The Blessings and Curses

Deuteronomy 27

Though famous for the severity of the blessings and curses, this passage of Scripture deserves to be seen both for its dramatic flair and its take on fundamental moral realities.  As Moses sets the stage for the events described in this chapter, he fills two facing hillsides with the tribes of Israel, places the Arc of the Covenant and the priests in the valley below, and proclaims the terms of their covenant with God.  At each declaration of consequence, the people reply in unison, “Amen,” declaring that they agree to the terms, to include the blessings and the curses.  Imagine the volume of the scene – thousands of people crying, “Amen!” Imagine the liability of the people of God publicly proclaiming that because they belong to God they are subject to the terms of that covenant.

Before the details of the blessings and the curses are understood, the place to begin is with a fundamental understanding of what it entails to be the people of God.  Though God called Abram from Ur generations ago, and though God rescued them from Egypt one generation ago, Moses makes a point of saying, “this day you have become the people of God” (vs. 9).  This is not the literal day in which God makes them his people.  This is the day the terms of the covenant are brought to bear in a unique way.  This is the day of reckoning.  This is the day of consequence.  This is the day of blessing and curses.

Being the people of God, both then and now, comes with a set of terms regarding reality.  Though God’s laws stand as immutable no matter who believes them, this is a unique conversation God has with his people about their lives as humans who both belong to him and represent him on this earth.

God’s people cannot live in relationship with him and act however they please.  Relationship with a loving and holy God is not a moral free-for-all.  God is not loving in a way that allows us to follow our own hearts and create our own paths in life.  God is our Creator; he created us to flourish as humans who live according to his will and his ways.  And God is so loving that he reveals those ways as clearly and as often as possible.  And as people who say, “Amen,” we are responsible to those ways.

God’s people cannot break the terms of the covenant and expect God’s blessing to continue to flow.  It is utterly human to expect good things to come if we act as though we mean well, no matter what we actually do.  It is utterly divine to act in accordance with the Word of God, knowing that it means our peace, salvation, and well-being.

God’s people need to grow comfortable with a moral standard other than their own wishes to which they are responsible.  If I had my way, I would set the standards by which I will be judged.  But reality doesn’t work that way.  Even the people who love me the most don’t let me get away with that kind of narcissism.  The Lord of heaven and earth has already set the moral terms of human behavior and when I say, “Amen,” I explicitly agree to his terms.

God’s people need to understand there really are consequences for behavior, both good and bad.  The blessings and curses are both natural and divine consequences.  Our actions have inevitable, natural consequences, and God is involved in enforcing the terms of the covenant.  We do not live in moral and spiritual silly-putty.

Am I ready to say, “Amen”?  Have I already said it and yet continue to live as if I haven’t?  The final call and response of chapter 27 is the call to live what we affirm.  “Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them” (vs. 26).  And shall all the people say, “Amen”?

The Day After the Locust

Joel 1:1-4

A good Old Testament prophet is able to take the circumstances of the day and help us understand them through the will and word of God.  Whatever is pervasive in culture, whatever crisis is impending, the prophet helps the people of God understand God’s view on things.  Isaiah helps Israel hear God through the death of a king and the threat of Assyrians.  Jeremiah tries to get Judah to repent and avoid the invasion of the Babylonians.  Daniel lives as a faithful child of God in a pagan land and sees the power of the kingdom of God.

Joel gets bugs.  To be a little more specific, the crisis Joel’s generation faces, and the issue God wants them to understand, is a plague of locust.  It may not be glamorous, but through the faithfulness of Joel we end up learning a lot about God’s people and the power of a restoring God.

To begin with, the spiritual leaders of Israel are called on the carpet.  There is no evidence in Joel that they are responsible for Israel’s sins, but they are responsible to fulfill their role in a day of crisis.  They are spiritual leaders, and God’s people need to be lead back to him.  God’s appointed spiritual leaders are exactly that – they are not primarily business men, politicians, lawyers, or managers – they are leaders in things spiritual.  If the congregation of God is to come back to their senses and a right relationship with God, they will need to be lead by the priests and elders.

But the rest of the population is not let off the hook.  They are called to see what has gone on around them and learn how to respond faithfully.  They are not allowed to sit on the sidelines and watch as the priests and elders put things right with God, they are expected to be fully engaged in the process of repentance and restoration.

And then Joel tells the story of the locust.  A devastating plague has swept through their countryside and left nothing to them.  A plague of locust comes in waves, day after day.  Joel describes just that when he tells us that what the first wave didn’t eat, the second wave ate, and what they left the third wave ate, and so on.  From eyewitness account after account we can be sure of what happened to their countryside.  Nothing was left.  Crops, grass, seeds, heaps of stored grain, the bark on the trees – all gone.  Their consumption was complete. 

