Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Why Sin is a Big Deal | Torah | Deuteronomy 27:9-26

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

What does sin actually mean? What consequences are there for sin? Does sin lead to curses or blessings? In today's episode, Patrick discusses the consequences of sin in Deuteronomy 27:9-26. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Deuteronomy 27:9-26 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. There are moments when the Bible soberes us with its seriousness about sin. I say that because these days, sin is a word we hardly even use. And what we do, we're usually talking about a chocolate dessert. Any other use of sin sounds kind of churchy, like a word from a different generation. The word sin simply means missing the mark.

Think about an archer who's aiming for a bullseye and misses the entire. target, that is sin. But when you hear that, you might be tempted to think that God has given us very narrow latitude in this life. We have to shoot exactly straight or else face his wrath. But again, that actually misses the point. Hitting the target isn't doing some exactly correct behavior in every situation. The target that God has set before you is a blessed life. A life that's characterized by wholeness, shalom, relational depth, love, connectedness, purity, justice, goodness, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, and hope. The target that God has set before you is the life that you were meant to live.

The life that sin wrecks. So if we think about that archer again, it's as though God has put him on a beautiful beach at sunset. The sun is reflecting over the top of the water. And God says, aim at this wonderful ocean, hit anywhere and you'll be doing just fine. But the archer turns the opposite direction and shoots his arrow into the dirt. And then he begins to complain that life isn't as vibrant as God promised. Life is so much more empty than God promised. It's just dirt and grass.

In the opening chapters of the Bible, the choice between good and evil are symbolized as trees. And it makes the exact same point. There's a garden full of wonderful trees. God says to take and eat their fruit, any of them, and enjoy them. But there's only one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that God bans Adam and Eve from eating. They forsake an expansive life full of an unimaginable variety of fruit and settle for a life of one single bitter fruit. They forsake a life of blessing and choose instead to live under a curse.

They redefine good and evil and in the process experience far less beauty, love and goodness, far less than God intended at least. As Moses leads people toward the promised land, it's as though he's leading them back to Eden, back to that expansive garden full of a whole life, full of so many wonderful blessed options. And before they get there, he wants to give them some warnings. He says, don't pick sin. Don't eat the one fruit. Don't pick the curse.

Don't wreck your life for one fruit when you can have a garden full of better fruit. As if to underline the point, he tells the people to do something when they enter the land. They need to renew the covenant with Yahweh. And to do that, they will go up onto two different mountains. and on one mountain they will repeat the blessings that God has given to them. And on the other mountain, they will repeat the curses that come with missing the mark, with choosing sin. And in many ways, the curses are the narrow path, the foolish path, the grayscale paths

when a full spectrum of color is elsewhere. And so when they speak the curses, they're speaking sobering words of encouragement. Counts the cost of sin. Don't choose the curse. Don't choose the lie. Don't choose the evil. Don't redefine good and evil. I want to read to you all the curses because they are still so pressing today. In many ways, they are recounting the Ten Commandments, but as you'll see, they still apply to our life here in the modern era. Deuteronomy 2714. The Levites, those are the priests, shall recite to all the people of Israel in a loud voice. cursed is anyone who makes an idol, a thing detestable to Yahweh, the work of skilled hands,

and sets it up in secret, then all the people shall say, amen. One of the things you'll notice in this list is that many of the things that are being described are things that are done in secret, things that other people don't know about, things that might even be done in someone's heart, like idolatry in many ways. And so what Moses is getting at is that choosing the cursed life, choosing sin, isn't just what you do in public. It's what happens. inside of your heart. Let's continue. Cursed is anyone who dishonors their father or mother. Then all the people shall say amen. Again, where do our minds go with our parents? How do we talk about them behind their backs? Cursed is anyone who moves their neighbor's boundary stone, and the people

