{"id":22700,"date":"2022-08-03T22:00:55","date_gmt":"2022-08-04T05:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/deuteronomy28_30-42-copy\/"},"modified":"2022-07-26T15:07:01","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T22:07:01","slug":"deuteronomy28_43-57","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/deuteronomy28_43-57\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cost of Not Obeying God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deuteronomy 28:43-57\u00a0 \u00a0 Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Deuteronomy 28:43-57.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Deuteronomy 28:43-52 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n43\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower.
\n44\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail.
\n45\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the\u00a0LORD\u00a0your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you.
\n46\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.
\n47\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Because you did not serve the\u00a0LORD\u00a0your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity,
\n48\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the\u00a0LORD\u00a0sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
\n49\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The\u00a0LORD\u00a0will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand,
\n50\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young.
\n51\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined.
\n52\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the\u00a0LORD\u00a0your God is giving you.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses\u00a043\u00a0to 52:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Here Moses describes another problem that will come on God’s people if they refuse to obey Him: the land that God had given to them as an inheritance will be taken away from them and given to other nations.\u00a0 Moses says that if the Israelites do not obey the Lord and observe His commands, they will be pursued by their enemies (v45).\u00a0 A foreign nation will lay siege to them (v47-52) all “because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees that he gave you (v45)…[and] because you did not serve the Lord your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity (v47)”.\u00a0 Because the Israelites would disobey God, they would lose the land that God had originally reserved for them.<\/p>\n

Similarly, because all of us have disobeyed God\u2019s commands, we also lost our land and our inheritance, that is, any access we had to heaven and to a relationship with God.\u00a0 But out of love for us, Jesus went to the cross and was disenfranchised in our place.\u00a0 Instead of taking heaven away from us, God took heaven away from His Son Jesus.\u00a0 That is why Jesus, while hanging from the cross, said, \u201cMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?\u201d (Mark 15:34) \u00a0Jesus experienced separation from God on our behalf, exchanging His riches for our poverty. \u00a0By His death on the cross, Jesus bought back for us the land that we had lost through our disobedience.<\/strong>\u00a0 As 2 Corinthians 8:9 says, \u201cFor you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deuteronomy 28:53-57 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n53\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the\u00a0LORD\u00a0your God has given you.
\n54\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children,
\n55\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities.
\n56\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The most gentle and sensitive woman among you–so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot–will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter
\n57\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 53 to 57: \u00a0Why is Moses talking so much about cannibalism, saying that the Israelites will want to eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters?\u00a0 What are we to make of these strange sounding verses where Moses says that the Israelites will want to “eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you” (v53)?<\/p>\n

In verses 53 to 57, Moses says that if the Israelites keep on sinning, their land will be besieged by foreign nations.\u00a0 He says the siege will be so severe that the Israelites will want to resort to cannibalism, eating the flesh of their own children.<\/p>\n

So what can we learn from this?\u00a0 Two things.\u00a0 First, sin has this way of warping our hearts, making us want things that we, in our right mind, wouldn\u2019t want.\u00a0 I don’t know if any loving parent could ever imagine being so desperate and heartless that they would consider eating their own kids, but sin has this ability to warp a person\u2019s mind in thinking and wanting things that they wouldn\u2019t think or want in their right mind.<\/p>\n

Second, these verses teach us that when we sin, we are not the only ones who suffer.\u00a0 We might think, “My sin is my own personal problem. It does not affect anyone except me.” \u00a0But verses 53 to 57 teach us that when we persist in disobeying God, our children \u2013 the ones who depend on us for life, love and leadership \u2013 suffer even more.<\/p>\n

We might not literally eat our children\u2019s flesh as a cannibal would, but when we deliberately persist in sinning, we\u2019re serving ourselves at our children’s expense.\u00a0 Sometimes the greatest victims of our sin are not ourselves but our children.<\/p>\n

Finally, when you read these pictures of cannibalism in verses 53 to 57, remember that Jesus once made a graphic, controversial and often misunderstood statement:\u00a0“<\/sup>Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:54) \u00a0Combining the ideas of Deuteronomy 28:53-57 with John 6:54, it’s as if God is saying, “When you sin, you have a choice.\u00a0 You can eat the flesh of your sons and daughters by continuing to sin at your children\u2019s expense.\u00a0 Or you can look to my Son Jesus, eat\u00a0His\u00a0<\/em>flesh, drink\u00a0His\u00a0<\/em>blood, and be forgiven.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, believe in Jesus the Son of God and find hope for yourself and for your children.<\/p>\n

God, thank You for sending Your own Son Jesus to suffer for my sin so that my children would not have to suffer so much for my sin.\u00a0 Today I recognize that there is a cost to my disobedience.\u00a0 May I always remember that cost whenever I am tempted to sin, and look to Jesus for mercy and grace to help me in my time of need.\u00a0 In Jesus’ name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Deuteronomy 28:43-57.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Deuteronomy 28:43-52 (NIV)
\n43\u00a0\u00a0The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower.
\n44\u00a0\u00a0He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail.
\n45\u00a0\u00a0All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the\u00a0LORD\u00a0your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you.<\/p>\n

On verses\u00a043\u00a0to 52:\u00a0\u00a0Here Moses describes another problem that will come on God’s people if they refuse to obey Him: the land that God had given to them as an inheritance will be taken away from them and given to other nations.\u00a0 Moses says that if the Israelites do not obey the Lord and observe His commands, they will be pursued by their enemies (v45).\u00a0 A foreign nation will lay siege to them (v47-52) all “because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees that he gave you (v45)…[and] because you did not serve the Lord your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity (v47)”.\u00a0 Because the Israelites would disobey God, they would lose the land that God had originally reserved for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22700"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22704,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22700\/revisions\/22704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}