A couple of weeks ago, my family and I went to a river in Idaho that we visit every year. This year my daughter, Madison, killed it while we were fishing together. She caught some really beautiful fish. Here is a picture of one of her fish. I turned this into a 5×7 print and hung it on my office wall. I have a lot of pictures like this in my office. You know why I have these pictures? Because they are connected to moments that I want to remember. Every time I look at one of the pictures on my wall, I remember what it was like in that moment the picture was taken. It’s a memory I want to preserve.
As Deuteronomy 27 opens, God tells the people of Israel to take a picture to remember this moment. God wanted them to recall the moment they crossed the Jordan River and began to take possession of the land He had promised them.
Deut 27:1-8 (CSB)—Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, “Keep every command I am giving you today. When you cross the Jordan into the land the LORD your God is giving you, set up large stones and cover them with plaster. Write all the words of this law on the stones after you cross to enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has promised you. When you have crossed the Jordan, you are to set up these stones on Mount Ebal, as I am commanding you today, and you are to cover them with plaster. Build an altar of stones there to the LORD your God—do not use any iron tool on them. Use uncut stones to build the altar of the LORD your God and offer burnt offerings to the LORD your God on it. There you are to sacrifice fellowship offerings, eat, and rejoice in the presence of the LORD your God. Write clearly all the words of this law on the plastered stones.”
If this were happening in 2026, God would say, “Take a screenshot of this covenant, print it out, and hang it on your wall or your refrigerator, so you won’t forget God’s promise to you. God is telling them:
1. Remember the Covenant
He does this by telling them to set up an altar. Why does He not want any iron tool used on the altar? Because the altar was not to be the focus; the thing the altar represented was to be the focus. No ornate, decorated, fancy altars. Just a pile of stones covered with plaster with the words of the law, the Ten Commandments, written on it.
What did the altar represent? It represented Israel’s relationship with God. It represented God’s promise and Israel’s commitment. The Creator of the universe has said to the people of Israel that they are His chosen people. The altar was a reminder that they belong to Him and that He will show Himself to all the nations through them. It was a reminder that they had been called by God just as God has called you and me to belong to Him.
And then they were to make a fellowship offering on the altar. Basically, they were going to have a BBQ to celebrate their belonging to God.
It is important to remember that obedience doesn’t make us God’s people; obedience is the response of people who belong to God. Remember that God called them and then He asked them to be faithful. God wanted the Israelites to remember the covenant and to know that they belong to Him. In God’s design, identity comes before obedience. We don’t obey to become God’s people; we obey because we are God’s people.
For example, a big part of my identity is being Stacey’s husband. There is a whole list of things that I do because that is my identity. Because I am Stacey’s husband, I love my wife, I serve my wife, I encourage my wife. There are also some things that I don’t do. I don’t flirt with other women; I don’t stay out till all hours of the night; I don’t sleep until 11a each day, but I get up and go to work to provide for my wife. My identity as a husband drives many of the things I do.
In 1 Cor 6, Paul makes a passionate plea against sexual immorality. He says this:
1 Cor 6:19-20 (CSB)—Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.
Paul says, because God lives in you now, don’t do these things. Your life was bought with the sinless life of Christ, and this new identity should change how you live life. As God says through Moses, remember who you belong to.
Next, Moses and the priests tell Israel that when they cross the Jordan River, half of them are to go stand on Mount Gerizim and the rest are to stand on Mount Ebal. In between these two hills, there is a valley where the priests and the leaders were to stand and read the curses that come with disobedience to the law and the blessings that come with obedience to the law.
They started with the curses. When the curse was read, the tribes on Mt. Ebal would respond with, “Amen.” You see, God wanted the Israelites to:
2. Recognize the Consequences
He wanted them to see that sin is never consequence-free. There is always a price to be paid.
The curses address:
- idolatry
- dishonoring parents
- injustice
- exploiting the vulnerable
- sexual sin
- taking advantage of others
And after every declaration it says: “And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’” They’re essentially saying: “Yes. God’s judgment is right.”
So when we say ‘Amen,’ we’re not saying, ‘Those people deserve judgment.’ We’re saying, ‘God, Your standard is right—recognizing that I need Your mercy too.
The curses are listed in Deuteronomy 27:15-26. Let’s read a few of them like the Israelites would have read them. I’ll read the curse you all reply, “Amen.”
- The person who makes a carved idol or cast image, which is detestable to the LORD, the work of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret is cursed. Vs. 15
- The one who dishonors his father or mother is cursed. Vs. 16
- The one who leads a blind person astray on the road is cursed. Vs. 18
- The one who denies justice to a resident alien, a fatherless child, or a widow is cursed. Vs. 19
- The one who secretly kills his neighbor is cursed. Vs. 24
- The one who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person is cursed. Vs. 25
- Anyone who does not put the words of this law into practice is cursed. Vs. 26
The point of reading these this morning is not to warn you to not go out and lead a blind man astray on the road. The point is for you to see what happens when God’s people choose to reject God’s design; when they believe the voice of deception that says sin promises freedom, but the reality is that eventually sin produces slavery.
The voice of deception says, “It’s your life, live it your way on your terms, however you want.”
But the reality is that eventually:
- greed owns you
- lust owns you
- anger owns you
- addiction owns you
- pride owns you
We have freedom to make our choices. But what we have to understand is that our choices eventually make us. That is why the writer of Hebrews says this:
Heb 3:13 (CSB)—But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception.
