The sermon by Scott Brown focuses on the passage from Deuteronomy 11:26-32, which presents a fundamental choice between blessing and cursing based on obedience to God's commandments. This pivotal text in Deuteronomy encapsulates the broader message of the book, emphasizing the binary nature of choices that lead to either positive or negative outcomes. Moses, at 120, delivers his final speeches to the Israelites as they prepare to enter the Promised Land, highlighting the importance of obeying God’s laws to receive blessings. The sermon draws parallels to modern life, cautioning against the allure of other 'gods' and cultural influences that may lead to disobedience and curses. It underscores that every decision, from daily actions to life-altering choices, is a step towards either blessing or cursing. The sermon also highlights the messianic aspect of the passage, pointing to Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the law, who perfectly obeyed God's commandments and offers salvation to believers. The speaker urges the congregation to embrace the clarity and simplicity of God's commands, recognizing the inherent blessings in obedience.

The sermon text today is from Deuteronomy 11 verse 26 through 32 if you would stand for the reading of God's Word please. Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and the curse if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God. But turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known. Now it shall be when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.

Are they not on the other side of the Jordan, toward the setting of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites, who dwell in the plain opposite Gilgal, beside the terebinth trees of Morah? For you will cross over the Jordan, and go in to possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and you will possess it and will dwell in it. And you shall be careful to observe all the statutes and judgments which are set before you today." Lord, thank you for your word. I pray that you would speak boldly through Scott today as he brings your words and I pray that we would leave change, that we would not be like we were when we arrived today, that you would change our hearts and make us more like Jesus. Amen.

If you have an outline there, you can track with where we're going here this morning. In this text is a revelation really of the overall instruction that we find in the entire book of Deuteronomy. It's really summarized here. So I really feel like that in our studies in Deuteronomy, we're here in very pivotal text. Many of these principles we've heard before in the previous chapters of Deuteronomy.

But this text here seems to draw up many of the things that we've already dealt with and then also cast a vision for those principles that come later. So it's a very important text in the overall message of the book of Deuteronomy. And it comes at the end of a section, we'll get to that in a minute, because I will also, as we go through this text, I want you to see it in its context, in its setting. But in the whole book of Deuteronomy, Moses is preparing the children of Israel to enter into a pagan land that has been promised to them. And so what he does is he delivers three speeches before the children of Israel.

He's 120 years old. He will die in just a few days. So this is his last testimony to the people after all these years of walking through the wilderness And now they're getting ready to come into the promised land. And so Moses is anticipating this entry into the promised land. And when he finishes his last speech here, he will pass the mantle of leadership through Joshua, and then he will go on to the mountain and die.

So it's a very dramatic scene here. What's in this text though, I pray will be a riveting help to us really all the days of our lives. Could it be possible that this text would help us every day from now until the time that we pass into eternity as well? That in the pagan cities that God has placed us in, what is here would help us? Let me give you an illustration to help you understand how important the words of this text can be.

There was some time ago I was going into a meeting in which I was way over my head. My knowledge base was underweight. My sense of what I should do and say was lacking. And so I was talking to my wife and I said, Deborah, I wish you could just be there as a fly on the wall. No, not a fly on the wall.

I want an earpiece. I want you to hear everything that's going on and I want you to speak to me. When you hear something coming, just whisper in my ear. But I don't have that earpiece. That never happened.

I had to go in completely unprotected and unaware, except for this. I did have a great principle, the principle of this text here. And here is the principle of this text. In every situation of life, There are always two mountains looming above you, and which direction you look makes all the difference in the world. You can be looking to the mountain of blessing or the mountain of cursing at any given moment.

In every conversation, in every decision, in every act of work, in every act of child raising, there are always two mountains looming over the children of God. Mount Gerizim and Mount Yivel. And they both represent different things. One represents blessing and the other represents cursing. Because in every situation in life there are only two roads to go down.

There's the course of blessing and there's the course of cursing. And if we would obey the commandments of the Lord in every moment of our life, then there would be blessing. But if we would disregard His great and precious and sweet and wonderful and life-giving and nourishing and helpful and reasonable commandments, if we would just listen to those in every moment of life, then God promises his blessing upon it. So this is the powerful principle that's here, and it really over-stretches everything in life. He promises a blessing and a curse, And that means that every day of your life can be a walk toward blessing or a walk toward cursing.

So that's why this is such a pivotal text, because Moses comes and he draws this principle and he expresses it in a very dense and very colorful way. And so God's plan is revealed here in this text as well. And his plan is that He would preserve a people for His own possession, that they would recognize themselves as sinners, they would be saved by the grace of Jesus Christ, and they would be a holy people in a pagan nation. And He makes His people holy. He sets them apart from the world by giving them commands, by giving them beautiful commands, by giving them commands that no one else cares about, by giving them commands that people hate, by giving them commands that will cause you to lose much in this world, but gain much in the Kingdom of Heaven.