When the locusts come through, nothing edible is left.  Nothing promising any future value remains.  Joel and his people face a few pressing questions.  What can be done in the face of such destruction?  How can the people of God be faithful on a day like this?  Is there anyone who is great enough to restore all that was lost?

As it turns out, there is a God who is both powerful enough and faithful enough to restore what was lost.  And there is a way for God’s people – even people who have rebelled against God – to be faithful in a time like this.

To believe in a God of restoration is to understand the depth of the destruction.  And then we begin to understand how much greater this God we worship really is.  All is gone.  Everything we thought would take care of us tomorrow has been taken away from us.  So it is to you, O Lord, that we turn.

The Servant Comes Softly

Isaiah 42:2-4

Jesus was born in a manger to an earthly audience of two parents and some stable animals.  The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the One at whose name every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord, the one who created all things by the word of His mouth – entered this world in near complete anonymity.  A handful of foreign wise men were looking for Him, and one hillside lit up with the glory of God around some surprised shepherds, but that is about it.  The Servant of God came softly.

No other anticipated earthly king came this way, but Jesus was no earthly king in need of contrived pomp and circumstance.  And despite this being a surprising turn of events, it turns out that we knew He would enter this world in this fashion.  Isaiah told us that, “He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street” (Isaiah 42:2).

It is telling that Jesus came this way, but why?  The answer, I believe, lies in the next thought:

“a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench” (Is 42:3).

Why did Jesus come quietly?  Because I am a bruised reed.  I am a lamp with nearly no oil left and whose flame is near extinction.  Jesus came quietly because that is what the human condition demands – a God who enters the world we actually live in to bring the healing and justice we actually need.

Broken and bruised people do not need more failed promises, failing people or coercive political regimes.  They need a Savior.  The world can wear down the strongest among us and even those with a seemingly unlimited reservoir of patience and endurance come to the end of their strength.  Jesus comes to strengthen and restore.  But it isn’t just a restoration for a single lapse of judgment or strength for one difficult season in life; it is a healing of our very natures.   Jesus comes quietly because we need quite in this cacophony of noise from false idols.  Jesus comes gently because we long for a gentle, saving hand.  Jesus comes meekly because we need a strong, stable, kind hand untouched by the corruption of our world and our sin.

And though we are faintly burning wicks, God’s Servant will not faint.

“He will not grow faint or be discouraged” (Isaiah 42:4).

God knows we grow weary in this world and falter in our faithfulness, so it was necessary for a Servant who would not faint to come and complete his will.  We lose our strength and resolve – He never will.  We lose sight of justice – He will unfailingly bring it to all.

For this Servant to be unfailing and faithful means that no circumstance will turn Him away from accomplishing the will of God.  Not even abandonment by friends.  Not even betrayal by one of His closest disciples.  Not even the bloody and body-breaking death of the cross.  None of it causes him to “faint or be discouraged” because He will bring justice to all the earth and salvation to whosoever will believe.

The Servant comes softly, dies an unjust death, and rises from the dead as Lord of all.

God's Servant Described

Isaiah 42:1

The Lord stands as the Judge in a dramatic courtroom scene.  All the idols and gods of this world are brought before Him to decide if they have the power to foresee the future or to bring to pass the things they say will happen.  Every promise of salvation, power and meaning that is not from God is brought before him and every one of them fails miserably.  Every idol of this world is exposed as incompetent and impotent – they cannot do what they claim and lack the power needed to fulfill their promises.  So, it turns out, “they are all a delusion” (Is. 41:29).

So the next step is a dramatic one: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold.”  God takes our attention off the constant failures of this world to His Man, His will, His Servant – His Son, Jesus Christ.  In direct contrast to the manufactured gods of wood and stone (and marketing and circuitry), God wants us to consider and understand how His Servant will be different.  And it is the difference between the light and the dark, between the false and the true, between life and death.

To begin with, God’s Servant is upheld by His power.  Every other false god may claim a certain kind of power or potency, but all of them fail to have the divine power within them.  Jesus is not just the Servant of God, He is the very presence and power of God among us.  He is, as Isaiah says elsewhere, Emmanuel – God who is with us.  We cannot escape the reality of the power of God because it was the literal presence of God on earth in the birth of Jesus Christ.

The Servant is God’s chosen to perform His will.  God knows we fail and falter even when we are at our best as we live out this life of a disciple, so His chosen Servant will not fail.  We are faithless, He will be faithful.  God’s desire for this world will be done, and it will be accomplished through the Servant.

