The Curse of the Law...

Carl Emerson · May 6, 2020

OK I will try another tack...

Folks need to read this...

These are the Old Covenant blessings given with the Law.

We are told that the New Covenant has even better promises - What are they?

Can we assume they are better than these???

Deut 28

1“Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2“All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the LORD your God:

3“Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.

4“Blessed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock.

5“Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.

6“Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

7 “The LORD shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they will come out against you one way and will flee before you seven ways. 8 “The LORD will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you. 9 “The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. 10 “So all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will be afraid of you. 11 “The LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your beast and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. 12 “The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 13 “The LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you only will be above, and you will not be underneath, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I charge you today, to observe them carefully, 14 and do not turn aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

timewerx · May 6, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
The problem I have with this interpretation is that the fulfilment of the promise depends on the Body of Christ being healthy and operating as a community family.

We still need to make some money obviously. Go to work, run the business, etc.

the Churches in our age no longer operate that way.

A terrible thing.

It seems that the only time the church returns to anything like the family community recorded in Acts is when there is persecution.

There would be persecution if we did Ephesians 5:11, 2 John 1:10-11, John 14:12, and John 7:7.

Or at least, life is going to be much more difficult if the world hates you (John 15:19) because you did those things.

Churches of today no longer does that. It poses absolutely no threat to the kingdom of darkness. That's why there is little to no persecution at all.

They're not even aware there are many things in this world that are evil.

It's really no use sugar-coating the Gospel to have bigger church attendance if it doesn't get anyone closer to the truth. Quality vs quantity

Guojing · May 6, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
OK I will try another tack...

Folks need to read this...

These are the Old Covenant blessings given with the Law.

We are told that the New Covenant has even better promises - What are they?

Can we assume they are better than these???

Deut 28

1“Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2“All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the LORD your God:

3“Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.

4“Blessed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock.

5“Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.

6“Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

7 “The LORD shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they will come out against you one way and will flee before you seven ways. 8 “The LORD will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you. 9 “The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. 10 “So all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will be afraid of you. 11 “The LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your beast and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. 12 “The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 13 “The LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you only will be above, and you will not be underneath, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I charge you today, to observe them carefully, 14 and do not turn aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

If these blessings only come when you do ALL the commandments, that is good as saying there are no blessings since with the flesh, no Jew can fulfill that precondition.

That covenant is very poor, seen in this light.

Carl Emerson · May 6, 2020

If Jesus kept the Law for us and by so doing broke the curse, would we not equally qualify for these blessings?

DamianWarS · May 6, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
Friends,

Can we consider some fundamental issues.

Living faith comes from hearing the Truth and individually agreeing, owning it, living it.

The Cross made freedom available to all, but few grab it, own it, live it.

The Biblical promises somehow activate through personal belief.

The question is - do we miss the intended blessing if we don't personally believe a promise, or are we all receiving the blessings regardless as a package deal.

Now this issue gets more interesting...

In the 70's during the Jesus movement there was a certain Jew called Marcus Ardern who came dramatically to faith. He was a somewhat prophetic figure and ran a Christian Centre called the Love Shop in Christchurch where he ran schools for evangelism. Marcus was a controversial figure leading many to Jesus and immediately baptising them much to the distain of many churches at the time. (They thought they had some exclusive right to baptise)

Marcus was known to visit farmers who had crops failing or stock aborting and praying with the farmers for the curse of the Law to be broken and the blessings of Deut 28 to be released.
The results were rather dramatic in some cases with pastures green and surrounding farms brown. I have seen the photos. Anyone wanting to check this out - Marcus is now Pastor of a Church in Noosa Australia.

You can hear a message from Marcus here. Marcus Ardern - March 2020 — Under The Tree

So the question is - are we too passive about the promises and the curses?

Should we appropriate by faith good outcomes and break the cycle of what seems to be a lack of blessing.

Your comments appreciated.

Western philosophy is very abstract and the more we "progress" the more abstract we get. Concepts of grace, forgiveness and not being under the law are embraced which are all abstract blessings but concrete blessings are lost like physical healings and physical restoration.

We have created a divide between the spiritual where the abstracts live and the empirical where science lives so when a physical manifestation happens we slot it in the sciences and seek to explain it without God interacting. When we feel like a weight is lifted off our backs and new warmth is ignited inside of us we seek the spiritual to explain it.

This is very cultural and it takes chasing our world view to allow God to enter in all the spaces, after all he has dominion over all areas. I used to live in Kenya, and if a branch fell off a tree to a Kenyan this was a spiritual manifestation and something that needed a spiritual answer, to a western it could be explained empirically and it was foolish to consider it anything else.