So God gives commands to His people to set them apart, to make them different, so that in every circumstance they are in in all their life long, they always see the two mountains looming above their heads. The mountain of blessing, the mountain of cursing, and the pathways that lead in those directions. And so God gives a way of worshipping, God gives a way of being married, God gives a way to work, God gives a way to educate, and He does it to set His people apart. The book of Deuteronomy shows us that there are ways of God for every area of life, including how you dress, including what you think about, including what you bring into your house. He gets down to just tremendous detail in what these commands mean for us.

So God is giving in the book of Deuteronomy great commands to help the people of God understand how important it is that they walk with Him. So this is just a thumbnail sketch of what we find here. So God intends his people to be different, and this text reveals this. Now, we're in chapter 11. So If you haven't opened your Bibles, I want you to look at Chapter 11, and then we're going to expand out and see how it fits as a diamond in the midst of the rest of the context.

And then we'll come back and really go into Chapter 11 and the verses that we just read. Okay, so we are in 11, 26 to 32. And in verse 26, Moses sets two alternatives before the children of Israel. Do you see that? It's very simple.

Number two, in verses 27 and 28, he explains what this means in terms of your real life. What happens when you do this and its blessings and cursings. And then in verses 29 to 31, Moses commands the people to mark this principle firmly in their minds by doing something very graphic, very powerful, very time consuming, very strange. They're going to go into the land and they're supposed to send half up one mountain and half up another, curse one mountain and bless another. So that's what you find in verses 29 to 31.

And then in verse 32, he comes back and summarizes the whole thing again, and then this marks the end of the first part of Moses' second speech. And essentially what Moses is saying is, here's how you win the game of life, brothers and sisters. These two mountains will tell you how to win the game of life. You can forget all the success books. You can forget all the management tools.

This is the one you need right here. And so how does this passage fit in, though, into the overall message of the book of Deuteronomy? Now, we've seen the last few verses of verse of chapter 11. Now I want us to see the rest of chapter 11 because it's a very pivotal chapter. There are three commands in chapter 11.

The first command is in verse 1, to love the Lord your God and to love him. And then he gives a historical proof of why his people should love him. And that is the mighty deeds of Egypt should be enough proof to love the Lord your God. And then in verse 8, he gives another command. It's to keep the commandments.

And then he gives an illustration of his sovereignty over all the nations. You should keep his commandments because God is sovereign, because God will destroy all of his enemies. He will do business with the world, that he will bring everything to conclusion, and nothing will be left undone. And then the third command comes in verse 18 to lay up and this is a command for the home and to lay up these commands means to meditate on them, to savor them, to love them in the home. So the first illustration is Egypt, the second illustration is the promised land and God's sovereignty over the land, and then the next illustration in chapter 11 is the home.

So all of these things should provide an illustration for these general principles that he's presenting in Chapter 11. And then he goes into this section that we are in the midst of right now. Okay, so that's Chapter 11. Three commands and a final appeal. You're in the final appeal.

Okay? Now, let's take a step further back. What is the book of Deuteronomy anyway? The book of Deuteronomy is a set of three sermons. The first sermon stretches from chapters one through five.

Please take your fingers and put those chapters between them. One through five, that's the first sermon. Or one through four. And then five through 28 is the next sermon. Hold those together.

And then the next sermon is found in the final verses of the book, which are chapters 31 through 34. So those are the three sermons and then a final conclusion to the book. The first speech is historical. It's really a recitation of the fatherly kindness of God. It is the gospel in a nutshell in four chapters.

And it's historical. And the main principle of This first speech is, I carried you. This is what God does for his people. He carries his rebellious people, even in their wilderness wanderings. And this is the image that he leaves with us in this first speech.

That God is so kind to his people, though they rebel, though they complain, though they make golden calves, God in his mercy carries his people and he will carry them all the way to the promised land. So it's a sort of a summation of the gospel. And then the second speech, which is the one we are in now, stretches from chapters 5 to 28. And if the first speech is historical, The second speech is didactic. The second speech, the theme is I taught you.

And so there are a number of elements of instruction that are very specific that we are being exposed to here. And what did I teach you? I taught you the law of God. The theme is obey and live. And so what we find here in the second speech is that Moses is detailing specific commands, specific actions, specific lifestyle marks that the people of God need to acquire as they're entering into the promised land.

And he gets very detailed. Now, in that second speech, you have your fingers there. The first part of the speech is from five through 11. Five through 11. And in this first part of the speech, he gives many general principles.

And for example, in Chapter 5, we're brought the Ten Commandments. In Chapter 6, we're brought the Greatest Commandment and how it applies in home life and in the heart. In chapter 7, we learn how to conduct ourselves in pagan lands. He says, you shall not bring an abomination into your house. How easy it is for the people of God to bring the abominations of the pagans into their house.

