The Implications Of This Are Huge

“If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you the seasonal rains. The land will then yield its crops, and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. Your threshing season will overlap with the grape harvest, and your grape harvest will overlap with the season of planting grain. You will eat your fill and live securely in your own land. “I will give you peace in the land, and you will be able to sleep with no cause for fear. I will rid the land of wild animals and keep your enemies out of your land. In fact, you will chase down your enemies and slaughter them with your swords. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand! All your enemies will fall beneath your sword. “I will look favorably upon you, making you fertile and multiplying your people. And I will fulfill my covenant with you. You will have such a surplus of crops that you will need to clear out the old grain to make room for the new harvest! I will live among you, and I will not despise you. I will walk among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so you would no longer be their slaves. I broke the yoke of slavery from your neck so you can walk with your heads held high. [Leviticus 26.3-13] 

Leviticus 26, like Deuteronomy 28, details blessings and curses for obedience or disobedience respectively.

As Adam and Eve found out upon disobeying God, the curse of "death" He warned of was more of a detailed process (ending in death) than simply a single event. In fact, life, like the soil that would from that point forward need to be laboriously tilled, became real hard... and then, they would indeed die.

Although initially recognized for their origin in sin, the curses set in motion by the lie of Satan (disassociating sin from death, "You will not die..."), were eventually cloaked in further lies to insure their unrecognized, and therefore unremedied, existence into the future. In other words, there has been a systematic decoupling of curses from sin as mankind increased in knowledge. It is no coincidence that the original sin was partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that set in motion man's ongoing increase in knowledge. 

Now, before decrying knowledge different than the tree of knowledge of good and evil, consider the Merriam-Webster online 1 a (1) definition of the word "knowledge": 

the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association

The knowledge, or familiarity, established between fallen man and curses through his fallen experience with them led to his fallen association of them. The more fallen mankind advanced in knowledge through his experiences (good versus bad), the more lies proliferated proudly disassociating curses from sin and instead attributing curses to observable causes, albeit observed through fallen eyes.

The Bible, for good cause, has two separate accounts affirming God's definition of blessings and curses (Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28). Yet still, the power of deception, first initiated in the Garden of Eden by one little drop of a lie, has, by the knowledge gained thereby, grown into a mighty river of falsehood claiming that sin does not lead to death; that curses have nothing to do with sin and therefore require no reconciliation with God. All but those most firmly founded in God's Word are swept away in this river of lies. Worse yet, churches are full of people awash in this deception!

It is not enough to say, "Thank God for Jesus redeeming us though...right?" as if Jesus separated man from sin but left the curses. The very idea that the much-anticipated Messiah Redeemer Jesus would deliver mankind from sin and leave all the curses of physical, financial and emotional loss as some sort of "gift" is preposterous! For three years Jesus patiently and painstakingly demonstrated what God's love looks like as He preached the "Good News," healing the sick, raising the dead and miraculously feeding thousands, all the while drawing the ire of religious people who would crucify Him on the Cross. In that time, Jesus repeated over and again that those who believed in Him would, in solidarity with Him, take up their own cross and do the same things He did based on this fact later revealed by the apostle Paul:

But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” [Galatians 3.13]

Curses are the work of Satan (who kills, steals and destroys) and are earned by sin. This is an indisputable Biblical fact and, no matter how advanced man's knowledge becomes, should remain the foundation of man's understanding of the world around him. Just as repentance and sacrifices brought relief in Old Testament times, so repentance and faith in Jesus bring relief in New Testament times... at least that's the way God set it up.

Will man enjoy the power of God over Satan's death, theft and destruction without repentance and faith in Jesus? He will not. And, if man doesn't enjoy God's power over Satan's death, theft and destruction, it is only Biblically correct to conclude that repentance and faith in Jesus have not been exercised. Centuries of increasing knowledge have however made the previous statement incredulous in man's ears.

So, what do we do? The presence of Satan's inflictions of death, theft and destruction (curses) in our lives call us to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Most of us have done this to our own satisfaction and sadly remain in Satan's curses. We are thereby confronted with a crisis of our belief! Has God failed us, or, have we failed God? Have we repented and believed to our satisfaction or to God's?

Before however we justify our (satisfactory) repentance and faith in Jesus leaving us to draw false conclusions and even false doctrines surrounding curses, we must face the fact of God's Word:

Who can say, “I have cleansed my heart; I am pure and free from sin”? [Proverbs 20.9]

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? [Jeremiah 17.9] 

And, because God knew we would try to justify ourselves in our sufficiency of repentance and faith in Jesus (to our satisfaction), He went on in Jeremiah to say: 

But I, the LORD, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.” [Jeremiah 17.10] 

In other words, we may be satisfied with our repentance and faith in Jesus, but the due rewards tell the real story. Another passage from Proverbs reveals:

Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse will not land on its intended victim. [Proverbs 26.2]

Again, to claim that Jesus redeemed us from all the Old Testament curses while we problematically remain under the power of those curses puts a less-than-Biblical spin on the word "redeemed." Should not the condition described here make us question the validity of our repentance and faith in Jesus? Most people cringe and categorically reject this question and the problem it poses.

The overriding problem culminated here is not one remedied by more knowledge. The problem here is remedied by obedient repentance and faith in Jesus. The answer to how much repentance and faith in Jesus is required of people is directly correlated to the remaining curses upon their lives. Remember what Jesus said:

“You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.” [Matthew 17.20]

Faith moves mountains. Faith changes things. Faith is NOT abstract! The mountains faith moves are the mountains that separate people from the blessings described in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. And, the first mountain every believer faces is the mountain of pride; the resistance against repentance and faith in Jesus! 

The goal here is not to redefine repentance and faith in Jesus. The goal here is to return to genuine repentance and faith in Jesus! The evidence of having done so will manifest in our life on earth looking exactly like Jesus Christ's life on earth.

The sad truth prevails however, in this "microwave" ("I want it now because I have other things to do!") society that few will experience what is presented here.

“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it. [Matthew 7.13-14]

The implications of this are huge. 

Father, forgive me for living so fast that I must make the Bible adapt to me instead of me adapting to it. May my dedication to repentance and faith in Jesus satisfy You, not me! So be it.