If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. Deuteronomy 28: 1(NIV)
The word "and" starting verse 2 should give us pause that
28:2 was attached to something else, namely 28:1. The preacher of course wants
to make it sound as simple as "hearkening unto the voice of the Lord." After
all, you too can have two new cars if you just hearken unto the voice of the
Lord! Verse one however provides the context for hearkening. It means a little
bit more than "listening." It means fully obeying the Lord and carefully
following all His commands. How many commands are we talking about? Well, there
were 613 Mosaic laws given throughout the Torah, culminating in Deuteronomy.
How well did
But Deuteronomy 28:1 doesn't preach well for earthly prosperity, so they skip it and go right onto getting "overtaken by blessings." What really doesn't preach are the curses for disobedience found in the same chapter in verses 15-68! Fifty-three verses of context ignored for the sake of prosperity. The Apostle Paul warned about being wooed by such deception:
See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. Colossians 2: 8
It is a hollow and deceptive theology that says the blessings of God must be bigger houses and fancier cars. That is the theology of the world. Prosperity preaching takes so many captive with the basic principles of this world. Christ becomes an ATM we can go to for withdrawals of blessings, instead of being THE blessing of our lives. If we go to Christ for blessings instead of realizing He IS the blessing then we have fallen for hollow and deceptive philosophies. He is the blessing because of Deuteronomy 28. Take a moment and read the 53 verses of consequences we avoid because of Jesus Christ! What a blessing!
It is clear that Peter understood this in our key verses from the Book of Acts. Chapter three starts with Peter and John going up to the temple to pray. The Bible tells us that there was a man crippled from birth, begging for scraps. This was how we were too in the world before we encountered Christ. Crippled by the world and the lies it sells. Crippled by the pain and shame of sin. Begging for scraps to try and make our earthly existence just a little more bearable. Poverty was not this man's primary problem. Being crippled and bound was. The world convinced him that what he needed was money so he begged for money. In verse four above we see the Bible tells us that Peter and John both looked straight at him. Why would the Word make this point? Because the world never looked straight at this man. The world never considered this man. But God was about to! Peter commanded this beggar to look at them! God will also command our attention. We cannot be distracted. Verse five tells us that the man gave Peter and John his attention because he was expecting to get something from them. Once again, the linear horizontal way of thinking. Verse six completes the scene as the Apostles give the beggar what he desperately needs, not what the world taught him he wanted. Silver and gold they had not, but what they had, they gave freely. The crippled man could now walk, freed from the prison he had been in his entire life. So it is when we come to Christ as well. Whatever the enemy used to bind us is broken in the name of Jesus!
What the man thought was of value to him was money. Just some scraps to get by on for this life. What Peter and John gave him was eternal. What Christ gives is eternal. But first, we need to remember to keep our thinking vertical. We need to remember that blessings are not always material in nature. When discussing material needs Jesus taught:
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6: 33