shall say amen. So boundary stone was a marker that's delineated whose property was whose. And so moving a boundary stone was like stealing, because if you moved it so that you got some of your neighbor's property, you just expanded your own and took for them. But because the fields were large and oftentimes you wouldn't see someone out there, someone could easily move a boundary stone, just a little bit every single day and steal and take from their neighbor. Again, what do we take from our neighbors? How do we covet what they have? Cursed is anyone who leads the blind astray on the road. Again, you see the theme of secrecy here. The blind person can't even see you, but this is a mean, malicious person who wants to do harm to someone who is in need, leading them

astray on a road into a pit and harming them. Then all the people shall say, amen. Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. And the people shall say, amen. In your own heart, do you see justice as a sin issue? You see, in the Bible, justice isn't just punishing wrongdoing. Justice is making things that are wrong, right? And so that's why it highlights the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, because they were people who lived on the margins of society, people who didn't have enough, people who could be thrown to the side, and justice looks like bringing them in, justice looks like helping them set up a life. And so in the secret of your heart, you can ignore those people, you can do nothing, you can commit sins of omission,

not just sins of commission. And so again, Moses is trying to get us to ask, will you choose the blessed life of giving justice to the fatherless, to the orphan, and to the widow, or you choose the cursed life of ignoring them. He continues, cursed is anyone who sleeps with his father's wife, for he dishonors his father's bed. Then all the people shall say, amen. Cursed is anyone who has sexual relationships with any animal. Then all the people say, amen. Cursed is anyone who sleeps with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother. Then all the people shall say, amen. Cursed is anyone who sleeps with his mother-in-law. Then all the people shall say, Amen. See, God takes our sex lives seriously. Jesus says that if we even lust after someone in our heart, we have already committed adultery with them. But what these laws highlight is the way that sex has a power to destroy communities. Incessual relationships, tear apart families. Sexual relationships with animals tear apart the social fabric of society. And you see, that's the strange thing about sex, even though it might feel like a private act between two people. Sex is always, in some sense, public. And so again,

God is making us ask, will you choose the blessed life with your sex life? Will you choose the cursed life with your sex life? Curst is anyone who kills their neighbor secretly. Then all the people shall say, amen. This goes back to the Sixth Commandment. You shall not murder. But again, God is saying, you will have the curse on you, whether or not anyone finds out your life will be cursed if you choose sin, if you miss the mark, if you shoot into the dirt instead of looking into the ocean. Let's continue. cursed is anyone who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person. Then all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed is anyone who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out. Then all the people shall say, amen. Do you realize that you bring curses into your life when you refuse to walk

with God, when you reject the gift of his blessing? The point is not that people would never sin. If that was the point, there wouldn't be a day of atonement. There would be no sacrifices. And of course, those things point us to Jesus. He's the one who died for our sins. He's the one who gives us forgiveness when we miss the mark in our own sin. Here's the point, though. The point is that if the people made a habit of making sinful choices, they would curse themselves. They would suffer the consequences of their own foolishness. If they lived against the grain of God's reality, they get splinters. So what about you? Are you actively pressing against God's will for your life? I'm forgiven, so it's no big deal. No, it is a big thing.

deal because you're giving up on the blessings God wants to give you the wholeness, peace, and shalom he wants to bless you with. It's a big deal because the curses that come with disobedience are more than misery, anxiety, and a relationally fractured life. If we continue in the cursed life, we continue on the path toward hell away from God. You see, if Jesus works in our hearts, we'll still sin and we'll still have to seek after his forgiveness, which he freely gives when we repent. But if we continue in sin brazenly and unrepentantly to paraphrase John, it may be because we never trusted Jesus to begin with. If we choose the cursed life to paraphrase Paul, God will eventually give us over to our sin. And when that happens, there is no turning back.

So where do you need to repent today? Is it in your sex life? Is it in how you treat your parents and how you treat your neighbors and how you neglect justice for the needy. Jesus forgives. Trust him. He loves to forgive. And Jesus offers blessing. Jesus offers wholeness. Today, God's word sets before you, life and death.

Don't choose death. Choose life. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that's going to help you beat that midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.