This western world view can rob God of the hundreds of victories in our life simply because we fail to ask him and fail to credit him because God is not involved.

We have become the church of Laodicea not becuase we have lost passion in lukewarmness (which is the wrong interpretation of the account) but as vs 17 says "For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." Lukewarmness is not dispassion it is removing God's strength and seeking our own.

Zao is life · May 6, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
OK - I have a problem with presenting a theology that does not regard the whole of scripture. So for example looking at Psalm 1...

1How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stand in the path of sinners,
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!

2But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
And in His law he meditates day and night.

3He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers.

Now this Psalm is part of the Word both Jesus and Paul directed us to accept as from Him.

Clearly the promise is that obedience is rewarded with prosperity.

Likewise in the NT as I quoted from Mark 10:30

Now I know these are serious excesses being promoted in this area, that is not my issue.

My issue is to present the Word for comment and hopefully get a reasoned view to emerge.

Do some believers still labour under the law and as a consequence miss out on blessing.

Do some believers miss out on blessing because they fail to stand firm in belief of the promises given.

Galatians 3 tells us that the promises Jesus transferred to us through the Cross were better than those of the old covenant which according to Deut 28 included many blessings for our favour in this life.

Have we somehow become blind to the word to be blessed now and assumed some super spiritual rejection of His grace.

Are we being subtly robbed of our inheritance in this life because we have rejected the promises of His word???

Your post quoted here doesn't quote anyone else's post so it's not clear whether your above is to all or replying to a specific post.

Personally, I believe that God blesses those who are faithful - but those who abide in Christ through faith in Him. In Him all the Law of Moses is fulfilled and satisfied - and anyone who believes in Jesus and in God and in the Bible will apply his (or her) life in accordance with the moral Law. Christian farmers will sow their seed and ask God to bless it, understanding the Biblical principles:

"Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you weigh silver for what is not bread? and your labor for what never satisfies? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Bow down your ear, and come to Me; hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given Him for a witness to the people, a Leader and Commander of peoples. Behold, You shall call a nation that You do not know; a nation that did not know You shall run to You because of the LORD Your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for He has glorified You.

Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way, and the unrighteous man His thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain comes down, and the snow from the heavens, and does not return there, but waters the earth, and makes it bring out and bud, and give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall My word be, which goes out of My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall certainly do what I sent it to do.

For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break out before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Instead of the thorn, the fir tree shall come up; and instead of the brier, the myrtle tree shall come up; and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign which shall not be cut off."

Blessing comes by faith in God and His Son, Jesus Christ.

But we are talking about farmers and farming - what about the servant whose wage is his wage? Should he be satisfied with his wage or should he desire more? Should the person living in the city working for a boss desire more, especially if he already has a disposable income - i.e already receives more from his employer than he needs for his needs? Should he desire wealth? What about the person owning the company?

I think your the question in your Original Post is valid, but covers only one aspect of life. It also doesn't cover the fact that only in first world, Western countries is the blessings with which God blesses faithful farmers who believe in their Lord and are obedient to His moral requirements, not taken away by the corrupt.

Zao is life · May 6, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
If Jesus kept the Law for us and by so doing broke the curse, would we not equally qualify for these blessings?

Yes. Jesus purchased the blessings for us.

If we believe in Jesus and are obedient to the promptings and prohibitions of His Spirit, we will be blessed. If not, God will chastise those whom He loves.

Bobber · May 6, 2020

Guojing said:
If these blessings only come when you do ALL the commandments, that is good as saying there are no blessings since with the flesh, no Jew can fulfill that precondition.

That covenant is very poor, seen in this light.

That would like to accuse God of putting a carrot on a string and leading people on with a great many false promises they could never see realized. The part I think you're missing is that there also was the shedding of blood of animals in the OT, a type of the blood of Jesus in their future that God declared their sins were covered. With the blood of Jesus they would be blotted out. Therefore God looked at their heart integrity and their sincerity in doing their best to live a holy life therefore they would at times in their history (that is from time to time experience) the those promises fulfilled.

Guojing · May 6, 2020

Bobber said:
That would like to accuse God of putting a carrot on a string and leading people on with a great many false promises they could never see realized. The part I think you're missing is that there also was the shedding of blood of animals in the OT, a type of the blood of Jesus in their future that God declared their sins were covered. With the blood of Jesus they would be blotted out. Therefore God looked at their heart integrity and their sincerity in doing their best to live a holy life therefore they would at times in their history (that is from time to time experience) the those promises fulfilled.

Well, no one can stop you from reading into the scripture, I am just stating what Deut 28:1 is saying.