And surprisingly enough, the Servant is the focus of God’s delight on earth.  Early in Jesus’ ministry, He went to John the Baptist to be baptized and it was one of the rare moments in the New Testament when the heavens opened and God spoke audibly.  He said,  “You are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased.”  God delights in his Son; God delighted in the birth of his Son on the first Christmas day.

And the Servant will be lead by the power and wisdom of the Spirit of God.  Jesus told the disciples that the Spirit of God would be their comforter and guide in all truth and the will of the Father.  It turns out he knew the same Spirit.  If we return to Jesus’ baptism, we see God the Son rise out of the water, God the Father speak His delight, and God the Spirit descend upon Christ in the form of a dove – a wonderful image of the Triune God in harmony.  We read nearly the same scene in Isaiah 42:1.  God the Father speaks of His delight in the Servant, God the Son, upon whom God the Spirit will rest.

We cannot ascend to the Father through any achievement, speculation or desire.  We cannot construct an ideology, a movement, or a program that has the power to guide and heal the human condition.  Every one of our hand-crafted idols is a false hope, so we need a true Savior.  Because we could not ascend and become like Him, He descended and became one of us.  Because we live in the visible and material the invisible and immaterial God stepped into human flesh taking on the form of a servant.

In the birth of one infant on the first Christmas day we are able to behold the Servant of God.

The Ambition of the Call

Romans 15:20

Every disciple is a called disciple.  Every follower of Christ is called to live for Christ.  The Christian is not just saved from an eternity apart from God, but is saved to live a life like Christ’s while here on this earth.  God called each believer to follow Christ.  And God calls each believer to do something for him, to live a certain life for him, to become a certain kind of person for him.  And this calling is not just for the special disciples, the intellectual or the super-spiritual.  If you are a child of God, you are called by God.

As Paul wraps up his letter to the Romans, we get a glimpse into his calling.  And though many of the specifics of Paul’s calling are unique to him, we learn a lot about our calling as we learn how Paul approached his call.  The way he treats the life God gave him gives me insight into how God wants me to treat my life with him.

“And thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel” (vs 20).

Paul’s calling – to preach the gospel where it had never been preached before – was the driving ambition of his life.  In fact, it was the reason he had been delayed in visiting the Romans.  Apparently he had planned to go Rome several times, but was unable to because he was waylaid by open mission fields.  Paul wanted to preach the gospel; Paul loved to do what God put him on earth to do, and in this context of Romans it is easy to imagine an exciting and fulfilling life for Paul.  But when we peel back the call itself, we see something else.

Acts chapter 9 tells us the story of Paul’s call, how Paul was persecuting the church, how God knocked him off his donkey, and how God used Ananias to deliver His message to Paul.  Just days after Paul’s conversion, God explained the call in his life this way, “he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:15-16).

From one point of view, this call seems hard if not impossible.  And it does so happen that Paul endures severe hardship in the service of this call, and eventually suffers martyrdom for preaching the gospel.  But from another point of view – the one that dominates Paul – the calling is a pleasure, a joy, a glory, even his life’s ambition.  When Paul writes the Romans and calls his life’s work his “ambition,” he has already suffered greatly, but it is as if none of that matters.  The call to preach the gospel, to do the thing God put him on earth to do, far outweighs the trials that come with the work.

The word he uses for “ambition” is telling.  It is a kind of love.  In fact, it can be literally translated as a “love of honor.”  Paul loves to do what God called him to do.  Paul considers it his highest honor to be called by God to proclaim the gospel and he will do it until there is no breath left in his body.

We often shy away from our calling because we are afraid of what God will make of our lives.  “I’ll give you everything but…” or, “do with me what you will, just don’t make me a…”  These all too common reactions miss the logic and the power of God’s call.  God made you and formed every corner of your being.  In the end, only he can make of your life everything it was intended to be.  Your calling is nothing to be afraid of.  We cannot consider it drudgery.  We must make it our ambition – our honor and driving love – to do what God called us to do.

The Virtue of Giving Thanks: The Consequence of Humility

Colossians 1:12

Christ told us that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).  In its full conversation, that verse is aimed at hypocritical Pharisees who were attacking Christ by attributing the work of God to Satan.  Their hearts were corrupt, so their mouths were necessarily corrupt.  Though they put on a show of purity and religiosity for all to see, they were rotten at their core and ended up blaspheming the God they said they so deeply loved.  The condition of their hearts literally came out of their mouths.

