“Blessings, Curses, and the Curse-Bearing Blessing-Giver (Deuteronomy 28)", Will DuVal | 4/5/26
Deuteronomy 28 | 4/5/26 | Will DuVal
Good Morning! And happy Easter! We are SO glad you’re with us this morning. My name is Will DuVal, I’m the lead pastor here at West Hills and if this is your first time with us, we wanna say a SPECIAL “welcome” to YOU. Maybe SOME of you joined us yesterday for the Easter Eggstravaganza; we welcomed over 550 people yesterday (almost HALF of whom were brand new here at West Hills), so praise God for THAT, and a HUGE shout out to all you volunteers who helped us pull that off; THANK you.
But we love PEOPLE here at West Hills - we love MEETING people, we love BLESSING people, we love CONNECTING people with OTHER people who are ALSO sure to bless you, and most of all, we love connecting people with GOD, the ULTIMATE blessor. And if you’re new, it would be such a blessing to MEpersonally to meet and connect with you this morning; PLEASE cut in line after the service and introduce yourself. We’ve also got a welcome team at the Info Bar on your way out who would love to meet you as well, and give you a small gift as our way of saying “thanks” for joining us.
Speaking of gifts, let me kick off this morning by asking you: “What’s the BEST one you’ve ever RECEIVED?” Actually, I’ve got TWO questions to frame up this morning:
What’s the greatest GIFT you’ve ever been GIVEN? And…
What’s the biggest BURDEN you’ve ever had LIFTED?
When I turned 10 years old, my parents threw me the greatest birthday party of all time. They invited every boy in my grade (plus my two girlfriends at the time - Reid Minnick and Stephanie Dunivan) to a flag football party. It SNOWED - REAL snow - which we never got in west Tennessee… But the best part was my parents paid the high school football stars - Trey Teague, who actually went on to play in the NFL, and James Kirkland, our school’s starting quarterback, who might as WELL have been Troy Aikman - I mean, we IDOLIZED these guys! - and they came to my party and played football with ME. And then we went back to my house for cake & presents and I got a brand new, fire-red electric guitar on which I played myself the “Happy Birthday” song, and I NAILED it, and Reid & Stephanie couldn’t stop FIGHTING over who got to be my girlfriend. It was AWESOME. (...and MOST of that is totally true. 🙂)
But my WIFE! My 3 beautiful KIDS! I’ve been given some AMAZING gifts…
…AND I’ve had some pretty big BURDENS lifted as well. When I turned 11 my dad LEFT our family, and for a long time I HATED him; took me the better part of the next 7 years to finally forgive him. But when I DID, it was like this immense WEIGHT was lifted - not just off of HIS shoulders; off MINE, all the RESENTMENT I’d been harboring, carrying around… finally GONE.
And as I’m sure YOU have too, I’ve been on BOTH sides of forgiveness. When Polly and I got married, I was an insecure, mean, sex-addicted, SELF-addicted NARCISSIST, who for YEARS said and did things that hurt her and hurt our marriage. And when I finally came to Christ, and I realized all the damage I’d done, and how much I now needed my WIFE’S forgiveness - I was terrified. But hearing her say those 3 POWERFUL words - “I FORGIVE you” - may have been an even bigger burden lifted - my GUILT - than when I’d said them 10 years earlier to my dad.
This morning, we’re talking about BURDENS and GIFTS because I’m gonna make the case - or rather, God’s WORD says - that whatever we THINK our biggest burden… our greatest gift is, according to the Bible, it is NOTHING compared to what JESUS did for us 2,000 years ago, on Good Friday… and on Easter Sunday.
Now, I feel like I need to PAUSE here right at the OUTSET and make a CONFESSION: that I believe, as I just let slip, that the Bible IS God’s word. You might NOT, or you might not be sure WHAT to believe; if that’s YOU, I just wanna say: I GET it. I think we can ALL agree that we suffer from a “crisis of TRUTH” these days, don’t we? Who knows WHAT to believe, WHO to believe, anymore - the MEDIA, the POLITICIANS, the UNIVERSITIES, even the SCIENCE seems to change every 2 weeks nowadays. There’s a reason that the word “post-truth” was Oxford Dictionary’s ‘word of the year’ back in 2016… and THAT was a DECADE AGO! Things have only gotten more confusing and uncertain SINCE then.
