Years ago I heard a funny story about a young, overly zealous evangelist who caused quite a stir in a shopping mall. Seems it occurred in one of those food court areas where lots of people were gathered. There was a lot of commotion when he began yelling at the top of his lungs…”Everyone back away…back away…it’s alive…it’s alive…back away”. As parent’s grabbed their children and folks were stumbling over one another and knocking chairs and tables aside trying to clear the area, this young preacher was seen holding a large cardboard box firmly on the ground as if he had trapped something. Mall security quickly approached and when curious onlookers gawked in a hushed tone, the young man announced that all was well, and they need not fear. What he had ‘trapped’ under the box was indeed alive but would not harm anyone now. He stood…looked at all the confused faces, encouraging the security folks they were in no danger as he reached down and from underneath the box, he pulled out a large leather bound bible. 

 I suppose that is one way to get people’s attention. 

 He was right about two things though…God’s word is a ‘living’ word and…we need not fear it. 

 So why does that book make so many believers nervous? 

 We would expect non-believers to have a variety of opinions and make dismissive remarks pertaining to it, but so many of us professing followers of Jesus get uptight when we are confronted with passages that come straight off those pages. 

 Come to think of it, it was the religious crowd back in the time of Jesus, who when confronted by Him, He became a ‘rock of offense’ …and He WAS…the Word come in the flesh. 

 I have made the case in the past that one reason the bible troubles us so is when it says something different than what we always believed or thought it said. Often times, when we have allowed a man-made doctrine to capture our hearts, then we come across scripture that doesn’t ‘fit’ with that teaching, we’ve been conditioned to reject it or explain it away or just pretend it’s not there. The danger in this is the more we reject the word, the harder our hearts become and we can get to a place where that living word can no longer have an effect on us. And how can we be washed by the ‘water of the word’ (Eph. 5:26) if we don’t even want to embrace it? 

 So one more time…even if we don’t understand the Word, we need not fear it. Best approach to take is to at least acknowledge it being God’s word…and be open to letting the Holy Spirit reveal its meaning…even if/when it seems to say something different than what you were taught or raised to believe. 

 Which leads me back to our discussion from yesterday. You might want to review that in case you missed it before wading further in here today. Today is going to ….be unsettling for some of you which is why I want to assure you that if it’s God’s word…and you are troubled by it, then you might want to take a step back and examine why that is. 

 The other day, I cited a passage from Rom. 11:22 where Paul wrote that we should give consideration to the fact that God has not only a ‘good side’, but there is ‘another side’ to God as well. “Behold the goodness and...the severity of God”, Paul wrote. And even if you heard a distorted version of that ‘other side of God’ to the point it may have damaged you or your ability to hear truth, that cannot be a reason for avoiding the Word. The Word is meant to produce life in us, and to cleanse us and even ‘heal’ us. (Ps. 107:20) 

 Yesterday, we were wading in to a very informative and sobering chapter found in Deut. 28. It was, in effect, the ‘terms and conditions’ of this covenant relationship that God was renewing with His people, the descendants of Abraham. By the way, if you are a child of God through faith in Jesus, you too, are an heir according to the promise. (Gal. 3:29). I was making the case how prone we are to jump on board and hear about all the benefits and promises God’s word has for us. It’s that ‘other negative’ stuff we tend to shy away from and not really want to give thought to. 

 I invited you to grab a notepad and pen….and spend some time going over the 54 verses that warn of the consequences that God’s people could expect to encounter if they opted to disregard God’s laws and commands. The bible actually calls them ‘curses’…and there’s a bunch of them. 

 Now some may be asking why any of this even matters for NT believers given that law ‘was for back in the OT days’. But we have already established that the law was never done away with as Jesus testified when He began His earthly ministry. (Matt. 5:17). The law still stands today as God set it in place because of sin. (Gal. 3:17,19). Paul mentions in several places the validity of the law saying it is good and holy but also making the case that the law is not for the righteous, but the unrighteous and unholy and ungodly, etc. (Rom. 7:12; 1 Tim. 1:8-10) In fact he even wrote in Rom. 2:13 that it is not the ‘hearers of the law who will be justified, but the doers of the law’. 

 And for those of you who are hyperventilating about right now thinking I’m trying to suggest we are ‘saved by works’, let me assure you, no man is justified by keeping the law. 