And he warns the children of Israel of this great danger that presents itself as an opportunity for them. In chapter 8, he gives them an understanding of how they should view their trials. And he says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That's how you get through your trials and your tribulations, is you recognize that God alone is able to sustain you. And then in chapter 9, Moses reminds the children of Israel of their great rebellion, and he tells them who they really are.

They're a stiff-necked people. And he helps the people of God understand the humility that's necessary for them as they go into the promised land. And that God is a consuming fire and he will punish sin. And then in chapter 10, God expresses his kindness by supplying a second set of tablets. Moses broke the first set.

He smashed them. And God in his mercy comes and says, no, let me give them to you again." And he does what he has done to us so many times after we've broken his commandments. He comes again and he opens up the Word of God to bless us again, to feed us again, even though We've taken the commandments and we've broken them. And so that's chapter 10. And then in chapter 11 is the end of this general section that casts a vision for the general principles.

And then Moses continues on in chapter 12. Now when we get to chapter 12, there is tremendous detail regarding all areas of life that you can imagine. Everything from how to build your house, what to dress, what women should wear, what men should wear, what kinds of things you should stay away from in every area of life, and what kinds of things you should gravitate towards in every area of life. There are so many principles for the common areas of life. Okay, so do you see where we are here?

We're at the end of the first section of the second speech, just before Moses is going to give enormous detail. So we're coming to a very pivotal section in this speech, because Moses is now going to draw up everything he's said, and it really forms the controlling principle for all the details that he gives next. Because you have to know the kindness of the Lord first before you see how you should act. Because the way that we should act is counter-cultural. And it draws hatred.

It also disturbs our own sensibilities. We don't like to be governed by God. And so there's tremendous effort to explain to us that God is so kind that all of His commandments lead, the keeping of all of his commandments lead to blessing. So that's what Moses is doing here. OK, now let's dive into the text.

Verse 26. Take a look at verse 26. There are two situations that are set before us. Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse. I love the language here.

I set before you. It's like you say here, it's right in front of you. I'm just laying it out in simple form. I'm putting this on the bottom shelf. This is what we need, don't we?

All these complex nuances aren't here in this reverse. He's coming down and giving us a very simple principle. He's saying, I'm setting before you not 50 things, not 1, 000 things, I'm setting before you two things. So I love the clarity and the simplicity that the Lord comes to us with. He sets before us these two things.

We like to make things more complex than God. Instead of seeing every opportunity as a pathway to a blessing and a curse, we want to try to figure out all the nuances and try to squeeze as much pleasure out of them as we can, which is what we should do. The problem is we just don't know where the pleasure lies. The pleasure always lies in the keeping of the commandments. And so he gives us these two principles.

And these two principles govern every area of life. You only need two principles to understand how God has rigged the universe. And he tells us here. Remember, this principle is all through scripture. In the garden, there were two trees.

There was the knowledge of good and evil and the knowledge of the tree of life. This principle runs through everything that God has to say to us in His Word. In the end of the world, there will be only two conditions. You will either be a sheep or you will be a goat. There are only two alternatives, blessings and curses.

Jesus said that there are only two roads. There's the broad road and there is the narrow road and few travel upon that narrow road. There are two states, light and darkness. I had fun jabbing at my dear sister this morning at the breakfast table. We were talking about all the ways that I had been mean to her when she was a child.

I can only remember three specific acts of meanness to my sister, even in the thousands, which just reminded me of the corrupt nature of my brain. I can only remember three. One of them was that after I was converted, I would go into her room early in the morning while it was still dark, and I would turn on the light and I would say, tell me you love the light and hate the darkness. And I would laugh. You know, when you're newly converted, you're not always as wise as you ought to be.

And so that became the proverb. And my mother reminded me after I told that story that during that time, I went into our garage, and I took a nail. And there was fiberboard in the garage. And I wrote, for God so loved Scott Brown that he gave his only son. And my mother tells me that that is still there today because a friend of ours bought that house and it's still written in there.

And then my sisters went and added their names, Carol and Joanne, and their names are listed there as well. And so there are these two alternatives. There's light and darkness. There is the broad road. There's the narrow road.

And there are the blessings and the cursings. There always will be Jacob and Esau in this world. And in a relativistic pluralistic world, this kind of thinking is despised, but we are the people of God, and this is the way we think, this is the way we live. We think in a binary way. That's what the people of God are supposed to do.

But we're so tempted to try to nuance everything, to try to get away with whatever we want, that it only leads to cursing. And so these two situations are presented before us. That's the first thing I wanted us to catch about verse 26. Here's another thing. We need to just recognize, take note of a particular fact in the construction of this sermon and in the book of Deuteronomy as a whole.

This is the first occurrence in the book of Deuteronomy where these words occur together, blessings and cursings. The law of first occurrence, I think, should help us to think about this. Now Moses is setting before us something that will go together from now on to the rest of the book. And he is summing up something of enormous importance that he'll repeat over and over again. The next thing that I want you to consider here is the national implication of this principle, you.

