Follow the Recipe: Deuteronomy 28:1-2, 15

“But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4, NASB).

I love pecan pie, but I did not know how to make one. My wife found a recipe for pecan pie on the internet and gave it to me. I followed the recipe exactly as written. It told me the ingredients and the amount of each ingredient. The instructions told me how to mix the ingredients. The instructions included the oven temperature to cook the pie, and the length of time for cooking. I included all the ingredients in the recipe, and I did not add anything to the mixture. When the cooking time was completed, I removed the pie from the oven. When it was time to eat, we consumed a delicious pie. I did all of this with no previous knowledge of preparing and cooking a pecan pie.

You may be wondering, why is he talking about cooking a pecan pie, and why the title “follow the Recipe?” So, here we go. God has designed that all of us live a good life. Jesus said, “‘the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly’” (John 10:10, NASB). Jesus said this to the Pharisees that were working on behalf of the devil. They were adding some things to the law, and they were omitting some things in the law. They were trying to steal the people from Jesus. If the people followed them, they would not be able to live the good life that Jesus wanted them to live.

I chose the book of Deuteronomy to convey to the reader my point of view. The book of Deuteronomy was written by Moses. God chose Moses to lead the children of Israel. It was time for God to keep His promise made to His servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He promised to bless their descendants by bringing them out of slavery in Egypt. He was going to give them the Promised Land; the land of Canaan. As Moses led the people from Egypt to the Promised Land they journeyed for forty years. During the forty years journey, God gave Moses laws, statues, and ordinances that the people were to live by now and when they had taken possession of the Promised Land.

These laws, statues, and ordinances were the recipe that the people were to live by if they wanted to receive the Lord’s blessings. They had to obey the Lord completely. They could not add anything to what God said, and they could not omit anything that the Lord said. If they did not obey the Lord, they would suffer the consequences. The book of Deuteronomy is a summary of all of the ingredients in the recipe that the Lord was giving to the people. Simply put, this was the law that the people must obey to live in the land that the Lord their God was giving to them.

Today, we are living in a world much like the one that the Israelites lived in. They were surrounded by people that worshiped other gods. The Israelites were tempted by the things that they saw the people around them do. The peoples of the land enjoyed the pleasures of eating and drinking, parties, celebrations; sex with many partners both men and women. These were people that enjoyed living even though they did not value life. They had great kings to lead them to war against their enemies, and in their greed they were swift to kill other people to get what they wanted. They had no laws to constrain them. Their gods were not gracious to them. Their gods made no provisions for their safety and their prosperity. In order to satisfy their greed they resorted to war.

On the other hand the Lord gave His people laws to live by. They would be a holy people, separated from the people that lived in the land. They were not to live by greed. They were to assist their neighbor in their needs. Greed would not be the motive for how they treated their neighbor. Instead, the Lord gave them two great commandments that guided their relationship with the Lord and with their neighbors. The first commandment was: “‘Hear, O Israel! The LORD is one’” (Deut. 6:4). “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (v. 5). The second commandment was: “‘you shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:18, NASB; See Matthew 22:36-40).

As Moses was coming to the end of his life, the Israelites were preparing to enter into the land of Canaan to take possession of it. In Deuteronomy 28 Moses instructed the people to obey the commandments that the Lord had given. If they obeyed If they obeyed blessings would come upon them ((28:1-2) If they disobeyed the commandments, curses would come upon them (v. 15). The point is this: The Lord said that both blessings and curses would be the results of whether or not the people followed the recipe. They could not add anything, and they could not omit anything. The principle was that if one was guilty of disobeying one thing written in the law, they were guilty of breaking the whole law and curses would come upon them. “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (James 2:10).

Our world is being led by leaders from various disciplines. These religious leaders, political leaders, business leaders, community leaders call themselves Christians. They meet and discuss and debate about the best things that need to be done so that everyone will have a better chance for the good life. Yet, these leaders are going about business in their own way; ignoring the recipe that God has given so that everyone can have a good life. If one will look at the ideas proposed by these leaders and compare them to the laws that Moses recorded, they will see that they are not following the Lord’s recipe for the abundant life. However, the leaders are not responsible alone for all the curses that have come upon the people.

Because this article is written for the Christian folks, I want to make these observations. First, today, there is little emphasis on obeying God’s commandments. We are compromising the principles of God and in some cases ignoring His laws altogether. We rationalize that the laws and commandments in the bible are no longer relevant, because we live in a different time and things are different. Paul’s words are relevant for us today. “For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:2-3, NASB).

We no longer live by the morals and ethics that our foreparents set before us. Racial relationships in America are worse than they were in years gone by. Instead of loving our neighbors, we are seeking revenge. Because of greed we look out for our own best interest. We do not concern ourselves with love of God and love of neighbor. In the words of the late Frank Sinatra, “I did it my way” is the way that I should do things, and “that’s my truth.” In our churches there is a lot of emphasis on praise and worship. We pray and wonder why the Lord does not answer our prayers. The Lord has already answered our prayers, but we do not hear him and we don’t obey him. We are perishing because of the lack of knowledge of God’s word.

The prophet Hosea wrote this warning: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children” (Hosea 4:6, NASB). It’s time that Christians return to the Lord our God. If we repent and return to Him, He has promised to forgive us and restore us to our rightful place and blessings will come upon us. Will you follow God’s recipe for the abundant life?