Wednesday, July 11, 2007

BIG Bible reading of God's predictions

Deuteronomy 28:58-62
If you are not careful to observe every word of the Law which is written in this book, and to revere the glorious and awesome name of the Lord, your God, he will smite you and your descendents with severe and constant blows, malignant and lasting maladies. He will again afflict you with all the diseases of Egypt which you dread, and they will persist among you. Should there be any kind of sickness or calamity not mentioned in this Book of the Law, that too the Lord will bring upon you until you are destroyed. Of you who were numerous as the stars in the sky, only a few will be left, because you would not hearken to the voice of the Lord, your God.

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This is a passage of CRUCIAL importance for the world today, for both individual and collective salvation. Christians miss the importance of this verse because they think, “Well, this is a passage about the Law, which has been fulfilled in Christ, so we don’t follow the Law.” Yes, that’s true about the Jewish Law, but not about the commandments, who remain obligatory to obey for eternity. But more important, how can readers not notice that God is telling you, through Moses, the author of this book, what will happen in the future? Oh great fortune tellers, and societal prognosticators, how can you miss this information?


God says that continual sin in the future will return the “diseases” of Egypt (in other words, the various plagues) but that “they will persist among you.” In other words, they won’t be temporary warnings as they were in Egypt. These calamities will persist, living among the populace. They are illnesses and environmental misfortunes that will persist, and not be “waited out.” And God warns that calamities previously never seen by humankind will happen in the future… sound familiar? God warns that “sickness and calamity” will be of a type not known by humans by saying “not mentioned in this Book of the Law.” People wonder why God sometimes bangs into people’s heads the many ways that calamity can come; well, now you see why. He is educating and warning, and then he spells out that if sin continues things will happen that haven’t even been described in the scriptures. Even more worrisome is that the future, unknown calamities will persist until populations “are destroyed.” Again, God is teaching that future calamities will not be of the severe, temporary chastising that the Israelites endured when they sinned, or the Egyptians when the oppressed God’s people. Future calamities will persist and result in destruction, because of the severity of the sins of humankind. While Moses writes that God says that “the Lord will bring upon you” these calamities, remember that Biblically that is how it is expressed that all that results is allowed under God’s will. This does not mean that God “sends” a specific calamity, but he won’t step in and will allow it to happen, due to human’s sins. There is an ominous hint about abortion, the break up of families, and plunging birth rate and lack of respect for life, expressed in the last line of this passage:

Of you who were numerous as the stars in the sky, only a few will be left, because you would not hearken to the voice of the Lord, your God.

And sure enough, those who still glorify God or Allah and live in his way are still having children and preserving the family. Those who do not are already diminishing to the “few will be left.”

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