We learn from the NT writers later that the Law of Moses is like that, it demands perfection but our flesh is weak and the Law will only stir it to sin.

Incidentally, the previous chapter 27, notice the Jews could only say amen to the curses, but no amen to the blessings. It really showed us now what the Law of Moses leads to, in the end.

Bobber · May 6, 2020

Guojing said:
Well, no one can stop you from reading into the scripture, I am just stating what Deut 28:1 is saying.

We learn from the NT writers later that the Law of Moses is like that, it demands perfection....

Of course it does but Jesus kept the law in it's perfection and we are blessed IN Christ. The Bible says you which are In Christ are Abraham's seed and heirs......

Guojing · May 6, 2020

Bobber said:
Of course it does but Jesus kept the law in it's perfection and we are blessed IN Christ. The Bible says you which are In Christ are Abraham's seed and heirs......

Yes, we have the faith apart from works route, after the cross.

But the Jews in the OT did not have that. Their covenant was based on Exodus 19:4-6. They have to keep the Law.

childeye 2 · May 6, 2020

Double post

Guojing · May 6, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
If Jesus kept the Law for us and by so doing broke the curse, would we not equally qualify for these blessings?

a number of promises made are strictly only to Israel.

even though we gentiles are spiritually grafted in, we have not replaced Israel.

Broken Fence · May 7, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
The promises of the New Covenant are better than the old and I am asking what are they?

Yes the more Fear of God, the more wisdom... But this is a very different fear than the one you refer to.

Of course... but I ask that if a believer slips back into legalism can they again come under the curse of the Law ???

I kinda see this as: Believers are going around the bases. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, home. And Jesus is taking them from base to base, sanctification.

Carl Emerson · May 7, 2020

Guojing said:
a number of promises made are strictly only to Israel.

even though we gentiles are spiritually grafted in, we have not replaced Israel.

I never suggested this.

Guojing · May 7, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
I never suggested this.

So you cannot simply say "If Jesus kept the Law for us and by so doing broke the curse, would we not equally qualify for these blessings?"

Many of the blessings were physical blessings promised to Israel. That was why Abraham, Issac, Jacob, to Solomon all had great wealth.

Israel covenant with God were largely earthly, but our covenant now thru Christ is heavenly.

Carl Emerson · May 7, 2020

Abraham was not a Jew when he received the promise that we inherit through him as the 'father of all who have faith'.

Dorothy Mae · May 7, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
Friends,

Can we consider some fundamental issues.

Living faith comes from hearing the Truth and individually agreeing, owning it, living it.

The Cross made freedom available to all, but few grab it, own it, live it.

The Biblical promises somehow activate through personal belief.

The question is - do we miss the intended blessing if we don't personally believe a promise, or are we all receiving the blessings regardless as a package deal.

Now this issue gets more interesting...

In the 70's during the Jesus movement there was a certain Jew called Marcus Ardern who came dramatically to faith. He was a somewhat prophetic figure and ran a Christian Centre called the Love Shop in Christchurch where he ran schools for evangelism. Marcus was a controversial figure leading many to Jesus and immediately baptising them much to the distain of many churches at the time. (They thought they had some exclusive right to baptise)

Marcus was known to visit farmers who had crops failing or stock aborting and praying with the farmers for the curse of the Law to be broken and the blessings of Deut 28 to be released.
The results were rather dramatic in some cases with pastures green and surrounding farms brown. I have seen the photos. Anyone wanting to check this out - Marcus is now Pastor of a Church in Noosa Australia.

You can hear a message from Marcus here. Marcus Ardern - March 2020 — Under The Tree

So the question is - are we too passive about the promises and the curses?

Should we appropriate by faith good outcomes and break the cycle of what seems to be a lack of blessing.

Your comments appreciated.

We definitely miss out on some blessings because living the promises of God is messy (requires discernment)and expensive (requires obedience.) Boxed in christianity is easier to live out and control in others.

Example? Many prayers don’t get answered because the recepient needs to do something first. Messy. Easier to find an excuse.

Dorothy Mae · May 7, 2020

AllDayFaith said:
God performed miracles for me before I ever knew about His promises.

That doesn’t assure you that there isn’t more He would do if only you would be more active (pray, believe, obey, etc.)

Guojing · May 7, 2020

Carl Emerson said:
Abraham was not a Jew when he received the promise that we inherit through him as the 'father of all who have faith'.

Why do people keep saying that. Of course he was not a Jew, there were no Jews before him.

God chose him to be the physical father of ALL Jews, and God in Genesis 12 promised material blessings to him.

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