But you know what HASN’T changed in the past ten years… for the past TWO MILLENNIA now? The BIBLE. And for those who trust in its truthfulness, the Bible’s got a pretty remarkableTRACK record. I’m a pragmatic guy; the proof’s in the pudding, for me. I tried living life as my OWN authority; trusting in MY reason and logic, in the culture’s version of “truth” - where EVERYONE is entitled to their OWN subjective truth… just “follow your heart”; it’s the “Disneyprincess” approach to life - and I can just tell ya: MY heart about led me off a CLIFF! People ask me, “Wow, you were an ATHEIST, and now you’re a PASTOR; what CHANGED? Did you, like, readThe Case for CHRIST? The Case for EASTER, all the historical evidence for Jesus’s resurrection?”
And I’d say, “No, I just got tired of being MAD and SAD all the time. Cuz that’s where living life with ME at the center had left me: mad & sad. And I’m pragmatic. So I eventually got to the point where I figured, ‘Well, life isn’t working with ME calling the shots; maybe I’ll let GOD have a try.’”
Maybe some of YOU are there this morning; we’re so glad you’re here. And I would just commend the BIBLE to you as a trustworthy source for TRUTH; 2,000 years and still going strong. If you’re a fan of HOSPITALS, and SCHOOLS, and orphanages, women’srights, abolitionism, democracy… pretty much any form of PROGRESS in the history of Western civilization, then you really oughta give God’s WORD another look, because the BIBLE was behind ALL of that.
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But we’re gonna put it to the TEST this morning. Because we’re gonna be looking together at one of the most difficult and frankly, UNPOPULAR passages in all of Scripture. Since January here at West Hills, we’ve been studying our way through the book of Deuteronomy. “Deuteronomy” means “second law”, because it records for us the SECOND time that its author, a guy named MOSES, has now relayed God’s OT LAW to God’s OT people, the nation of Israel. The FIRST time you may be FAMILIAR with; God met Moses on top of a mountain and gave him the famous “10 Commandments”. But unfortunately, Israel was so SINFUL that even while God was MEETING with Moses, the rest of the nation was already at the bottom of the mountain breaking the first THREE commandments! And so NOW, where we pick the story up this MORNING, some 40 years later, and whole lot MORE broken commandments LATER, Israel is finally on the verge of entering the land God had promised to give them, their homeland. But before they DO, God calls Moses to remind them ONE MORE TIME here of His LAW, because the only way Israel would get to STAY in the land and ENJOY it, is if they OBEYED Him.
So Moses has spent most of the last 27 chapters of Deuteronomy now RECAPPING God’s LAW for them. And now in chapter 28, where we’re gonna be this morning, God has Moses relay the CONSEQUENCES of following His Law… or NOT; the BLESSINGS God wants to pour out on Israel if they’ll OBEY Him… but also the CURSES He warns them against if they refuse and REJECT Him.
Now, two final questions before we dive in, that I’m sure SOME of you must be ASKING: first of all, “What does ANY of this have to do with US… TODAY… and second, “What does it have to do with EASTER? Aren’t we supposed to be talking about Jesus’s resurrection?” (Yes we are, and I promise we WILL, if you hang in there with me…)
But let me at least give you the SHORT answers to BOTH questions right here up front:
Why’s it RELEVANT? Because, friends, ISRAEL’s story is OUR story. Listen: GOD hasn’t CHANGED; the Bible says He’s the same YESTERDAY, today, and FOREVER. And God’s LAW hasn’t changed; it’s the same 10 Commandments that God gave Moses 3,500 YEARS ago; Jesus came along and just SUMMARIZED ‘em, boiled ‘em down to just TWO: 1) Love GOD, and 2) Love OTHERS. That’s it. Jesus said, “Do THAT, and God’ll BLESS you; you get into HEAVEN.”
But here’s the PROBLEM, friends: you know what ELSE hasn’t changed in the last 3 ½ millennia? Our DISOBEDIENCE to God’s Law! Israel’s story is OUR story. So…What does any of this have to do with EASTER? Maybe you’ve heard DOZENS of Easter sermons by this point in your life… you KNOW the story: the women, the angels, the ORIGINAL “rolling stone”, and the RESURRECTION - Jesus’s RETURN to life from the dead. Whether or not you BELIEVE it, you at least KNOW the story, right?
But do you know why it MATTERS? If I asked you this morning, very simply, “What DIFFERENCE does Jesus’s resurrection make… for YOU, personally?”, could you give me a clear, concise, compelling and correct answer in 20 words or less?
I wanna GIVE you that answer this morning; GOD wants to give us the answer, in His word.