He's talking to the people, the way that they operate together. The people of God are always meant to operate as a body, as a family, as a building, as living stones together. And so God is coming to the people in this same way. He's calling everyone to make a covenant together to live this way, to think in a binary way. So this morning as the people of God we should be covening together to be black and white about this world.

And we should come together as a whole nation, as a little church even, to think this way, that we would not think in a relativistic pluralistic way that we've been taught to think all of our lives. The problem with most of our education is that it has taught us to be relativists. And it seems to me almost impossible to shake the relativism that is in my brain. But God would have us to continue moving toward us, toward Him, in a way that we understand the world the way that He does. And so this applies to the whole nation.

And then I also want us to just see the pivotal nature of this principle in terms of the whole message of the book of Deuteronomy. And this message, you know, gathers up what God said to Abraham. He said, I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing." God blesses his people and then they are in turn a blessing to the world. God says, blessing I will bless you and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as of the sand which is on the seashore, and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies." You know, this desire for blessing is in all of us. Esau said to his father, do you only have one blessing?

Do you only have one? And the answer is yes. There is only one blessing for those who would bow their knees to God, who would repent of their sins and believe in the gospel and accept the blood of Jesus Christ as the exclusive, as the only way of their salvation. So there are two situations set before us, verse 26. Now in verses 27 and 28, There are two conditions that govern the blessing and the cursing.

And this is just a beautiful way of explaining to us the way life works. One sign of maturity is that you know the way life works. Mature people know how things work and they get on the good side of it. That's what they do. And here, the good side of it is obedience, and the bad side is rebellion, or taking lightly his commandments.

And so, these two conditions, these two states of life, blessing and cursing, are conditional. Yes, they are conditional. They are not given to everyone. They are meted out according to obedience. Now, we are not saved by our works, but we certainly are blessed by them.

Our sins are not atoned for by our works. But absolutely, without a question, our works either nourish or destroy us. They either impoverish the soul or they feed the soul. And we have to understand those two things that are here. And so these two conditions govern the blessing and the cursing.

In verse 27 he says, blessing if you obey and there's a curse in verse 28 if you do not obey but turn aside. So there are sanctions, there are consequences for disobedience. Notice that he uses some very interesting terminology here. God is so kind to us and that he gives us language that we understand. He talks about turning to the side.

You know, when you turn in a direction. Everybody understands that. You know, you can have a stutter step, you can step confidently, you can turn confidently in one direction or another. So he gives us language that we understand. And he says there is a trajectory of life at the turn of a foot.

At every turn of the foot, at every choice of the mind, there is a turning and that trajectory goes somewhere. It always goes somewhere. And so this is the principle that he's giving to us. You're familiar with that poem by Robert Frost, two roads converged in a wood, And I took the one last travel by, and that has made all the difference. That's what Moses is saying here, is that there is a turn, and if you take the wrong turn, then you will find yourself in the place of cursing.

And then as he gives us this vision for every area of life, he comes in and drops a warning. And I think it's a terrifying warning. And I really want us to understand this here. He acknowledges that when you turn into the promised land, there will be gods that you've never known before. So what he's saying is that there are things out there that you haven't experienced yet, and guess what?

They're bad if you take them. That's what he's saying. He's saying there are gods out there, beware of the gods that are in the culture that you're living in. There will be many new cultural propositions in the land of Canaan in the form of other gods, as he speaks of it in verse 28. So there are always other gods in the places where we live.

Does it matter where you live? There are other gods. There are gods that govern the airwaves, gods that govern the work, life, the personality and temperament of people. You know that they say that people are in the south or this way, and people in the northeast or that way, but if you go to California, they're a whole other way in that. In one place, there are fruits and nuts.

Another place, there are rednecks. People are different, And there are inflection points in geographical areas, although there really is only one problem, and that is sin. Sin just has a very colorful way of expressing itself. And so that's one thing he's saying. There are other gods that you've not known.

There's some new fruit on the tempting tree for you there. That's what I believe he's saying here. In the same way that when the Apostle Paul went into the city of Athens, he was disturbed in his soul because he recognized that it was a city that was full of idols. It was different. There was a different feel that this city has.

I don't know if you've ever felt that yourself, been in a city where you thought, this is, there are unusual dangers here. I'll never forget the first time I took my daughter Kelly, she must have been five years old, to New York City. We were walking down the streets with the throngs of people, thousands of people, you know, 50 different subcultures coming at you at a different time. And Kelly grabbed my hand with big, gigantic eyes and she said, Papa, I don't think this is a very safe place. And she understood, This is different than Wake Forest, absolutely.

And in all of the cities of the world, we have particular temptations. I don't know where you live, but you know the specific temptations that are there in your culture. There are entrapments. There's barbed wire. There's a hole for you to fall in, in every place that you are, including this place, this beautiful place that we happen to live in.

