It’s important to understand what passages like Deuteronomy 28 are not saying. God is not saying that His people would be saved by their obedience – after all, He had already brought them out of slavery in Egypt and made them His own. God is also not saying that every time a natural disaster happens it’s because of some particular evil that we have done – sometimes in a fallen world, things like hurricanes and tornadoes and plagues just happen.

But God is saying that, in general, the quality of our life on this earth is connected to our obedience to God and to our willingness to follow His commands. Of course it makes sense that if we truly love one another, if we truly consider others’ needs as more important than our own, our societies will be healthier and we’ll be able to weather whatever storms come our way. Loving, generous people will pick up those around them who are down, mitigating the pain that inevitably comes into our lives. For example, how many selfless Christians gave of their time, talent, and treasure to put the Mississippi Gulf Coast back together after Hurricane Katrina?

Moreover, God is making an even more direct promise: that if His people seek His face and follow His perfect law of love, He will bless us not only in spiritual but in material ways. No, we must not presume upon God’s promises to demand particular evidences of His grace – we must not “name it and claim it,” acting like so many spoiled children who insist that their parents bow to their wishes. But as we bring our wills into line with His, we can have confidence that our good Father will give us the kinds of blessings He describes in verses 1-14.

But isn’t it sad that God has to spend so many more verses, all of Deuteronomy 28:15-68, telling His people what He would do if they did not obey Him, if they gave their hearts to other gods, if they did not love their neighbors? For that’s exactly what the Israelites ended up doing time and time again, and you can read all about it in the book of Judges.

And that’s what so many other Christian cultures have experienced throughout the last 2000 years. After all, five out of the seven churches to which the last book of the Bible was addressed were already falling away from the faith. Luther’s Germany, Knox’s Scotland, and Puritan New England have largely followed in their path. And whenever this happens, the sorts of things God warns us about in verses 15-68 have in fact followed.

No, we can’t be sure that any particular war, famine, plague, storm or earthquake is a particular judgment of God for any particular sins of His people. But given verses 15-68, whenever such troubles come, it’s not a bad idea for us to search our souls and to examine our actions according to God’s Word. It’s not a bad idea for us to confess and repent of our sins, seeking to bring our lives more into line with His perfect will. For the only way to have more of God’s blessings, either in this world or in the next, is to draw closer to God Himself.

Deuteronomy 28:1-24 (NASB)

“Now it shall be, if you will diligently obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.
2 “And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the LORD your God.
3 “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.
4 “Blessed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock.
5 “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
6 “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
7 “The LORD will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out against you one way and shall flee before you seven ways.
8 “The LORD will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you.
9 “The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you will keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and walk in His ways.
10 “So all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of you.
11 “And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your beast and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.
12 “The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.
13 “And the LORD shall make you the head and not the tail, and you only shall be above, and you shall not be underneath, if you will listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I charge you today, to observe them carefully,
14 and do not turn aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
15 “But it shall come about, if you will not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.
16 “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.
17 “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
18 “Cursed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock.
19 “Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
20 “The LORD will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken Me.
21 “The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land, where you are entering to possess it.
22 “The LORD will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew, and they shall pursue you until you perish.
23 “And the heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron.
24 “The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.