So I invite you to turn there with me now, if you have a Bible; if you DON’T, we’d love to give you one today on your way out, just stop by the Info Bar. But we’ll have the passage here on the screen for you just in case; Deuteronomy ch28, it’s toward the END of the FIFTH book of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and then DEUTERONOMY. It divides up into two VERY clear-cut, night-and-day sections, so we’ll read and unpack each in turn. And then for our THIRD and most IMPORTANT point - the EASTER connection… and the CORE of the Christian FAITH; you wanna know what Christianity is really all about, in 20 words or less? Just NINE words, for point #3; we flip ahead to the NEW Testament. So that’s where we’re headed.
But we BEGIN in Deuteronomy 28, v1; let me READ it for us first; hear the word of the LORD, this morning, thru his messenger MOSES: [[SCRIPTURE]]:
““If you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do ALL his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, IF you obey the voice of the Lord your God. [Now he’s gonna list the BLESSINGS] 3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. 4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock… Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
7 “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. 8 The Lord will command the blessing on you in your barns and in ALL that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 9 The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, IF you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. 10 And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. 11 And the Lord will make you abound in prosperity… and bless ALL the work of your hands… IF you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, 14 and if you do not turn aside from ANY of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
What’s his overarching point, in those first 14 verses?
1) If we OBEY the Lord, we will be BLESSED. (vv1-14)
It’s that SIMPLE: OBEY me, God says, “and be BLESSED”.
I will bless you with PROSPERITY (“I’ll make you abound in prosperity”) and I’ll bless you with PROTECTION (“cause your enemies… to be defeated before you”). He says, “I’ll bless you with a PLACE (the promised “LAND to which I’m BRINGING you”), and I’ll bless you as a PEOPLE (I will “establish you as a people holy, or “set APART” unto ME”; elsewhere God says, “you’ll be my treasured possession” among all the peoples). Blessing on top of blessing.
Now, one thing we always need to do whenever we’re interpreting the Bible is distinguish between the PROVISIONAL and the PRINCIPLE. The “provisional” is the historically conditioned, CONTEXTUALIZED part of the passage, that applied specifically to THEM back THEN, whereas the PRINCIPLES are the timeless and universal part that apply to ALL of us throughout ALL of TIME.
So, for instance, as we were reading through the passage, you might have found yourself wondering: “Obey and be BLESSED’; that’s great. But what if I don’t HAVE any “cattle” or “herds” or “flocks”... any “fields” or “barns”? What if I don’t HAVE any “ENEMIES rising against me”? Or any particular “LAND” that God has promised to GIVE me?
Well that’s all PROVISIONAL. But the underlying PRINCIPLES there are that God wants to BLESS His people with 1) prosperity, 2) protection, and 3) a PLACE.
God blesses us with PROSPERITY: gas prices and S&P 500 index notwithstanding, you and I live in the most PROSPEROUS time and place in all of human history; if you’ve got indoor plumbing and a SMART phone - a COMPUTER in your POCKET right now - you are in the top 1% of everyone who’s ever lived. And not by ACCIDENT; GOD put you here, and the Bible says He is the “giver of EVERY good gift”; He DELIGHTS to bless us.
Not ONLY with prosperity, but with PROTECTION as well. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you DO in fact have “enemies rising against you”; there is real EVIL in the world as well… SATAN: he’s REAL… SIN: it’s REAL… DEATH: it’s REAL, and it is COMING for us ALL. And THEN what? You better have PROTECTION, friends, when DEATH comes for YOU.
And God OFFERS it to us, because He offers us a PLACE - a BETTER “Promised Land”; you heard Brian read about it already, in 1 Peter 1: we have “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ… an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you”; eternal LIFE, with GOD, in HEAVEN is ULTIMATE blessing that God wants to BLESS us with!
… IF … if … we OBEY Him.
The TWO most important things to NOTICE from those opening 14 verses, even more so than the CONTENT of God’s blessings, is the 1) CONDITIONALITY of His blessing, and 2) the CRITERION - the STANDARD - God says He uses when deciding whether or not to bless. CONDITIONALITY and CRITERION.
First, look at how CONDITIONAL the blessings are; just COUNT with me all the “IF”s that we just read!!
*v1: ”IF you faithfully obey” (it’s how the chapter OPENS!)
*and then IMMEDIATELY AGAIN in v2! : “all these blessings shall come upon you… IF you obey”
*v9: “if you keep His commandments… and walk in his ways.”
*v13: “if you obey the commandments… being careful to do them”
*and v14: “and IF you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you”
FIVE “IF”s, in just 14 verses!