The devil is no respecter of geography. And so there are gods in the land. And Moses is warning them that there are gods that you have not seen. Think about India. They say there are 330 million gods in India.

They stop at 330 million because they just give up. Well, there's a god for everything. You are a god. Every person is a god. Every animal is a god.

Every piece of bark is a god. So how many are there? Well, there's 330 million. Well, that's only a smidgen of them. But there are other gods there.

And with all these gods, there will be new traps. Now, I would like to just talk about this principle for a while because I think it's a very important one for the people of God to understand. And I want to illustrate it in a number of different ways. Let's go back to the days before the kings, when there was a longing in the hearts of the people of Israel to have a king. Remember they wanted a king.

And they went to Samuel to request a king. They wanted a king because they wanted to be like the nations of the world. They wanted a drink of the gods of the people that were around them. That's what they wanted. They wanted the benefits.

They wanted the allocations. They wanted the stuff that government could give them in the same way that we find in our own country. All the elders of Israel gathered together in Rhema and they came to Samuel and they said, give us a king. And then Samuel warns them of the problems that they will encounter with having a king ruling over them. And he says this, this will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you.

What Sandhya was doing is he was explaining what happens when there's another god, the god of government, over you. When you have the God of government over you, there are problems. Now, there is a lawful government that wields the sword. But this is a different kind of government here that he's speaking of. And So Samuel says that this will be the behavior.

First of all, he'll take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots to be his horsemen. And some will run before his chariots. So he's saying, you want that god? Here's what's going to happen. You don't know this god.

You haven't had this god yet. But you're going to get him. And here's what he gives. First of all, he's going to take your sons, and he's going to put them on his own chariots. And they're gone.

You won't see him again. That's what he's saying. You want that god? That's what you get. Then he says he'll also put captains over thousands and over 50s and there'll be there'll be a government that you ain't ever seen before.

And then he says he says also that he's also gonna take he's gonna take you and he's gonna make you plow his fields. You won't be plowing your fields. You're going to plow his fields. I don't know what percentage of your income goes to the government, but that's your plowing. You're plowing the government's fields every time that check gets written.

He's just warning that this God out there, you serve Him, you get something with Him. You always get something with the gods of the culture that are there. Then he says, he's also going to put you in a factory and he's going to make you make weapons for him. Not your weapons, his weapons. And then he's going to take your daughters and he's going to put your daughters to work.

He's going to make your, this daughter is going to be a perfumer. He's going to make a cook out of that daughter, and he's going to make a baker out of that daughter, and you're not going to see your daughter again, because the government is going to come and get her. That's what he's saying. And then he says, and then he's going to take the beasts of your fields, your vineyards and your olive groves, and he's going to give them to his officers. And then he's going to tithe on your vintage, And he's going to give it to his officers and servants.

And then in verse 16 of Samuel 8, he says he will take your male servants and your female servants and your finest young men and your donkeys and he will put them to do his work. So all the help you've been getting is gone. So you see the warning. He said, you want that God? Here's what that God brings.

And then he says, then he's going to take a tenth of your sheep. And then in verse 18, he says, then you're going to cry out to God. You're going to say, Uncle, stop! Take this oppression away because of the king that you have chosen for yourselves and the Lord will not hear you in that day. Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, No, but we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.

OK? You see the picture? You want that king? You want that god? Here you've got it.

That's just an illustration of what Moses is saying. There are other gods there. You better know where those gods take you. You know, there's a brilliant story in the book of Acts where you see this very same principle. There were the seven sons of Sceva.

Do you remember them? Seven sons of Sceva. They were Jewish exorcists. And they saw the apostles using the name of Jesus, and people were being healed, and people were being saved, and they wanted the power. So they started using the name of Jesus, but an evil spirit jumped out and said, spirit jumped out and said, we know Paul, but who are you?

And the man who had the evil spirit leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, and they fled out of the house naked and wounded. Well, they didn't know what kind of god. I don't think they'd carefully thought about what kind of gods they were dealing with. They were bad dudes. That's the blessing and the curse.

That's evil and Mount Gerizim. There's always something that comes from it. And Moses is saying there are gods there that you don't know. You need to be aware of the gods that are there in the promised land. We have many, many examples that we could speak of.

Let me just tease out a few of these now. Perhaps one of the most contemporary and public examples of the gods of this world taking the world in a bad direction is that the gods of abortion, the gods of low fertility rates, the gods of population control took root in our land maybe 50 years ago, 75 years ago at the very most when the early kernels of this thinking happened. And the idea was don't be fruitful and multiply, That's evil. You'll overpopulate the earth. Don't mind the fact that you can get the entire population of the whole planet in the city limits of Jacksonville, Florida.

Don't worry about that. But the world is going to be overpopulated. Don't have children. It's evil to have children. They're breathing air that other people could breathe.