The mouths of the humble will naturally express thanksgiving to God.  Paul, a man full of thanksgiving, expressed himself this way to the Colossians: “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:11-12).

His expression of thanksgiving here is utterly dependent upon the work God has done for him.  Paul did not deserve the inheritance God gave him, and the most influential missionary in the world did not work his way into God’s favor.  Paul tells disciples to thank God in the same way.  We have been made children of God; He has done the work of qualifying us to live in His kingdom.  We are thankful for God’s work, not ours.

Humility is a way of looking at the world, God, and our place in it.  If we think we are the most significant thing in the world, or even one of the most significant things, humility is not a burden we bear.  If we believe God is the most important thing in all of time and space, then we are on our way to understanding our proper place in the world and the proper attitude we need to take toward others.  When God is primary, He is the source of my salvation and I am thankful.  When I am primary, God benefits from my presence on earth.  When God is primary, I am thankful for the gifts of creation, family, friends, work, and so much more.  When I am primary, all these people ought to be thankful for me.

Pride collapses our world.  We become self-consumed as our eyes are turned inward on our own perceived greatness, our own needs, and our own wants.  We become self-idols, looking like statues with heads bowed, not in worship but in self-adoration and self-absorption. 

Humility opens our world as wide as the greatness of God.  Our eyes can now gaze outward and upward as we can give thanks to God for all He has done and all He has given without the fear of losing the importance of ourselves.  In fact, the humble soul freely gives thanks in all things, finding in thanksgiving a divine valuation of all things.  People are no longer valuable to the degree they are useful to us, but in the degree to which they are valuable to God.  The objects of creation are no longer means to serve our selfish ends, but become beautiful objects displaying the handiwork of their Creator.  The humble disciple is able to see the world through the lens of thanksgiving.

The abundance of the prideful heart is a small, dark world.  The abundance of the humble heart is a joyous and expansive thanksgiving.  It is the humble disciple who sees God more clearly.  It is the humble disciple who gives thanks to God for all He has done.

The Virtue of Giving Thanks: An Antidote to Arrogance

Romans 1:21

We don’t give thanks for things we believe we have done on our own.  If we were not given any help, than what are we to give thanks for, and to whom should we give thanks?  A pattern of thanklessness like this is not a surface problem; it betrays a deeper issue – the problem of pride.  We are the source of our strength.  We are the beneficiaries of our own cleverness and intelligence.  We have taken care of ourselves just fine.

But is pride a problem?  Can we be legitimately proud of ourselves without negative consequences?  Arrogance, as it turns out, has deep and character-forming costs.  Arrogance is the stance that God is not necessary for the work of my daily life.  I may believe that God can save the day when things get really complicated, and I probably get angry with him when things don’t go my way, but outside of the extremes of life I have things under control and don’t need God’s intervention.  But a point of view like this one turns us into people without faith, heart, and the intellect God wants for us.

Paul describes the corruption of a thankless life: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21).  These same thankless people are later described as becoming, “foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (Romans 1:31).

There are severe consequences to a person’s soul and character if they are not able to genuinely thank God.

Thanking God for the simplest of things is a great place to start.  God, the Creator, put the sun, moon, and stars into the sky.  He created a cycle of light, water, plant and animal life that makes life itself possible for each of us.  The very air we breathe is a gift from the hand of a wondrous, powerful and loving God.  We thank God for fresh air, for the warmth of the sun, for a beating heart, and for an attentive mind.  And when we do, we begin to notice how dependent upon God we are for every moment of life.

Thanking God for the skills and talents he gave you is another good place to begin.  God warned his people that when they entered the Promised Land and became prosperous they would be tempted to think that they had “done all these things” (Deuteronomy 8).  They would get past the difficulties of creating arable farm land and the first years of vineyards and crops, and in the shadow of their labors in the sun they would think that their hands had given them everything they needed.  But who gave them hands?  Who gave them the knowledge they needed to tend to the land properly?  Who removed the giants in the land?  When we thank God for both our abilities and the fruits of our labors, our attention moves from our hands and minds to the God who formed them and filled them with His grace.

From thanking God for the things around and in us, we will want to move to thanking God for Himself.  We will want to begin naming the character traits of God and thanking Him for each and every one.  He is my Provider.  He is my Lord, Redeemer, Savior and Friend.  He is my Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  He is the Only Wise God.  At each thunderous attribute, pause in thanksgiving, allowing the Holy Spirit to fill you with Him, and to overflow in the thanksgiving of praise.

A heart and mind filled with this kind of thanksgiving simply does not have room for the squalor of arrogance.  It is too busy being overwhelmed with the greatness of their God.