Bible Commentaries
Deuteronomy 28

Verse 15

Deuteronomy 28:15

I. The curse which Moses foretold was the natural consequence of the sins of the people. The Bible meaning of a curse is simply the natural consequence of men's own ill actions.

For even in this life the door of mercy may be shut, and we may cry in vain for mercy when it is the time for justice. This is not merely a doctrine; it is a common, patent fact. Men do wrong and escape again and again the just punishment of their deeds; but how often there are cases in which a man does not escape, when he is filled with the fruit of his own devices, and left to the misery which he has earned.

II. Terrible and heart-searching for the wrong-doer is the message, God does not curse thee; thou hast cursed thyself. God will not go out of His way to punish thee; thou hast gone out of His way, and thereby thou art punishing thyself. God does not break His laws to punish sins. The laws themselves punish; every fresh wrong deed, and wrong thought, and wrong desire of thine sets thee more and more out of tune with those immutable and eternal laws of the moral universe which have their root in the absolute and necessary character of God Himself. The wheels move on, but the workman who should have worked with them is entangled among them. He is out of his place, and slowly, but irresistibly, they are grinding him to powder.

III. Let us believe that God's judgments, though they will culminate, no doubt, hereafter in one great day and "one far-off Divine event," are yet about our path and about our bed now, here, in this life. Let us believe that if we are to prepare to meet our God, we must do it now, for in Him we live, and move, and have our being, and can never go from His presence, never flee from His spirit.

C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, p. 262.

References: Deuteronomy 28:47 , Deuteronomy 28:48 . J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Lent to Passiontide, p. 150. Deuteronomy 28:67 . T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. vi., p. 32.Deuteronomy 29:4 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii., No. 1638.