Seasonal rains
Productive fields
Fruitful trees
Year-round food supplies
Plenty to eat
Safety
Peace
Fearless nights
Removal of evil beasts
Absence of enemy swords
Victory over your enemies
Five people to chase a hundred
One hundred to chase ten thousand
Favor
Population growth
Covenantal Relationship
New supplies before old vanish
My presence
Identification with Me
Freedom from slavery
Uprightness [2]
God promised to set His obedient servants “high above all nations of the earth.” [3] If they listened to His voice, He promised that the following blessings would overtake them:
“Blessed in the city.”
“Blessed in the field.”
“Blessed in body, ground, animals, livestock, and flock.”
Blessed breadbasket.
Blessed in travels.
Blessed in enemies fleeing from you.
Blessed barns, labors, and land.
Established as God’s holy people.
Identified and respected by others as God’s people.
Treasures of heaven to lend to nations and not borrow.
Made the head, not the tail; above only, not beneath. [4]
On the other hand, God promised to curse them in the above areas if they defied Him. [5] God promised to feed rebels to birds and beasts. [6] He promised to strike rebels with incurable boils of Egypt, with tumors, scabs, and itch. Rebels would incur madness, blindness, confusion of heart, oppression, and robbed continually without rescue. [7] Men would steal their fiancés. Others would possess their newly built houses. Others would eat the fruits of their vineyard fruit and the meat of their livestock. Others would have their children. They would long for their children. They would feel crushed. A foreign dictator would rule them. Locusts would eat their crops. Foreign nations would increase at the expense of their decline. They would be indebted to other nations. [8]
The Lord promised them:
Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things; therefore, you will serve your enemies whom the Lord sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you. The Lord will bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies: a nation whose language you will not understand, a nation of fierce facial expressions, which does not respect the elderly, nor show favor to the young. [9]
God said:
It will happen that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be plucked from the land that you are going in to possess. the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone. [10]
As I read the curses, I noticed that the Lord issues a set of judgments and then stops. He waits for a response. If they defy Him, He issues the next set of judgments.
Round One
You will experience:
Terror
Disease
Fever
Loss of vision
Sadness of heart
Futility
Loss of crops
Loss of wars
Evil oppression
Cowardice [11]
Round Two
Brokenness
A sky hard as iron
A land hard as bronze
Strength spent without benefit
Fields without increase
Trees without fruit [12]
Round Three
Children consumed by beasts
Livestock destroyed by beasts
Population diminished by beasts
Highways unused due to beasts [13]
Round Four
Seven setbacks due to sin
Death by sword
Enemy invasions
Epidemics
Prisoner of war camps
Lack ovens for cooking
Unsatisfied appetites [14]
Round Five
Cannibalism of sons and daughters
Destruction of idols
Corpses atop idols!
Rejection by God
Destruction of cities and sanctuaries
Rejection of your offerings to God
Barrenness
Loathing from enemies
Displacement among the nations
Death by sword (again)
Distance from places of worship
Faintness of heart due to captors
Cowardice (again)
Stumbling
Weakness before enemies
Death in foreign lands
Demise due to iniquity [15]
In Revelation, God describes three rounds of seven judgments. In round one, seven seal judgments! [16] In round two, seven trumpet judgments! [17] In round three, seven bowl judgments! [18] These curses are strong incentives to choose repentance of sin and salvation by God. Tragically, the people described in the Revelation prophecy do like the people did in Jeremiah’s day, they blaspheme the name of God who has the power over these plagues. They did not repent and give Him glory. [18]
God shortened the five rounds of judgments recorded in Leviticus 26 to three rounds of judgments in Revelation 6-16:
Round One
First seal
A conqueror conquers
Second seal
Peace departs and killing starts
Third seal
Inflation increases
Fourth seal
Sword, hunger, death, wild beasts kill a quarter of the people
Fifth seal
God promises justice to His martyrs
Sixth seal
Earthquakes, sun darkens, moon reddens, stars fall to the earth
Seventh seal
Thundering, lightning, and quaking
Round Two
First trumpet
Hail and fire mingled with blood destroy a third of trees and grass
Second trumpet
A third of the sea turns bloody
A third of the sea creatures die
A third of the earth’s ships destroyed
Third trumpet
A third of water turn bitter and many people die
Fourth trumpet
A third of sun, moon, stars darken
A third of day and night darken
Fifth trumpet
People tormented by locusts five months
People seek death but it alludes them
Sixth trumpet
A third of people killed by a 200,000,000-soldier strong army
Seventh trumpet
The devil descends to earth, beast, and false prophet gain power
Round Three
First bowl
Foul and loathsome sores form on those with mark of the beast
Second bowl
The sea becomes bloody and every living creature in the sea dies
Third bowl
Rivers and springs of water become bloody
Fourth bowl
The sun scorches men with fire
Fifth bowl
Beast worshippers gnaw their tongues in pain
Sixth bowl
The kings of earth gather for battle
Seventh bowl
Thunder, lightning, earthquake, a great city, other cities collapse
The Jerusalemites experienced the curses of sin for defying God. Eventually, the Babylon army would enter their city. Soldiers would confiscate their riches and burn down their city. They would execute their leaders. The Jerusalemites would be: “Carried away captive to Babylon for their disobedience.” [20]
The same will happen to our people when we prefer defiance towards God rather than obedience to His commands. The son of destruction will be revealed. The anti-Christ will be released. He will sit in God’s temple and pretend to be God.
