And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God.  Deuteronomy 28:1-2 HCSB

The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.  Deuteronomy 28:7 HCSB

If you have the chance sometimes stop and read Deuteronomy 28, the whole chapter, which is 68 verses long.  In this chapter of the Bible, God is addressing the Israelites, his chosen people, the apple of his eye.  He is promising them these wonderful blessings if they will just be obedient to Him. These blessings are described in verses 1-14.  But the picture He paints in verses 15-68, which you may note is quite a bit longer by about 54 verses, is not so pretty.  God promises them that if they don’t get their act together, they will be cursed. He promises curses, confusion in all that they do.  He promises that frustration will overtake them.  He promises to strike them with disease, with fever, inflammation, fiery heat. In verse 26 it says, “The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them.”  In verse 28, if says, “The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind, and you shall grope at noonday as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways.  Now, there are some pretty horrific curses in here and in verse 45, it says, “All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes that He commanded you.”  

There is a lot of talk these days about nuclear strikes and war and people are fretting about where our nation is headed. Well, my friend, I can tell you where it has been headed for many years now, away from God.  We have become a nation where people actually celebrate and applaud murdering full-term babies, seriously?  We have become a nation that celebrates its independence one day, honors veterans one day, memorializes veterans who lost their lives for one day, celebrates the birth of our Savior for one day, but gives a whole week to gay pride.  For a whole week, those who openly defy God’s word are honored? What? And we wonder why our nation is in such turmoil. It is in the Bible, my friend. We have become a disobedient nation. We went from our founding fathers founding this country on biblical principles to removing God from everything and everywhere. If you ask me that whole madness and confusion of mind thing has already started here and is rapidly taking over.

Perhaps you are reading this and saying, “Well, it’s hopeless, there is nothing I can do.”  Well, this is where you are wrong. God clearly promises that if we are obedient to Him, that He will bless us.  He clearly promises curses for disobedience. Our nation has been seeing the curses for many years now. If we don’t turn to God and give this country back to Him, I fear that we will suffer the same fate that the Israelites did many times. We will someday be in bondage to those from a foreign country. If you have read your bible through, then you know that many times, the Israelites were defeated and taken into slavery. But you also know that those that honored God and trusted in Him faired well, during these times, those like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were protected by God. Esther became queen and her wishes were granted and she was able to provide protection for her people. These are just a few examples of those that God protected during trying times.

So, as we celebrate our independence, know that we could lose it.  Know that we could face a time when we are unable to attend the church of our choice on Sunday. Better do it now, before you lose that privilege. We could face a time when we could suffer serious consequences for saluting our flag. We could face a time when we have to read our bibles and pray in secret.  As a nation, we really need to get our act together, my friend.

You can start with you. We are told in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.”  Our land needs healing in a big way.  You only have two options here, you can be part of the problem or part of the solution.  I encourage you today to choose whether you want to be blessed or cursed.

We can’t receive God’s blessing without being obedient.  I beg of you today to turn to Him. I beg of you to humble yourself and pray to Him and seek Him and get rid of any ways that don’t line up with God’s word.  If we want God to bless America, then we must start within ourselves.  We must seek His blessing upon our lives. A drowning man can’t save someone unless he can first save himself. Won’t you humble yourself, pray and seek Him? Won’t you be obedient to Him so that you can receive His blessings? Maybe if you do this, you will have an effect on those around you and they will see the blessings you are receiving and turn to Him also.  Start with you and watch the ripple effect around you.

God will bless America if we only trust in Him and abide by the commandments that He gave us all those years ago. So today celebrate the freedom that we still have and know that we could lose it if we are not careful.

Have a wonderful Fourth of July!