Instead of being hardened by sin’s deception, Moses tells the Israelites to:
3. Receive God’s Blessing
God’s ways lead toward life and flourishing. Look at what it says about the blessings:
Deut 28:1-6 (CSB)—Now if you faithfully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all his commands I am giving you today, the LORD your God will put you far above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come and overtake you, because you obey the LORD your God:
You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
Your offspring will be blessed, and your land’s produce, and the offspring of your livestock, including the young of your herds and the newborn of your flocks. Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
When we read ‘blessed,’ we can be tempted to think God is simply promising us more stuff. But biblical blessing is bigger than material prosperity. In this passage, God’s blessing touches family, work, community, provision, security, and fruitfulness. It’s a picture of life flourishing under God’s good rule.”
It’s the same picture that Jesus paints when He says, I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance, in Jn 10.
But look at verse 9. It gives us the real heart of the pronounced blessings:
Deut 28:9 (CSB)—The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he swore to you, if you obey the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways.
That’s the center of all the other blessings. The blessing that they would belong to God.
God’s greatest blessing isn’t what He puts in our hands; it’s that God calls us, adopts us into His family, and makes us His sons and daughters, forgives us, gives us a new name, and brings us into a relationship with Himself.
The greatest blessing isn’t the stuff God gives us; it’s God Himself. The material blessings are gifts from Jehovah Jireh, my Provider, but the Provider is greater than all the material gifts He gives.
But once you get through verse 14, things turn back again to the consequences of ignoring the law of the covenant with God.
Deut 28:15-19 (CSB)—But if you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all his commands and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overtake you: You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed. Your offspring will be cursed, and your land’s produce, the young of your herds, and the newborn of your flocks. You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.
The blessings are reversed and turned into curses.
Blessing becomes a curse. Fruitfulness becomes famine. Security becomes fear. Freedom becomes captivity. Life becomes death.
From verse 20 to the end of the chapter, which is another 48 verses, the curses get darker and darker. Let’s just say, I would not read these to my kids before bed. The curses are progressive until eventually Israel is removed from the land if Israel fails to follow the covenant.
And as you read through these curses, you can easily identify the accounts from scripture where the curses were fulfilled because Israel did fail.
For example:
Deut 28:36-37 (CSB)—The LORD will bring you and your king that you have appointed to a nation neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you will worship other gods, of wood and stone. You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the peoples where the LORD will drive you.
800 years after the writing of Deuteronomy, the Israelites were taken into captivity by the Babylonians in 605 BC. A fulfillment of the curse.
They didn’t fail because they didn’t know God’s law. They knew it.
They failed because they simply couldn’t live it consistently. Because of our sin nature and the deceitfulness of sin, and the deceitfulness of an enemy who was rooting for their failure, they could not keep God’s law.
And the reality is, neither can we. That is why if the curses and blessings in chapters 27-28 are the final word then we are all in trouble. If the message of these chapters is: “So try harder,” we are all destined to fail.
In Romans 3, Paul said we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. A few chapters later, Paul says that the wages of sin is death. That is the consequence we need to recognize for our sin. We all fall under the curse for our disobedience to God’s law.
This section highlights the seriousness of sin and its destructive nature, but it does something else. It creates a longing for a way out of the curse. The Apostle Paul articulates the longing in Romans 7.
Rom 7:24 (CSB)—What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Who can rescue me from the curse? He answers his own question in the next verse.
Rom 7:25 (CSB)—Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
The real message of Deuteronomy 27 and 28 is this:
4. Run to the Redeemer
Don’t walk, run! Because He is the only one who can break the curse of sin and death.
Jesus didn’t merely rescue us from the consequences of sin. He took the curse on Himself.
Gal 3:13 (CSB)—Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.
Jesus bore the curse of sin and death so that the curse would no longer have the final word over us. The Apostle Peter put it this way:
1 Ptr 2:24-25 (CSB)—He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
If you have declared your faith in Christ and given your life to Him, you are free from the curse of sin and death. Jesus defeated it by His death and resurrection, and we are free!
This is what Jesus means in John 8 when He says, “So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.”
Jesus didn’t free us from the curse so we could go back to living in sin. He freed us so we could finally become the people God created us to be. Like Peter says, “so we might live for righteousness.” Christ is at work in us, making us a better reflection of Him. Sin’s power over us was keeping us from becoming what He has designed us to become.
Now that sin’s power and the power of the curse are broken, we are free to pursue the greatest blessing of all, experiencing the peace and joy that comes from knowing the One who is the Overseer of our souls.
I keep that picture of Madison and all the other pictures on my wall because I don’t want to forget those moments.
God told Israel to put the covenant where they could see it because He knew they would forget. And that’s why we’re together in this room this morning, to remember.
We need to remember who God is. We need to remember what sin does. We need to remember that God’s ways lead to life. And most of all, we need to remember the One who took the curse for us.
So if you think you are able to avoid the curse by doing it on your own; if you’re trying to navigate this culture that is controlled by a deceitful enemy or if you think you’re going to make it by doing more good things than bad things, learn from Israel’s example and realize you can’t do it on your own. Remember there is a redeemer who loves you and gave up His life for you. He did what you can’t do on your own. Run to Jesus.
Chris Hankel 
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