But just as telling as the CONDITIONALITY of God’s blessing is the CRITERION by which he says he evaluates our obedience: where does GOD set the bar? “As long as you obey MOST of my commands…”? That’s where WE set the bar, isn’t it?
Most of us like to think of ourselves as “pretty good people”, don’t we? We try to be kind. We don’t cheat on our taxes. We certainly don’t MURDER or commit ADULTERY or STEAL. Now, the FIRST FIVE commandments… and the last TWO… ehh… But, HEY: EVERYBODY FORGETS about GOD at times… puts OTHER things ABOVE Him… misrepresents Him in the way we carry ourselves… gets BUSY and ANXIOUS instead of RESTING in God’s sovereignty… everybody LIES at least a LITTLE… COVETS, gets a little ENVIOUS at times…
But I ask you again: where does GOD set the bar? You know where JESUS set the bar? Even with regard to the few commandments we THINK we’re good on… He said, ““You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder… But I say to you that everyone who gets angry with his brother will be liable to… the hell of fire… [And] You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it OUT… For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.” (Mt 5:21-22, 27-29)
In OTHER words, “Wherever you THOUGHT the bar was set - and regardless of where YOU’D like the bar to be set - lemme tell you where GOD sets it: this is a direct quote from Jesus, now, from that same passage in Matthew 5; he says, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the… Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (v20). The Pharisees were the professionally religious, RULE-followers of Jesus’s day; NO ONE exceeded their righteousness. But just to make it crystal clear, Jesus concluded with this clarification of God’s criterion: “You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (5:48) THAT’s the bar: moral PERFECTION.
Why? Because GOD is perfect. And God LOVES us so much, He refuses to SETTLE for anything LESS than the BEST for us. Also, HEAVEN is perfect. It’s NOT for “mostly good people”; it’s for PERFECT people, otherwise we’d RUIN it; it wouldn’t be HEAVEN anymore.
Look back at Deuteronomy 28 with me now; what is God’s CRITERION, his STANDARD for our obedience?
*v1 (right outta the GATE again): “be careful to do all his commandments” - not “some”; ALL.
*And then again at the END in v14; He BOOKENDS the passage with it: “if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you” - not a SINGLE ONE.
In the NEW Testament, the apostle JAMES put it THIS way: he said, “whoever keeps the whole law but fails in just one point has become guilty of ALL of it” (2:10).
So that’s the bar. If we OBEY God, we’ll be BLESSED.
How much blessing? LOTS!
But how much OBEDIENCE is required of us? LOTS; PERFECT obedience, in fact. If you wanna EARN your way into heaven, just be PERFECT.
Now, by SHOW OF HANDS, who here is PERFECT? I’ve asked this in a few sermons now, and I’ve only ever had ONE GUY raise his hand and I’m pretty sure he was certifiable, but I’ve got a fun little TEST of your moral perfection, if you DO raise your hand, you’ve gotta come find me after the service to PROVE it, that’s the deal…
Okay, NO ONE. So we ALL admit to IM-perfection, which means NONE of us qualify for God’s blessings on our OWN merit.
Which is exactly what the Bible TEACHES: that “NO ONE is righteous” (Rom 3:10); Jesus said that “NO ONE is ‘GOOD’, except for GOD ALONE” (Mk 10:18). According to JESUS, being “PRETTY GOOD” is an oxymoron; it’d be like if we hung a SIGN out at the CAFE: “This coffee is MOSTLY safe, MOSTLY poison-FREE.”
You’d say, “Well, is it SAFE or NOT?”
And it wouldn’t make you FEEL any better if I answered, “Oh, it’s MOSTLY safe; almost ALL of the liquid that is in that canister is NOT poison…” [That’s just a sermon illustration, by the way; I can assure you… with ALMOST 100% CERTAINTY… that there’s no POISON in the coffee this morning… 🙂]
Obey PERFECTLY, and be blessed. But elsewhere the Bible makes it clear: “by [obedience to] the law no one will be [counted RIGHTEOUS before GOD]” (Gal 2:16); “ALL have sinned, and fallen short of [God’s STANDARD]” (Rom 3:23).
Which brings us to truth #2 now: 2) If we DISOBEY the Lord, we will be CURSED. (vv15-68)
Verse 15 now: [[SCRIPTURE]]:
““But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do ALL his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. 16 Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field… Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground… your herds… your flock. 19 Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
20 “The Lord will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me. 21 The Lord will make pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering… The Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought and blight and mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish. 23 And the heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron…
25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 And your dead body shall be food for all birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth, and there shall be no one to frighten them away.
