and twenty eight. There's two chapters that explain this.

Okay? I'm not gonna read them all to you. But I'll tell but I'll we'll get to them eventually in our in our sermons. But for now, I'll just explain. Israel is instructed as they go into between these two mountains.

And as far as the topography goes, there's basically, they live in the Arab, but it's a pretty flat place. And then there's these two, like, plateau mountains, and there's a pass down through the center of them. And it's sort of the entrance into a new land, into the inhabited place. And one of them is Mount Gerizim, and one of them is Mount Ebal. And so Israel's instructed to go there and to erect altars.

This is what you find in Deuteronomy 27. They're to erect altars, piles of uncut stones. They're not supposed to take a metal anything. They're not supposed to do anything. Just rocks.

Just get you some rocks. Big pile of rocks. Put it up there. One on each each mountain. And then you're supposed to take those stones and you're supposed to cover them with lime.

Okay? Lime is white a really bright white powder. Okay? You're supposed to cover these and then you're supposed to write on them so that it's very clear and distinct so people can read and see the blessings on Mount Gerizim. Write the blessings on it.

And then on on Mount Ebal, on those that altar, write the curses on it in the line. Don't etch them in like like they would have like God would have done on the 10 Commandments. But build up these altars, these unfinished rocks, and cover them, make them visible, and then write the blessings on one, the curse is on the other. And then, I don't remember off the top of my head which two there are, what who are in each. But half of you go up on the mountain of blessing, and half of you go up on the mount of of curse the curse.

And then what's going to happen is the Levites are going to read out the blesse. People on both mountains through this echo chamber of a valley are going to say, amen. And then they're going to read the next blessing. And they're going to say, amen. And Deuteronomy twenty seven and twenty eight is the account of them doing this.

These two people calling back and forth through the valley, thunderous, a, a, a, a, a, a, a And so God's people were to to demonstrate their agreement with the things that God said. Both. To those who would receive the blessings and to those who who would receive the curse. And probably pretty, agreeable. That would be a good thing.

That's I like that. But the curses?

Or

if Or if you do, if you do, rejoice in it. You often wonder whether or not you love those people or whether you're glad because they're getting what you think they deserve.

It's often not pure. It's often not pure.

It's often not pure. It's often not pure. It It's often not pure. But it wasn't the case here. The people were to go into the land.

They were to wreck these altars, write these blessings and curses, shout their agreement with it, and then leave the altars there as a testimony, sort of as as as the gateway into the promised land that this is what we're about. This is what this land is is known for. The ones who obey, blessing. And the ones who disobey, curses. And the people altogether agreed that this was good.

And so they're to reaffirm their commitments time and time again. They're to choose day by day leave a land, they would go you know, if they went this way, they would walk through this valley, and they would look up by my heights, and they would remember. They would have been told about it. They would have been called to choose

again today. Is that your mountain?

Or is that your mountain? So you and I have a greater knowledge than Israel did at that time of the blessings and the curses of

reaffirm

our devotion to his law as the path towards salvation. Not not to despise it. We ought not to denigrate it or forget about it or say that was for a different people and that was for a different time and it has no bearing on us today. It is still the path by which we are brought to faith, brought to repentance. The law didn't save the Jews in the old testament.

Abraham is the father of faith, not Moses. And Abraham received his righteousness by faith and so to we and yet initially, we need the law to bring us to the cross of Jesus Christ. And then daily after that, we need to be reminded to choose to choose the Lord, to choose his ways, to repent of our sins, to condemn our ways if they're opposed to him. And to do so gladly by faith, trusting that God is merciful to sinners and that he saves them. And that whatever he doesn't accomplish and finish in this life, he will bring to completion a glory.

That's our hope. That's our hope. That's my hope. If I have to deal with a man who that I see in the mirror and hope he can make it Let's pray.