They're eating food that other people could have. And so we worship and serve that God. Now Every nation of the world who's industrialized, who's participated in this practice, is in a long-term demographic winter. But it's not just demographic. It's also economic.

There's no younger generation to generate an economy to sustain people. There's no younger generation to take care of the old, which will create killing facilities of the aged because no one is there to take care of them because they had no children. We did not know this God. We came into this land. We did not know that this God would destroy us.

In Europe, they did not know that this God would cause Islam to completely overtake Europe politically in a period of three generations. That's what this God was all about. But nobody knew it. But now we know it. And now there's no point of return.

And there are only a very few people in the whole world who are obeying the commands to be fruitful and multiply. Some of you are here. I shudder to take a poll for how many women are pregnant here today, because you have despised the commandments of the devil. You've hated Mount Evil, but you've loved Mount Derezin, and you've said, God will bless me if I obey. So there are these unintended consequences of being born and growing up in a culture.

And the media would lure us into all kinds of curses with some of the most winsome sounds and colorful pictures, but they are still gods. Someone asked me last night, do you know which news personality bought a gift for her daughter to wake her up in the morning? Which news personality bought an alarm clock shaped like a mosque that plays the Muslim call of prayer. I saw a video clip of her explaining with such happiness that she had bought this clock for her daughter that will wake her up in the morning before she goes to school. And there she was, sitting there in a burqa, kind of a modernized burqa.

Katie Kurak bought this gift for her daughter to sing a Muslim prayer when she wakes up every morning. I don't think Katie knows this God. I don't think she understands what they mean for her life and what they want to do to her and want to be to her. She does not understand these gods. If she did, she never would have bought that alarm clock and gave it to her daughter.

Or maybe she does know, and that would be even more tragic. So there's this principle that there are gods that you do not know, but you need to understand that all of the gods of the nations of the earth take you somewhere. And when you listen to music, you can guarantee that there are gods behind those lyrics. There are gods behind those sounds. There are gods behind those words.

Every time you click on a movie or whatever, there are gods standing behind there. You need to understand that. And you do not know where they will take you. So when you are going into the promised land, you need to understand the dangers that are there. There's always a world view behind every website, behind every audio clip that's represented.

The Internet is no different than the land of Canaan. It's a place you go. It's a place of worship. It's a place where there are lies and there are truths. It's a place of Mount Evil.

It's a place of Mount Gerizim. And God has set before his people a principle that there are always two great mountains that loom over everything that happens on the face of the earth. And God is so kind. Think of this. Think of how kind God is in doing this.

There are no blind curves with God. He lays them out. There are... There's nothing lurking in the background except what God has already exposed. He says, there's a wolf there, there's a serpent there, he's there to steal and kill and destroy, and if you love the darkness you will become the victim and you will be cast into hell, because you preferred the pleasures of sin to the pleasures of God." So there's this warning in the midst of this vision of the consequences.

And then in verses 29 to 30 we move on and we come to these two illustrations, these two mountains and the two things that happen on the mountain. And that's really important for every area of life. There's a command to bless Mount Gerizim and a command to curse Mount Abel. This command Moses is giving is something that the people of Israel should do when they enter into the promised land. He's saying, when you go in, send half the people up Gerizim and half the people up Mount Abel and have an illustration that everyone will be able to see and understand.

It's very simple and it gives this binary way of thinking that the people of God are charged to have in this world. Not to be confused, There are only two ways in this world. And so now the people have been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, and they're going to go into the promised land. And Moses says, here's what I want you to do first when you get in there. And these people, they've already seen the pillar of fire.

They've seen the cloud guide them. They could speak of the blessings and the curses, because they've already seen how it works. And so he brings to them these blessings and these curses. Now, We find them doing this in Joshua chapter 8. They actually obey this commandment in Joshua chapter 8.

But Moses is not finished with this subject. Remember, We're at the end of chapter 11, but in chapter 27 and 28, at the very end of this sermon, he's going to spend an extensive amount of time explaining the details. So he's cast a vision for it here at the end of the first section of the speech. He's going to give lots of detail to the end of the speech, and he's going to wind up the speech right back here. He's going to come back to this principle again.

But when he gets there next time, he's going to give all kinds of detail about it. If you can imagine this scene, and it would be wonderful to know exactly what this scene looked like. The Targum of Jonathan reports that this is how it happened. That the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of the Covenant and the Levites stayed between the mountains and then the crowd was divided up in the way that was listed here. And the Levites put their faces away from Mount Ebal and toward Gerizine.

And then the blessings and the curses were offered on the two mountains. What an amazing symbol it must have been. We don't know exactly how it fit, but probably these mountains were two or three miles away from each other. So it's possible under the right conditions you could actually hear the blessings and the cursings if they were if they were spoken loud enough and if the if the regional features of the area would allow the sound to travel in that way. But think of half of the children of Israel on one mountain, and half of the children of Israel on another mountain, to give this very vivid illustration.