Now we won’t read the entire rest of the chapter, because Moses has still got FORTY-TWO VERSES of CURSES left to go! But let me just quickly give you some of the HIGH-lights (or the “LOW-lights”, I should say):
27 The Lord will strike you with all the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed.
28 The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion …
you shall be oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to help you.
30 You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall ravish her…
32 Your sons and daughters shall be given to another people [as SLAVES], while your eyes look on and fail with longing for them all day long, but you shall be helpless…
36 “And the Lord will bring YOU… to [that] nation… And you shall become a horror… among all the peoples…
45 “All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God… Because [Notice: all the hypothetical “IF”s of the blessings have now turned into inevitable “BECAUSE”s with the curses. That’s the FIRST clue - the first of 3 ominous clues here, that the CURSES are way more relevant for Israel - for US! - the blessings. 1) “Because”s replace the “IF”s. The blessings were hypothetical; the curses are INevitable. 2) 14 verses of blessings; FIFTY-FOUR verses of CURSES! That’s pretty TELLING! Moses is like, “And blessed shall you be in the… actually you know what, I’m gonna SAVE the rest of this ink and papyrus for the CURSES, cuz y’all are gonna need those WAY more!” And similarly, the 3) THIRD clue is actually back in ch27; God commands Israel when they do eventually ENTER the Promised Land, to RECITE the blessings and curses back and forth to one another, as REMINDERS. So He gives them like a CLIFF’s Notes version, but there in ch27, God OMITS the BLESSINGS ENTIRELY! “You won’t be needing THOSE…”
But ch28: there were 5 “ifs” of blessings; NOW we read 5 “becauses” of CURSES; “Because you didn’t OBEY…”; “Because…] you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness… therefore you SHALL serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything… until they have caused you to perish.
And we’ll stop there, because believe it or not, the curses get even worse, and I know some of us have KIDS here; this is actually the most GRAPHIC and GRUESOME passage in the entire BIBLE… “Happy Easter!” 🙂
But here’s the thing, friends: without the BAD news, the GOOD news isn’t nearly as GOOD. And I promise we’re almost TO the GOOD news, but here’s the BAD news first:
*Yes, we HAVE all SINNED.
*And as a RESULT, we all rightfully deserve God’s CURSE.
Not just “oppression” and “exile” and “fiery heat” and “perishing” in THIS life, but ETERNAL oppression and exile from God in the fires of HELL, where lost souls perish FOREVER.
That may sound HARSH - a bit EXTREME - but friends, that’s only because you and I don’t have the faintest INKLING of just how HOLY God really is… OR how SINFUL you and I really are.
But TAKE HEART, Church: if the BAD news is really that BAD - if the CURSE is even worse than we’d like to believe - take HEART: the GOOD news, the GOSPEL, is INFINITELY better than we ever could have imagined. And here it IS:
3) If we TRUST IN the Lord, we will be SAVED. (John 3:16)
If you only know ONE Bible verse (shout out to Tim Tebow), it’s probably this one, John 3:16, and rightfully SO: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him [TRUSTS in JESUS] shall not PERISH but have eternal LIFE.””
Remember I told you I was gonna give you a very simple answer to the question, “What difference does Jesus’s resurrection make for US?” Here it IS: On Good Friday, Jesus died to bear the CURSE of your SIN, in your place on the cross. But on Easter SUNDAY, Jesus ROSE AGAIN to give us all the BLESSINGS of obedience to God that only HE rightfully deserved.
*WE deserved the CURSE, but Jesus took it; the greatest BURDEN you’ve EVER had lifted!
*HE deserved the BLESSING (“eternal LIFE”!), but Jesus GAVE it; the greatest GIFT you’ve ever been GIVEN!
And THAT’s why Jesus’s resurrection MATTERS so much - ETERNALLY much - for US, friends!
…Or at least it CAN. Jesus doesn’t bear the CURSE and give the BLESSING to EVERYONE; only for “whosoever BELIEVES - TRUSTS - in Him”.
CONCLUSION: So I ask you in closing this morning, I INVITE you: Trust in JESUS this morning and be SAVED!
You can have the curse of ALL your sins LIFTED…
You can enjoy the hope and the freedom instead, the BLESSING of ETERNAL LIFE in Heaven with God forever, because of what Jesus did for you on Easter Sunday.
Let’s pray…