 But…if he/she is truly following Jesus, then all the requirements of the law are doing to be fully met because that’s what Jesus came to do…to empower us to walk like He did and He…fulfilled the law Himself. (1 John 2:6). But more on that later. 

 Here is where it gets interesting and why we should be more mindful in examining ourselves to see if we are truly in the faith. (2 Cor. 13:5). Paul wrote that ‘those who are led by the Spirit, they are not under the law’. (Gal. 5:18) Soooo…..if you are not being led by His Spirit and abiding in Him…guess what? You are subject to the law and that is where it gets serious. 

 So here we go…we will finish up camped out in Deut. 28 and I’m going to point you to a number of verses that I’d encourage you to write down for further study. All I ask of you is to not jump or rush to any conclusions. Let’s think of this as a jigsaw puzzle where we are simply laying out the pieces on the table for further examination. It will be the Holy Spirit that puts them all together for us. Just don’t toss them aside because you don’t like them or they make you uncomfortable. 

 I want to break this into two sections. The first part is to draw your attention to how often this idea of obeying or following or adhering to God’s voice and laws and commands are repeated over and over. Please make note of the following verses here in chpt. 28: (1,2,9,13,14,15,20,45, 58,62). My own personal practice is to actually write the passages out on a notepad…there is something about letting those words sink in as I write them down. We are in no hurry here. You cannot help but to see a constant theme stressing the dire need for obedience. Sadly, today, we have drifted so far away from this idea that Christians have to ‘obey God’ given we are ‘not saved by works’ nor ‘bound to legalism’. 

 Tell me this…when did obedience to God become some ‘work’? Did Jesus not ask why we called Him ‘Lord,….and not do the things He says’? (Luke 6:46). And what do you do with Hebrews 5:9 that reads Jesus became the source of eternal salvation to all those who obey Him? And according to James 1:22, who are the ones most likely to be deceived? 

 Now, for the really sobering stuff. I will include the actual verse numbers below, as they will answer the following questions I am going to begin writing out here: 

Who…was going to send curses and confusion and frustration on them if they don’t obey God? 

Who…was going to make the plague cling to them? 

Who…was going to strike them with consumption and fever and inflammation and burning fever? 

Who… was going to cause them to be defeated before their enemies? 

Who… was going to strike them with tumors and scab and boils from which they could not be healed? Who… was going to strike them with madness and confusion of the heart? 

Who…was going to strike them with severe boils on the knees and legs and feet and head? 

Who…was going to hand them over to their enemies and set a yoke of iron on them until they were destroyed? 

Who…was going to bring a hostile and foreign ‘nation’ to devour them? 

And who…was going to bring upon them and their descendants extraordinary plagues and prolonged plagues and serious and prolonged sicknesses and all the diseases of Egypt which they were afraid of along with every sickness and every plague which is not written in this Book of the law until they are destroyed? 

 You will find the single answer to all these questions in the following verses from that chapter: (20-22,24,25,27,28,35,36,48,49,59,60,61,64-65) 

 Please note that you are reading this in Your bible. And remember, no rushing to conclusions here. We will certainly address this more tomorrow, (Lord willing). But I do want to leave you with this thought …IF we have not been taught the judgements of God, then there is really no way we could even begin to grasp and understand what it means to have a ‘fear of God’. Yes, I know this just ruffles the senses of so many who have never heard of such a thing. But Proverbs 1:7 tells us that it is the ‘fear of the Lord that is the beginning of knowledge’. And why did God say “His people…are destroyed?” - ‘for a lack of knowledge’. (Hosea 4:6) 

 Now…do I believe the bible is teaching that God has this giant storage bin of cancerous tumors and such that He fastens to lightning bolts or arrows to hurl down on anyone who stumbles and sins? My answer to that would be ‘no’. But…we will explore from scripture just how those curses are carried out. I hope you will consider joining me once again. This is all pointing us to a very good place that for many, I would guess have never experienced …despite being a faithful member in a local church somewhere their whole life. 

 And can we please agree…all we have done here today is simply acknowledge…what God said there in our bibles. Take a deep breath…and we can continue on tomorrow.

PS- if you click and 'like' this post today, I promise I won't interpret that to say you 'liked' what you read...rather you are simply agreeing that 'yes, that is what it says in your bible'.