Is God Acting Today? Deuteronomy 28

Scripture Text: Deuteronomy 28

Topic: Is God Acting Today?

The question for today is:

• Is God dead?
• Does He really have any power?
• If God is to be feared, how come nobody does fear Him?
  

I would draw you to the Bible verses contained in Deuteronomy 28. Just read the chapter. It will become quite apparent that there is a cause and effect scenario being set up.

First of all the first fourteen verses are about being blessed by God. The verses are talking about a civilization:

• Starting with the city, the major industrial center of commerce.
• Then the fields: the productive capacity of the civilization.
• Back to the city (the fruit of thy body) again, the industrial center, where skilled workers are developed: ie entrenpenuers.
• Then to tools, the fruit of thy cattle, kine etc…
• The savings of the people will also not be depleted: the basket and store will be plentiful. (As a side note, the word savings comes from being saved in the future by the funds or monies that have been stored away. They are used to “save” you in the day of calamity, or in the future, when you cannot work. Obviously savings are also a buffer, or a cushion, that “saves” you from the bumpy ride of anxious “day to day, paycheck to paycheck” living.)
• The civilization will also be at peace with the enemies round about.
• If there are enemies, they will be scattered.

There are some key statements that are not to be taken lightly and they should give encouragement to any Christian: Duet 28:8 and 28:9 : ”The Lord shall command blessing….” “The Lord shall establish thee an Holy people…”

There is also a “Great Commission” statement (verse 10) “And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee.”

The nations of the earth will be afraid to touch “The Lord's anointed.”

To sum up the blessing section of fourteen verses, economical statements of the Civilization are made. God will bless the nation so much that they shall lend to many nations. They shall be the Head, and not the tail. This civilization will rule the world in economic endeavor.

The whole 14 verse section however is framed in an interweaving theme:

If thou shalt obey ALL the Commandments and turn not to the right hand or to the left, then thou shalt be blessed.

(Now the modern Christian may be putting up shields and be saying “wait a minute: we do not live under the law, but under grace!” No one can obey the law, where are you going with this?!”
Correct, we do not live under the law. We are not living under the sanctions of the law. Christ has bought our sin. He has taken the sanctions of the law to himself. However, and this is a big however, Christ expects us to perform. In fact, Christ is our master now, and is working a work in us, called Grace, that enables us to perform. {We will be discussing grace in the future, but it is just sufficient at this time to understand, that grace is the power given by God to perform His will in the earth. In short a Christian does not live under the condemning power of the law, but is empowered by God to use the Law unto righteousness.})

To get back on track here, the first 14 verses are basically saying this:

If you obey and apply God’s Law to build a righteous civilization, then God will see to it that the righteous civilization is put it place and planted.

The rest of the chapter, however, deals with the DETAILS of not endeavoring to apply God’s Laws to build a righteous civilization.

The result is as Christ puts it “Weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.”

The details are awful.

They seem incredible.

However, if you read them, and then look at your newspaper, you may start to see a correlate, a congruency, a pattern which you can relate to this chapter.

• Death
• Disease
• Famine
• Drought
• War
• Plague
• Inflamation
• Diseases you never heard of
• Kidnapping
• Oppressive slavery
• Children dying
• Foreigners taking over
• New foreign laws
• New foreign kings

I have not even begun to make a comprehensive list.

It is just, again, sufficient to say, that the American Civilization as a whole is being cut off, being disinherited, being put to death.

The question may you may be wanting to ask is:

“Why? Why is God doing this? Why is he taking away all their blessings?”

The answer really is quite practical:

• Man was put here on earth to build a civilization (Gen 1:26).
• When man does not build this civilization, then he builds wreckage, and carnage.
• God cannot allow carnage and wreckage to continue, if God’s prime goal is Righteousness, or a God Loving, Just and Equitable Civilization.
  

Man must be reminded, additionally, that there are consequences for bad building practices.