King Saul was God’s early warning signal to Israel. In him, God revealed what happens to unfaithful people. “Saul died for his trespass which he committed against the Lord, because of the Lord’s word, which he did not keep; and because he asked counsel of one who had a familiar spirit, to inquire, and did not inquire of the Lord. Therefore, He killed him, and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse.” [21]
What about God’s servants? How do we discern the difference between divine curses due to sin and suffering for the sake of righteousness? Jeremiah escaped the consequences of personal sin. He humbled himself before God and glorified God. He was neither carried away captive nor slain by the Babylonian army. His suffering was due to wayward people who persecuted him. Peter wrote, “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed; because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.” [22] God’s love in one’s heart is the difference. Knowing that God loves you and knowing that you love Him in return is a sign that you are suffering for sake of righteousness.
The priests of Judah colluded together to silence Jeremiah. The Lord revealed their plot to him. He wrote, “The Lord gave me knowledge of it, and I knew it. Then you showed me their doings.” [23] The Lord rescued Jeremiah from the plots of those who sought to destroy him.
The Apostle Paul had a similar experience to Jeremiah. Forty men made plans to ambush and kill him. Paul’s nephew overheard the plot and told Paul about it. Paul asked his nephew to report the plot to the Roman commander in-charge. Thanks to God’s grace, the ambush was averted. [24]
God’s Word cannot be silenced. Heaven and earth will pass away, but God’s Word will not pass away. [25] God’s Word accomplishes what He pleases. [26]
God allowed Jeremiah to write a personal note in his book. He wrote, “I was like a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter. I did not know that they had devised plans against me, saying, ‘Let’s destroy the tree with its fruit, and let’s cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.’” [27] Jeremiah envisioned himself as a gentle lamb and a fruitful tree. No threat to others! Normally, those who bear good fruit need not worry about being cut down. But he was dealing with incredibly evil people. They wanted to kill him and erase him from everyone’s memory.
God did not let Jeremiah’s enemies destroy him. He promised him, “Behold, I will punish them. The young men will die by the sword. Their sons and their daughters will die by famine. There will be no remnant to them, for I will bring evil on the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.” [28] The Lord was not unjust, to forget his work and the labor of love which he showed toward God’s name. [29]
The prayers of martyred souls in heaven echo Jeremiah’s prayer. They cry with loud voices, saying, “How long, Master, the holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” [30] The Lord’s response to their prayer was to give them long white robes. He told them to rest until their fellow servants and their brothers were killed even as they were. [31] Vengeance followed… “He opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood. The stars of the sky fell to the earth, like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs when it is shaken by a great wind.” [32] God blesses those who obey Him, while sin curses those who commit it.
“Dear Heavenly Father, please keep us from temptation and deliver us from evil. Help us to submit ourselves to obeying You. Please deliver us from those who conspire against us. Please graciously bring our enemies to repentance. May they too bring glory and honor to You. For it is in the Name of Your Son Jesus Christ, that I pray. Amen.”
[1] Leviticus 26:3-4
[2] Leviticus 26:4-13
[3] Deuteronomy 28:1
[4] Deuteronomy 28:3-13
[5] Deuteronomy 28:15
[6] Deuteronomy 28:26
[7] Deuteronomy 28:27-29
[8] Deuteronomy 28:30-37, 43-44
[9] Deuteronomy 28:47-50
[10] Deuteronomy 28:63-64
[11] Leviticus 26:16-18
[12] Leviticus 26:18-20
[13] Leviticus 26:21-22
[14] Leviticus 26:24-26
[15] Leviticus 26:29-44
[16] Revelation 6:1-8:1
[17] Revelation 8:2-11:15
[18] Revelation 16:3-21
[19] Revelation 16:9
[20] 1 Chronicles 9:1
[21] 1 Chronicles 10:13-14
[22] 1 Peter 4:14
[23] Jeremiah 11:18
[24] Acts
23:12-32
[25] Matthew 24:35
[26] Isaiah
55:11
[27] Jeremiah 11:19
[28] Jeremiah 11:22-23
[29] Hebrews 6:10
[30] Revelation 6:10
[31] Revelation 6:11
[32] Revelation 6:12-13
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