This very, very vivid illustration. Now let's turn, let's fast forward to Deuteronomy chapter 27 and let's look at it. Deuteronomy 27, 11. Now remember, this is the same speech. Okay?

Moses has been talking, talking, talking, And now we get to verse 11, and Moses commanded the people on the same day. That's one way we know it's one sermon. It was the same day. On the same day saying, These shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, when you have crossed over the Jordan. Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin, and these shall stand on Mount Ebal to curse.

Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulon, Dan, Naphtali, and the Levites shall speak with a loud voice and say to all the men of Israel." And here's what they're going to say. Are you ready? Now we're going to get down into some of the nubbies about these blessings and cursings. The first blessing and cursing has to do with the mind and images. Images.

He says, Cursed is the one who makes a carved or molded image, an abomination to the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret, and all the people shall answer and say, ìAmen.îî And then he speaks about honor in the home, and the blessings and the cursings that flow out of home life. He says, ìCursed is the one who treats his father or mother with contempt and all the people shall say, ìAmen.îî And then he talks about a heart of greed and wanting to accumulate more than God has given you. He says, cursed is the one who moves his neighbor's landmark, and all the people shall say, amen. And then he speaks of the selfishness in our hearts, the self-serving personalities that we have. In verse 18, Cursed is the one who makes the blind wander off the road, and all the people shall say, Amen.

And then again, continuing on this theme of self-serving and perverting justice, in verse 19, he says, Cursed is the one who perverts justice due the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and all the people shall say, Amen." And then another, for the family, in verse 20, cursed is the one who lies with his father's wife because he has uncovered his father's bed, and all the people shall say, Amen." And then sexual perversion in verse 21, "'Cursed is the one who lies with any kind of animal, and all the people shall say, Amen." And then the next few from 22 to 25 are all sins that happen in the family. Cursed in verse 22 is the one who lies with his sister. Verse 23, who lies with his mother-in-law. Verse 24, who attacks his neighbor secretly, and then one who takes a bribe to slay an innocent person and all the people shall say amen." And then verse 26, "'Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law and all the people shall say amen.'" This to me is one of the most terrifying ones for evangelicalism, because evangelicals reject the law.

Many of them reject the entire Old Testament. Look at verse 26 again. Cursed is he who does not confirm all the words of this law, and all the people shall say amen. And how do we know that this prevails? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ quotes the first commandment and brings it forward and casts a vision for it for all of life.

The people of God must not set aside the Word of God for the sake of their traditions or the sake of their philosophy or the sake of their dispensationalism. Here God is issuing an extremely direct warning to all those who would not confirm the words of this law. And all the people shall say amen. Now, you can't say that everywhere in America and people say amen. You know, have you ever been in a church like that where you come to the end of the service and somebody says, and all the people said, amen.

Well, it comes right out of this text. This is where they got it. This is why we do that. This is why you've seen pastors do it, because It's in the Bible, and it's a compelling pattern. It's a beautiful pattern of affirmation of the goodness of God.

And then there's more detail in chapter 28. Look with me there. Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God." And then these beautiful words, look at verse 3. He talks about the place that God has put you in the place that you live, the place of your lodging.

No matter where you live, you might live in a hut, you might live in a mobile home You might live in a mansion but this promise is for all of those who lodge who obey or Reject the commandments of God Blessed shall you be in the city? Blessed shall you be in the country. And then he talks about your body in verse 4. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body. And then he talks about your land.

Blessed shall be the produce of your ground. And then your cattle and the increase of your herds and the increase of your cattle. And then he talked about your your preparations for the sustenance of your family. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. In other words, there will always be food coming out of it.

You know, there are a number of people that I know right now, even some in our own congregation. One fellow was out of work, you know, for many, many months, had real struggle. He said, you know what? God fed us every day. The stuff kept coming out of the kneading bowl.

The stuff kept coming out of the basket. God did that for us. And then He talks about your travel. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. You ever have fears in your travels that some terrible thing will befall you?

You don't need to fear at all. God has given a promise to His people that if they keep His commandments, that blessed shall it be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. And then your enemies, verse 7, He'll cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face. And they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways." And then he talks about your preparations in verse eight. And then nine, your strength.

And then he just goes on and on and on. When we finally get to the end of this sermon, we'll go slowly through each one of these because they are all of tremendous importance. And then in verse 15, he begins to give the flip side because, again, There's always looming over the people of God, Mount Gerizine, the place of blessing, the pathway, the turning of the foot that takes you in a trajectory toward continued blessing. But there's also Mount Ebal. Mount Ebal begins in verse 15.

But it shall come to pass that if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you, that all these curses will come and overtake you." One interesting thing about the curses, There are some that are similar or exactly the same to the blessings, but there are many, many more curses that are totally different. You sow and you reap a whirlwind is really the idea that he gives here. So he goes on for, you know, for 68 verses of these blessings and these curses. And so these are the words that Moses is using to guide the children of Israel when they're in the promised land. And then we find them doing that very thing in Joshua chapter 8.