In Tacoma Narrows a suspension bridge was made in 1940. The bridge that was jostled by a 40 mph wind and it started to oscillate. Before the day was out, the bridge had oscillated itself to pieces. Quite literally it was shaken like a jumping rope until all the pieces just fell off. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge)

In retrospect we would call that bridge “poorly designed.” Any bridge that cannot withstand the elements ought not to exist: it is dangerous.

I bet most people do not realize this, but the Golden Gate Bridge had the same propensity, until the bridge was fixed with a boxy undersection to bring the oscillations down to a safe level.

The point I am making is that, we as a people will not tolerate things that are unsafe. We have terms for unsafe behavior or designs: reckless, careless.

• God is the same way.

We being made in the image of God, picture God by not tolerating poor design practices:

• People get hurt
• People could die.

God looks at civilizations that way:

• A Poorly Designed (as in “not designed well”) Civilization Hurts people; Kills people.

You may say:

“Wait a minute. How can a poorly designed civilization kill people, hurt people?”

Very, very easily.

God has a terms for it:

• Poor
• Widows
• Fatherless
• Foreigners.
  

The poor, the widow, the fatherless and the foreigner are at a disadvantage. They do not know the ways of civilization, and thus are handicapped in their ability to build civilization.

A wicked, or an idolatrous civilization, will pick on the “less useful elements of society.”

Euthanasia and abortion are means towards eliminating the “less useful elements of society.”

In practical terms, Socialism requires the elimination of Cost and unproductive elements to succeed. Unfortunately, they end up oppressing and killing everyone in the civilization.

Socialisim in short is a Hate Mongering, Hate thy neighbor culture that preys and acts as a beast (like the beasts in the Bible) and devours all in its path.

A civilization that is not directed towards Righteousness will devour its inhabitants. They will die in their idolatries, or will be deeply hampered in their effects on the world in a positive light.

Deuteronomy 28 is the passage that most prophets hail to. Christ even hails to it in the “pay unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar and unto God that which is God’s.”

You may say: “How? Now you are off in the deep end again!”

The ultimate in curses by God on a culture are delineated in Deuteronomy 28 vs 36 “ The LORD shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone.”

Christ was tying the following, Deuteronomy 4:30-31 with Deuteronomy 28:26

Deu 4:30 When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice; Deu 4:31 (For the LORD thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.

Christ basically said

“ The foreign tonque called Caesar is upon you because you have rejected God and His Laws. Repent and you will be restored.”

• They marveled because Christ hit the target.

They wanted to say they were being oppressed for no reason, Christ said,

• “Repent of your sin, and oppression will leave.”

Deuteronomy 28 can be summated as the following:

God is in control and he will make sure that a righteous civilization is rooted in the earth with his Soveriegn Judgements.

The judgements being:

• A Rooting (blessing) of a righteous civilization
• And the Uprooting (Cursing) of the unrighteous civilization in the earth.
  

Is God Dead?

No. The nation we live in is being judged.

The trouble is that many believe that America is being judged, but they believe that Christ will be coming soon to save us from this problem.

The Bible does not hold to this view of life.

Christ is not going to come and take away all pain and suffering. In fact Christ basically says that “ I must needs go away, but none of you asks why?”

The why, is because we would rather have Christ solve all our problems. The fact that Christ had to leave in a ship to get away from the Mulititude of 5000 that were just fed bares testament to the fact that Christ was NOT here to feed the mulititudes Permanantly.

The Holy Spirit was being sent to Convict the world that there is a building program to be completed. Christ and the Holy Spirit work together to accomplish this work.

Psalm 2 demonstrates what the Lord – Christ is doing with the nations:

• Kiss the Son lest he be angry and ye perish from the way, when His anger is kindled but a little.
• Christ is serious about planting a Righteous Civilization in the earth.

So is God dead?

Certainly not, Christ’s Resurrection secures that He has the rightful Kingly authority to rule mankind, and Christ does rule through His adopted sons in the earth.

Namely, Christians represent Christ in the earth and Bind Satan and Plant Righteousness.