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Curses and Blessings - Part 1 - The Law

by Jerry Ousley  
5/31/2013 / Christian Living

I'm going to tell on myself today. I was driving home from work. It was a warm day that had been very welcomed after all the snow and ice that had fallen the week before. Anyway, I was just minding my own business and I was almost home when I looked down and discovered to my horror that my seat belt wasn't fastened.

Folks, Deb and I have made it a practice to always wear our seat belts and we were doing it years before it became law in the state of Indiana. It has just become second nature when we climb into our car to fasten our seat belts. We have also always insisted that passengers in our vehicle wear their seat belts as well.

But this day, for some strange unknown reason to me, I had failed to buckle up. At that time I was driving forty-seven miles one way to work each day. As I said, I was nearly home when I made this discovery. I determined that it was safer to continue on rather than try to buckle my seat belt while hurtling down the highway, so that's what I did.

I hope any of you reading this who might be police officers will understand me when I say that this was completely accidental. We always wear our seat belts! Thank God I wasn't in an accident or anything like that (and I'm also thankful that I didn't get caught because I just can't afford the high fine that accompanies the crime). But if I had gotten stopped, I would have been guilty despite my accidental mishap because I wasn't wearing my seat belt. Accident or not the guilt would still stand.

In Deuteronomy 27:14-26 we read about a long list of curses that are pronounced upon those who break the law of God. This included not only the Ten Commandments but also all those ceremonial laws that went along with cleanliness and the sacrificial system of the Jewish people during their ancient history. It was a very serious crime to break those laws. Often the penalty was death!

Do you realize that all those laws represented God's standard to be righteous, or have a right standing, before Him? They were only given to the Jews. The only way anyone from another nation or race could even have a glimpse of hope to be right with God during this time was to become a Jewish proselyte. This meant that you renounced your own nationality and went through the ceremonial requirements to become a Jew. Once done you were now subject to all the same laws as natural born Jews were. Otherwise you were considered unworthy of God, an outsider, and a person without hope of ever coming to God.

I know this sounds a bit harsh, but folks, during this period of time in the Old Testament (and actually in the New Testament up until the day Jesus was resurrected) was a period wherein God was showing the world that we cannot possibly live a life good enough to be worthy to stand before God as a holy person.

That's because everyone in the Old Testament and even the most devout Pharisee in the New Testament had broken at least one of God's laws. It was impossible to perfectly fulfill them all. If an individual was guilty of one, then they were guilty of all, and so worthy of death as an unfit person in the eyes of God. Those who could not fulfill the law suffered the curses as found in the passage of scripture in Deuteronomy. Now here's the kicker; aside from Jesus Christ this is still the only way to be worthy of God! That's right. The law was never done away with unless one comes to Christ and accepts His sacrifice for their sin.

The question then arises, "If I can't fulfill the law If I can't live good enough to be worthy of God, then how am I to ever have the hope of Heaven?" Aside from Jesus Christ there is no way. You see, our Lord and Savior came to fulfill the law. He alone perfectly lived by all the law of God and so was worthy to stand before Him. But the requirement for the rest of us was death. Jesus became our substitute. All the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament only appeased God until the next sin, or breaking of the law, occurred. But the sacrifice of Jesus was once and for all. We must accept Him in order to be free from the law and subsequently the curses for breaking it. So what will it be Jesus, or the curses of breaking the law?

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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