When the children of Israel went into the promised land, They encountered a battle at Ai, and after the battle of Ai, they did this very thing. And you can read about it in Joshua 8, 23 through 33. Verse 32 says, And there in the presence of the children of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written. And then all Israel and their elders, and the officers and judges, stood on either side of the ark before the priests, the Levites, who bore the Ark of the Covenant and the stranger as well as he was born among them." So there's the scene of the Ark of the Covenant and the Levites and the curses and the blessings on the two mountains. It's interesting, The Lord Jesus himself refers to this mountain, Mount Gerizim, when he's speaking to the woman at the well.

The Lord Jesus says, you know, whoever drinks of this water will never thirst again. And the water that I give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life. And the woman said, Sir, give me this water. And then she got into a discussion with him about Mount Gerizim, the same mountain that the vision of blessing and cursing was cast. And then we come toward the end of this section in verses 31 to 32 And you'll see again this single-minded agenda for going into the land is repeated.

And he says, be careful. And he gives the reason that God has preserved his people all this time. And that is that they would love him and that they would keep his commandments and that he would save them from many sorrows and to follow the shepherd of their souls, to be saved by their Savior, to be taught by their teacher, and be instructed by Him. Why? Because His ways are pleasant ways, because all His paths are peace, because He's a tree of life to all those who embrace Him.

And He's a blessing to all those who had turned their foot toward Him. And then finally in verse 32, this very careful obedience is commanded. And then finally in verse 31 and verse 32, we learn that these commandments should all be obeyed, every single one of them. And we should not ever take lightly even one single commandment of God. So that When we're thinking about every area of life, when you think about what you might say when you're talking to your mother, you see the two mountains and you say, if I turn this way or that way, there's a blessing or a curse.

When you get up in the morning and you decide, how am I going to dress? What will I put on? In the way that I turn either toward or against the commandments of God, there will be a blessing or a curse. That when you rise up to educate your children, God has given you many commands for education. And if you turn to the right or the left, Mount Evil and Mount Gerizim are always looming over you in everything that you do.

Yes, there is someone watching you. Yes, there is a way to walk in this world. When you decide how you conduct yourself in the house of God as a member of a church, there's always a way of blessing and always a way of cursing. As you speak to your dear wife or as you relate to your husband. You always have something in your ear, a mountain up there, giving testimony to it.

How would you conduct yourself in this world? Would you speak to her as a dear daughter of Zion, one under your own name, speaking to her gently as the Lord Jesus Christ would have you speak. You know, it would be very convenient, wouldn't it, to have that earpiece in our ears, to where in every conversation God would be speaking to us. Wouldn't that be nice to have that? Well, guess what?

He has given it. He has given it to all of his children. He has given His Word and His Spirit to them, to guide them, so that they might know in every conversation they can cry out to God and say, God help me. In every situation at work they can say, Lord I'm at a crossroads, take my feet to the right, not to the left. I see Mount Gerizim.

I see the blessings. I see how good you are. Lord, you are majestic. You are good. And there is no good in this world but you." And then finally, we actually end with a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ in this text.

Because as one of the men said in our Bible study on Tuesday, he said this is a messianic passage. Verse 32 makes this abundantly messianic. Because here we're commanded to keep all the commandments, and we know that we cannot keep them. We know that we're lawbreakers. We know that we sin against Almighty God.

We have broken all the commandments and even if we'd only broken one, we've broken them all as the Bible so says. But there is one, there is one who did keep all the commandments and he kept all the commandments for his people. He never disobeyed one. Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim were looming in his mind, and he always went toward Mount Gerizim in a very different way than we live. And so we have a Savior who did keep all of the commandments so that we might be saved, so that all of the punishment due us for our breaking these commandments would be laid upon Him.

And so in the law there is also a vision of the gospel that Jesus Christ, the perfect sacrifice for our sins, kept every commandment because none of us were able to keep them. And as a result, He's made us his sons and daughters, and he promises to continue to carry us through our wilderness wanderings until he places us in his promised land." And so this is the great message of the end of this first section of the second speech of Moses as he stood before the people of Israel at age 120, just before he was going to die, as he was speaking what is really the book that Jesus loved, because the Lord Jesus Christ quoted from this book more than any other book of the Bible. If there's anyone who has a contradiction against this book, let them know that they will be accursed in their ways as they depart from the words of the law of God. And they will have, in one hand, as they've rejected the law, they've rejected the gospel at the very same stroke, because the Lord Jesus Christ believed that the law and the gospel were harmonious. Would you pray with me?

Oh Lord, I pray that you would help us to always see these mountains, even today, as we speak with one another. I pray that you fill this place with your love, that we would always choose your love, your mercy, your truth in all of our doings today. We thank you for giving us a day that we might set aside the whole day to consider your majesty. In Jesus name, Amen.